REFERENCES: (APA
R E L AT I V E T O P I C S O N D RA M A
PROJECT IN LANGUAGE ARTS 10
DRAMA
(Excerpts from De Luca, Grillo, Pace,
Ranzoli, Literature and Beyond, Vol. I, Torino,
Loescher, 1997, pp. 224-268)
Drama is a word of Greek origin meaning "action"
and referring to a performance on the stage in
which actors act out the events and characters of a
story. A dramatic work is usually called a play, but
if you want to specify what type of drama it is, you
can call it a comedy, a. tragedy, a farce or
tragicomedy or other names. As wel1 as a play,
drama usually involves
o a playwright or dramatist, that is, the
author of the play;
o a stage, that is, the area in a playhouse
or theatre where the play is
performed;
o an audience, that is, the people who
go to the theatre to watch the
performance.
Watching a live performance, while sitting in a
playhouse with a crowd of other spectators, is the
best way of appreciating any play.
Whenever you read a play, if you have no chance
of seeing it performed, you should try to create a
mental image of its performance In order to help
you, we shall try to make you familiar with some
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STYLE)
BOOKS SOURCES:
Ang, Jaime G (2012), Philippines
Contemporary Literature, Makati City,
Bookmark, Inc.
Cabrera, Corazon B. (2003). The
Literatures of the Philippines, Sampaloc,
Manila, REX Book Store, Inc.
Lacia, Ferdilyn C. (2003). The Literatures of
the Philippines, Sampaloc, Manila, REX
Book Store, Inc.
Maramba, Asunsion D. (1990). Philippine
Contemporary Literature, Makati City,
Bookmark, Inc.
FOR INTERNET SOURCES
De Luca, Grillo, Pace, Ranzoli, Literature
and Beyond, Vol. I, Torino, Loescher, 1997,
pp. 224-268)
http://www.mgtundoedu.altervista.org/wha
t_is_drama.htm
Marshel, Lucas, Literature, 2001,
https://www.reference.com/art-
literature/two-types-drama-
57857d1fc8077e8f
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 basic dramatic conventions, that is, established
ways of writing plays which have been used so
often that they have become typical of the genre.

Today a play can be performed not on1y in a

theatre hut also on the radio or on media TV The
use of these two mass media has made drama easy
accessible to the vast majority. The cinema has also
contributed to the popularity of drama by offering
memorable fi1m versions of some of the most
important works in the history of British theatre.

DRAMATIC TEXT

Dramatic texts usually come in the form of plays of

varying length. As in fiction, a play usually tells
a story. But the dramatic techniques used for
organizing a story in a plot are very different from
those used in fiction. Here are some basic
structural conventions used in writing drama.

FEATURES OF A PLAY

Plays are normally divided into major

units called Acts, which are sometimes subdivided
into Scenes. A scene usually shows a sequence of
actions which happen in the same setting, that is,
in the same placeand in the same period
of time. Modern plays may have one or two or
three acts, whereas in the past, in the time of
Shakespeare, for example, they had as many as five
acts.

A play traditionally tells a story which is organised

by the playwright/dramatist in a plot. The plot
contains the same events as the story but it may
present them in a different chronological order.
The storyis slightly different from the plot because
it consists of the main events arranged in
chronological order. It can be quickly summarised.

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 An Outline for Play Analysis

Name of play

Date of play

The author and his social milieu

Type of theatre for which the play was written

Genre: tragedy, comedy, drama, farce, melodrama

Authors purpose

Theme: major theme

minor themes

Breakdown of play by acts and scenes

Plot development

Settings

Characters

Character:

Protagonist: character analysis

motivation

fatal flaw or comic weakness

character evolvement

Antagonist

Other characters: their function in relation to

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 protagonist

their function within

structure of play

Plot: main action

Subplots

Other
production requirements

Exposition
demanded by the text: lighting

Initiating incident
costumes

Obstacles or conflicts
music

Crisis
dance

Climax
sound effects

Resolution or denouement
important props

Use of dramatic devices: irony, foreshadowing,

suspense, surprises

Language: realistic, heroic, archaic, poetic,

incantatory, orghast

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