School Drama Programme 2014
Basic Notes on Play Structure
The following short guide includes:
Plot
Action
Structure
Character
Thought
Diction
Music
Spectacle
In western drama dramatic theory begins with Poetics by Aristotle (4th c BCE). He
says: “a play [tragedy] is an imitation of an action.” The word Aristotle uses which is
usually translated into English as ‘action’ is mimesis—imitation as in we learn as
children by watching and imitating others (parents, siblings etc.).
A play is a series of actions.
Action occurs when something happens that makes or permits (Trigger) something
else to happen (Heap).
Plays need to work like a series of standing adjacent dominos. If one is pushed or
falls, it pushes the next one and the next on through to the end. (Each heap
becomes the next trigger.)
Theatre critic Francis Fergusson says dramatic action builds through three steps:
 purpose (awareness of a goal)
 passion (how important the desire)
 perception (what is learned)
Aristotle lists the essential elements of a play: plot; character; thought; diction;
music; and spectacle.
PLOT
plot (action) vs. story (narrative)
Plot is the careful arrangement of a series of actions.
Plays (especially longer ones) can have more than one plot—sub-plots. Usually short
plays are better as a single plot.
ACTION
The Greeks use the word “AGON” –meaning struggle or battle—not a debate more
like a wrestling match.
Dramatic conflict is distinct from other kinds of conflict. A play's conflict is between
what someone wants and what hinders the want: the obstacle of which can be
another person, or any of the following: me against myself; me against other
individuals; me against society; me against fate, or the universe, or natural forces, or
God, or the gods.
STRUCTURE
Aristotle says that a play must have a beginning, middle and an end. This is both
simple and profound.
Another way to imagine a plot:
1. Stasis.
2. Intrusion.
3. Battle for new stasis initiated by intrusion.
4. New stasis.
BEGINNING - Stasis is motionless: a condition of balance among various forces; a
standing still; an unchanging stability; a state in which all forces
balance each other, resulting in no movement. Inciting incident
(Intrusion) is pushing, thrusting, or forcing in that upsets the balance.
When deciding where to begin remember that it is possible to begin
near the end of the plot (late attack) and fill in the important past
information through “exposition” or to begin at the beginning of the
plot: “an early attack.”
Exposition can be information known to everyone on stage or
information known to a few characters that they share with a
character who does not know this. Good exposition is directly relevant
to the action in that it uses the past to propel the present.
MIDDLE - The rising action is a series of complications that builds to the climax.
END - Falling action or denouement - the wrapping up.
A good play is complete, self-contained, deliberately shaped, and internally
consistent.
CHARACTER
Character is revealed through action (what the character does). There is a difference
between Avowed action (What I say I will do) VS True action (What I actually do.)
Character is revealed if these two types of action are not basically the same.
Plays only contain the bones of a character—the actor completes the character.
When pretending to be someone else you must portray believable human behavior,
it is OK to begin with a stereotype but make sure you end up with an individual.
Some types of characters:
Extraordinary characters
Representative or Quintessential characters
Stock characters
Characters with a dominant trait (the miser)
Minor characters
Narrator or Chorus
Characters in plays talk a lot. A human being talks in order to get what he or she
wants. What a character wants motivates talking. There should be no speech
without motivation.
Why is something said aloud?
What is wanted (objective)?
Why it is wanted (motivation)?
What is in the way (obstacle)?
Obstacle: A person or thing that prevents a character from achieving what she/he
wants--- contributes to dramatic conflict. An obstacle is any resistance to my having
what I want.
You do not really know a play until you see how every word is intended by its
speaker to overcome some obstacle to what the speaker wants.
THOUGHT
This is the meaning or theme, and is usually but not always implied rather than
stated. To paraphrase Archibald McLeish: “A play should be and not mean”.
To do this, you can use allegory, symbols and images. An image is something we
already know or can easily be told that is used to describe, illuminate, or expand
upon something we do not know or cannot easily be told.
DICTION
The use of language—words and a way of speaking that is appropriate to each
character. The characters must not all sound the same.
Language is always arranged and heightened even when it appears to be “natural”
MUSIC
It can mean music and/or song in the traditional sense; HOWEVER every day speech
uses the elements of pitch, stress, volume, tempo, duration and quality which are
“musical” characteristics.
SPECTACLE
All the visual elements, including: movement and spatial relations of the characters;
Lighting; sets; costumes; etc.
NOTES
A play gives only results: the words spoken. A playwright must imagine the
motivation and obstacles that lead to the words. The actors and directors will then
supply their own motivations and obstacles. There is no ONE right way to perform a
play.
As a playwright be conscious of what information has been revealed and what
information has been withheld. Choose carefully when information is provided in
the play. Do not reveal information prematurely or you might undermine the
foundation of the play like high-speed termites. In our not knowing, lies the play’s
adventure. Things theatrical are all things that elicit strong audience response. Good
playwrights put their most important material into their most theatrical moments.