1. What is a play?
THEATRE, Brief Version By Robert Cohen Chapter 2

2. Definition
A play is, essentially, what happens in theatre. It is not a thing but an event. The play is the theatre’s dran (something done). A play, unlike a drama, is ACTION, not words in a book.

3. Classifying plays
Plays have a beginning, a middle and an end and can be classified... By duration OR By type

4. Duration
According to Arthur Miller, the length of any given play is as long as it should be.
Full-length plays are between 2 and three hours
Shakespeare refers to “the three hours traffic of our stage”
But in our own time plays can be almost any length
Beckett’s Breath can be performed in one minute His Come and Go is only 8 minutes
Many popular one-act plays are ten-minute plays
Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia ran 9 hours
Green Day’s American Idiot runs 90 minutes

5. GENRE Another word for kind
Genre is also the root for our word “gender” Another word meaning genre is type
Characteristics of GENRE are not absolute, but it is a useful means of classifying plays

6. Tragedy and comedy Identified by Aristotle in his POETICS
The two most ancient forms of plays
A tragedy is a serious play with a topic of universal
human import as its theme. The central character
or PROTAGONIST is a person of high-rank or
stature. During the play this character goes
through a decline in fortune which leads to
suffering or death.

7. Notable tragedies
Oedipus Rex and Antigone are examples of classical Greek Tragedy Hamlet and King Lear are examples of Shakespeare tragedies Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a modern tragedy

8. Original production of Death of a Salesman - 1949

9. 2012 - Revival starring Andrew Garfield and Philip Seymour Hoffman

10. Comedy
Aristotle wrote that comedy evolved from improvised entertainments and bawdy sketches as in
Saturday Night Live

11. Aristophanes wrote the first well-known comedies including the anti-war comedy LYSISTRATA

12. Shakespeare comedies include A Midsummer Night’s Dream

13. Other comic playwrights
Moliere
George Bernard Shaw
Alan Ayckbourn
Neil Simon

14. Many notable comedy genres
Anti-play
Grim comedy
Tragic farce
Grand guignol
Satire
Vaudeville

15. Medieval genres Interludes (secular comedies)
Mystery plays (Bible stories)
Morality plays (allegories)

16. The History Play Some say that Shakespeare invented another
GENRE expemplified by such works as HENRY V

17. Tragicomedy
Another classical form, tragicomedy is a form that bridges tragedy and comedy. Some call it a tragedy that ends happily.
Examples include the Amphytrion of Plautus (Roman) or even Shakespeare’s The Tempest and All’s Well That Ends Well

18. Dark comedy
A comic or disturbing play that ends darkly or ironically, like many Coen Brother films...
The Big Lebowski
Fargo
Burn After Reading

19. Melodrama
Outwardly serious but embellished with spectacle, flamboyant dialogue, suspense and contrivance
Originally accompanied by music

20. Modern melodrama encompasses horror and soap opera
Clear delineation between good and evil and a clear resolution are shared attributes...

21. Farce
A pure creation of the theatre where we expect the find wildly hilarious treatment of a trivial theme—mistaken identity, illicit infatuation, monetary scheming—using stock characters, stock situations, repitition, quick changes, etc.

22. Cartoons are a good example

23. Other forms or genres Musicals will be discussed at length later
The DOCUMENTARY is exemplified by
Moises Kauffman’s
THE LARAMIE PROJECT

24. THE CONSTRUCTION OF DRAMA AND DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE In a Play, action is patterned as it is crafted in well-understood compositional patterns. We call these patterns dramaturgy.

25. Aristotle devised a method of describing the elements of the play…
Plot is the structure of actions
Characters are the agents of the plot
Theme is its meaning
Diction is its use of language
Music
Spectacle

26. Conventions Use of asides and soliloquys
Passage of time in light or action
Actors “freeze” to denote specific behavior
Each era develops its own conventions

27. Drama’s timeline
Preplay refers to the procession of the ancient Greek theatre and the gathering of the audience in the modern theatre

28. Play

29. Exposition The background information the audience
must have in order to understand what is going on in the action of the play...

30. A prologue is sometimes used to introduce the production

31. Shakespeare’s HENRY V Prologue
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon! since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million; And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work.

32. Suppose within the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder: Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; Into a thousand parts divide on man, And make imaginary puissance; Think when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass: for the which supply, Admit me Chorus to this history; Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

33. Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona...

34. Conflict Conflict and confrontation are the mechanism
by which a situation becomes dramatic.
Conflict is set up between characters, within them
or outside of them as in melodrama.

35. The conflict can be among friends or even lovers...

36. Climax is the conflict taken to its most extreme...

38. Denouement
All are punished...

39. Also called a RESOLUTION
...the final action or speech or even a single word or gesture indicates that the passions aroused by the entire play are now stilled...

40. Postplay
Company bow or curtain call

41. Applause

42. Dramatic criticism...
What did we think about what we just saw?

43. Non-Aristotelian events
Old comedy
Epic theatre
Theatre of cruelty
Happenings
Clowning
Postmodernism
Anti-play
Circus
Comedy
Focus on Theatricalism
...Not plot

44. Dramatic structure
It was not invented by Aristotle, he was simply the first to describe it

45. Aristotelian and
non-Aristotelian theatre can be
valid, surprising, entertaining and more…