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Analysing Drama Texts

Analysing Drama Texts. General Questions. How do playwrights use setting? How do playwrights use dramatic irony? How do playwrights use stagecraft? What makes a play powerful and dramatic? How are the characters portrayed?. What is the purpose?. How?. Themes

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Analysing Drama Texts

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  1. Analysing Drama Texts

  2. General Questions • How do playwrights use setting? • How do playwrights use dramatic irony? • How do playwrights use stagecraft? • What makes a play powerful and dramatic? • How are the characters portrayed?

  3. What is the purpose? How? • Themes • Message - political, social, historical • Entertainment • Following specific conventional form • Irony - dramatic, comic and literary • Comedy • Tragedy • Satire • Slapstick • Controlling audience focus

  4. From the beginning consider: • Initial stage directions - props, their placing, lighting, setting, prologue, character descriptions, sound effects, costumes etc • Where the story begins • What/who is being shown initially and what/who is being concealed • What atmosphere is being created from the outset and how this is achieved • What is revealed of the ‘hidden’ storyline in initial lines

  5. Look for: • Historical, contextual and convention/genre references • Stock and unconventional characters • Unusual/multiple staging, including what type of stage it is written for (Proscenium Arch/Traverse/In the Round/Thrust/Arena) • Changes in stage management: lighting/sound effects/scene changes/costumes

  6. Characters and their relationships through ... • Descriptions in stage directions • Dialogue - soliloquies, monologues, stichomythic conversations, stage directions, dramatic dashes, italics, capitals, different language use, song etc • Stage directions - body language, proxemics, facial expressions, tone of voice, movement, eye contact, levels and gesture • Reactions to others • Context - social and historical • Clues to off-stage or previous events and their reactions • Through whose perspective does the audience view events?

  7. Structure • How is the text pieced together - where does it begin for the audience? • Time lapse - 24 hr/weekend/years • Sequencing of events and cross-cutting - linear, chronological, parallel, flashbacks, flash forwards • Foreshadowing • Play-within-a-play - metatheatre • Choral intervention • Revelations through letters, gossip etc • Denouement - satisfactory ending?

  8. Miscellaneous • Title of play • Specific language used - tone, dialect, colloquialisms, accents • Stagecraft throughout play - changes and consistencies • Symbolism, motifs, extended metaphors etc • Names of places and characters • Changes in characters and relationships • Exits and entrances • Surprises through concealment, revelations, plot structure

  9. Types of comparative questions: • “In plays, no one arrives on or leaves from the stage without contributing in some way to the complexity of the play.” Considering two or three plays you have studied, compare the impact on meaning of some arrivals and departures from the stage. • What dramatic techniques have playwrights used to convey ideas and/or beliefs in two or three plays you have studied, and how effective have they been? • “Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” Focusing on one of these demands show playwrights use different dramatic techniques in creating interest in two or three works you have studied. • Compare how structure or organisation has been used to shape meaning in two or three works you have studied. • Writers make many deliberate choices in the course of creating their works. Considering one or two stylistic aspects, compare the effectiveness of some choices writers have made in two or three works you have studied.

  10. Main body paragraphs • The first sentence needs to tell the reader what the focus of the paragraph is going to be clearly and in as few words as possible. • The second sentence should include your first piece of evidence (usually a quotation) • The next part of the paragraph will usually be two or three sentences of analysis of the first quotation. • Now link this to the next section of the paragraph (which will be a comparison with the second text) • Now include another quotation/close reference • Now analyse this quotation, and draw the texts together • You may want to finish this paragraph by bringing the reader back to the main focus of the point you are making.

  11. ADVICE • Introduction - keep it short! Mention texts and authors. Show you understand the question. Include a thesis or argument. • Main body - 5 good paragraphs (next slide) • Conclusion - needs to be succinct. Tie arguments and ideas together. Reference back to your introduction. Do not repeat yourself from main body. ANSWER THE QUESTION. TEXT EXAMPLES: • Writers make many deliberate choices in the course of creating their works. Considering one or two stylistic aspects in ‘Death of a Salesman’. How effective are they? • What dramatic techniques have playwrights used to convey ideas and/or beliefs in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and how effective are they?

  12. Mark Scheme

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