Drama originates from Greece in the Antiquity; in literature it’s called a play and the playwright is the specific name for the author. It portrays either fictional or non-fictional events. It has always been performed on stages and nowadays it can be aired on the radio or TV screens. The most common forms of drama are comedies, tragedies and melodramas (or tragi-comedies).
A comedy’s purpose is to make the audience laugh thanks to its light tone and wit; it is also characterized by a happy ending. It is the most entertaining form of drama. To illustrate it, we can cite Shakespeare’s play The Comedy Of Errors. As for tragedy, it is marked by a dark theme and portrays suffering, pain, violence, horror and often death, like Romeo And Juliet by Shakespeare. It arouses strong emotions, which is essential for a high-quality play. An in-between genre is the melodrama which features exaggerated emotions like tension or excitement. The situation and the dialogues are more important in a melodrama than the action, as in Still Life by Noel Coward. Of course many sub-genres can be identified in these categories.
Drama has been subject to conventions such as the use of prose or verse; in classic plays the verse was chosen for important characters (with more dramatic effect) whereas the minor ones used the prose. Some characters speak of themselves in the third-person to create an impressive sense of firmness for example. Others speak their thoughts aloud; that is called a soliloquy, it’s either addressed to the audience or meant to be private. The aside establishes a relationship between the public and the character, and often brings humour and sympathy. Sometimes an actor, called a chorus, speaks directly to the audience about the action of the play but refuses to be a character like the others. The chorus indicate the passing of time between scenes or a change in the setting.
Most plays are divided into acts, works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries consist of five acts (two or three acts in modern plays); acts can have numerous scenes starting with the entrance of characters and closing with the characters leaving the stage. Yet it is important to know that acts do not necessarily correspond to important stages in the action.
Drama was most powerful during the Elizabethan age with Shakespeare’s works, along with Marlowe’s and Jonson’s, and it became really more fashionable in the modern age.
A playwright : un dramaturge
To be aired : être diffusé
Wit : de l’esprit
Entertaining : divertissant
Pain : la douleur
To arouse : susciter
A soliloquy : un monologue
An aside : un aparté
