How to Read Drama?

Let’s start with understanding PLOT Plot ◊◊Plot ◊◊Plot

• To understand a play, one of the first skills we need to develop is to perceive the progression of the PLOT within the play. • Plot is one of the six Aristotelian elements that each drama comprises of, as introduced by Aristotle’s Poetics in 4th century BCE. The other five elements are Character, Language, Theme, Music, and Spectacle (we will talk about them more in the future). Aristotle believes that plot is the most important element of all six.

What is Plot ???? • Plot is the playwright’s unique way to tell a STORY. It is the dramatist’s conscious and artistic organization of the storyline. • Story is the background, while the plot is what the playwright extracts from the story to put on stage, in front of the audience and in the reader’s imagination. • The playwright uses the plot device to give the message that is not necessarily contained within the story, wherever the story derived from originally. • The play’s underlying message or central idea is carried out by the deliberate structuring of the events in the story.

The formal Progressive Units of a Play

• Beats: the smallest dramatic unit is called a beat. The purpose of beats is identical to that of a paragraph, namely, to introduce, develop, and conclude a single topic in the progression of the plot. • Scenes: A scene is a longer section of the plot, made of many beats, which is marked by a change of time or place. The ending of the scene usually carries emotional strength or offers suspense that aims to propel the progression of the plot to the next section. • Acts: The largest dramatic unit in a play is called an act. An act, although still part of the entire play, can have dramatic quality and integrity of a smaller play.

• BTW, What is a French Scene? French Scene

• Following a 17th-century French dramatic convention, a new scene is introduced through any new arrangement of the characters on stage. Hence a French Scene is created any time a character enters or exits. The Dramatic Structure of a Play

Some drama textbooks suggest that the structure of the plot consists of rising action, climax, and falling action. These terms come from the German dramatist and novelist Gustav Freytag (1816-1895), who represented the parts of a play as a pyramid. The so-called Freytag Pyramid.

Freytag Pyramid Rose’s Version

For our exercise today, I would like to use my own version of dramatic structure, which is based on my thirty-years’ experience of teaching, thinking, and directing of dramatic literature. Of course, I did not invent it. It is only a combination of many different models. A Working Dramatic Structure

Climax

Crisis (can include a reversal) Falling Action (can include a reversal)

Rising Action Resolution

Inciting Action Exposition

Definitions of Terms in the Dramatic Structure Point of Attack: This term refers to the moment when the play begins in relation to the timeline of the background story. When the play begins late in the background story and close to the final climax, the play is said to have a late point of attack. Conversely, a play can show an early point of attack. Exposition

This is the part of the play, usually in the beginning, which reveals the relevant information in the background story which is most crucial to the action on stage. The information provided through exposition has to be so relevant and crucial that it produces the conditions and energy necessary for the play to take place. The revelation is usually through narration in the dialogue, not through action. Inciting Action

The inciting action is the single event in the play that sparks the main action, the main conflict. It occurs at that point in the play when something happens (usually to the main character) that sets the main conflict in motion. Rising Action Built on Increasing Conflicts

Through a stretch of rising action (which can be easily divided into beats), the conflicts between opposing characters, forces or motives gradually rise and enhance the dramatic tension of the play. Crisis

Crisis is the moment when the developing conflict and accompanying tension have reached a point that something drastic or explosive is bound to happen. The suspense is hanging dangerously at the moment of crisis. This is a liminal point, and it is usually brought forth or accompanied by a reversal in the plot. Reversal

Reversal is when the action has a major shift and moves to a different, sometimes opposite, direction. The tension is still mounting, so it can still be part of the rising action (or falling action for the later part), but the moment of reversal has indicated a total change in the characters’ mindsets or the relationship between characters. Climax

This is the prominent peak of emotional intensity, the final explosion of all dramatic tension, that produces a drastic change in the behaviors and relationships of the characters. This is what the whole play is moving and working toward: this is the moment! Giving the audience a satisfying, cathartic climax is the goal of all playwrights, directors, and actors through their writing and rehearsal process. Falling Action

The action after the climax has to move down from that emotional peak and toward a resolution. It is usually shorter in length than the rising action, but it has to have a logical chain of events which can unravel the tension gradually. It can also contain reversal, as the action after the climax sometimes has to take a different direction from before in order to reach resolution. Resolution

The resolution brings all the events following the main climax to an end and come to a new order or balance after quieting of the tension. It is sometimes also referred to as denouement. Now it is time to get to work!