English B1B Intro to Drama

Reading Drama Drama is written primarily to be performed as opposed to read. To attend a play—to be part of an audience—represents a very different kind of experience from the usual solitary act of reading. When you attend a play, you become a collaborator in the creation of a unique work of art, not the play text, but instead a specific interpretation of the text. To help us with this, we will be watching the critically acclaimed film verson of the play we will be reading.

What makes drama unique? In poetry and fiction, we have a narrator, someone standing between us and the events of the story. Drama rarely has such an interpreter to tell us what is happening or to shape our responses. Instead, plays rely on stage directions (descriptions of the set, characters, and actions) and exposition (explanation of situation through dialogue). The reader must be his or her own narrator and interpreter.

What makes drama unique Because we have no narrator, we construct our ideas of character and personality from what characters say. In interpreting dialogue, we will naturally draw on our own experiences and familiarity with other plays or stories.

How to approach a play? What do you expect from the title and first scene? Who are the characters? What info. are we given about their relationships? Who is the protagonist (the main character whose journey we follow) Who is the antagonist (the villain, opponent, or obstacle of the protagonist) Are there any foils (characters designed to bring out qualities in another character by contrast)?

How to approach a play What happens in the plot? Do the characters or situations change during the play? Is the play divided into acts? Why are those divisions placed where they are? Can the play be categorized into subgenre (like comedy or tragedy)?

Plot

How to approach a play Identify setting When does the action take place? Do the stage directions specify a day of the week/season/time of day? Are there time changes during the play? Are the scenes in chronological order, or are there scenes that are supposed to take place simultaneously? Does the passage of time in the lives of the characters correspond with the passage of time onstage? Where does it take place? Do the stage directions describe the scene? Does the scene remain the same or change?

How to approach a play Style What is the style of the dialogue? Simple/complex vocabulary? Figurative language? Tone/mood? Does the speech overlap, or do the characters take turns? Are there long periods of silence?

How to approach a play Theme What does the play mean? What is its overall message? This is similar to how we approached poetry in the previous unit.

Practice Working together in small groups, chart the plot of “Trifles” (starting pg. 771) and attempt to identify a theme (message the author was attempting to convey). Be prepared to share your answers with the class when you are finished.