A Guide to the Theory of Drama

Manfred Jahn
Full reference: Jahn, Manfred. 2003. A Guide to the Theory of Drama. Part II of Poems, Plays,
and Prose: A Guide to the Theory of Literary Genres. English Department, University of
Cologne.
Version: 1.7.
Date: August 2, 2003.
This page: http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppd.htm
Project introductory page: http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/ppp.htm
To facilitate global indexing, all paragraphs in this section are prefixed 'D' for
'drama'. If you quote from this document, use paragraph references (e.g., D2.1)
rather than page numbers.
Note. This part is largely based on Manfred Pfister's The Theory of Drama (first
German edition 1977; English translation 1988).
Contents
D1. Text and performance
D2. Dramatic communication and communication in drama
D3. Basic technical terms
D4. Shakespeare
D5. The picture-frame stage
D6. Epic drama and epic theater
D7. Action analysis
D8. Characters and Characterization
D9. References
D1. Text and performance
D1.1. As in the poetry section of this tutorial (P1.1), this part will begin by proposing a
'differential definition' that aims at capturing the 'specificity' of drama, and this will then serve
as a framework for all technical terms that follow. Nevertheless, what has to be noted from
the outset is that there is a strong family resemblance between drama and prose fiction. Both
genres are narrative text types, and it is for this reason that the theory of drama and the
theory of narrative texts cover a good deal of common ground (Richardson 1987; 1988;
1991). Indeed, whenever possible, the following account will borrow from the inventory of
concepts that has been created within what is now known as 'narratology' (N0). See also the
genre taxonomy presented on the PPP Project Page (I2). For a critical view of this approach
and an argument to restrict narratology to prose narratives see Genette (1988: 17).
D1.2. In a bookshop, you will find the drama section next to the fiction and the poetry
sections. But does that mean that a play is a type of text just like a novel or a poem? Today,
most theorists assume that the true nature of a play lies in its orientation toward a public
performance, toward being or becoming a 'play in performance' in which the characters' parts
are enacted by actors. The play's text is variously seen as a guide to a performance,
comparable to a blueprint, a musical score (Krieger 1995: 78), or even a recipe for baking a
cake (Searle 1975: 329). As to the role of the audience, audience reactions (laughing, crying
etc.) are not only integral parts of a performance, they also have an immediate feedback
effect. All this is reflected in Pfister's basic definition.

A play is a multimedial form designed to be staged in a public performance. A play is

'multimedial' in the sense that it uses both auditory and visual media: a play's audience
has to use their eyes as well as their ears (a novel, in contrast, is a 'monomedial' form).

Extending Pfister's definition, we will say that a play is a multimedial narrative form because it
presents a story (a sequence of action units). Note that, on this view, there are two main
narrative forms: epic narratives (i.e., novels and short stories) and dramatic narratives.
D1.3. Regarding the criterion of public staging, two exceptions have to be noted: closet
dramas and private showings.

A closet drama is a play that is primarily designed to be read. Often these plays are
identified as 'dramatic poems'. Examples: Milton, Samson Agonistes;
Shelley, Prometheus Unbound; Byron,Manfred; Browning, Pippa Passes; Barrett
Browning, The Seraphim; Mann, Fiorenza.

As to private showings, the seclusive Bavarian king Ludwig II had the habit of ordering entirely
private performances of Wagner's operas -- much to the composer's annoyance.
D1.4. Just as the reception of a play is a collective public experience, staging a play is a
collective enterprise, involving the collaboration of many people including producers,
directors, designers, choreographers, musicians, and, of course, actors.

A director is the person in charge of staging a play, developing the concept of the
production, and of conducting the rehearsals; also the person usually responsible for
and credited with a production, typically designated his or her production. (Note,
however, that, like conducting, directing is a relatively recent, i.e., 20C, profession.)

A producer (also: theater manager) is usually responsible for managing the financial
aspects of a production, the hiring of actors etc. A good producer "has the genius to
recognise a potentially great piece of theatre as well as find the finance for it to be put
on" (Lathan 2000).

A stage manager is in charge of the concrete performance event, especially of

overseeing and co-ordinating all backstage activity.

See Peter Lathan's School Show Page

at www.schoolshows.demon.co.uk/resources/technical/gloss1.htm for an excellent glossary of
technical theater terms.
The reader may wish to skip the following sections (on various approaches to drama) and turn
directly to D2.
D1.5. Historically, it is useful to distinguish three types or 'schools' of drama theory and
interpretation. For convenience, let us label these schools 'Poetic Drama', 'Theater Studies'
and 'Reading Drama'. As the following brief survey will show, they constitute the dialectic
stages of a Fichtean thesis-antithesis-synthesis cycle. Each school, from its specific point of
view, has strong views about what counts as true, false, interesting, important, or
unimportant; and their followers belong to distinct "interpretive communities" (Fish 1980). In
the following three sub-paragraphs, these schools are summarily described by listing their
main tenets, their favorite interpretive strategies, their keywords and catchphrases, and their
agendas.
Bearing in mind the relativity thus introduced, the present introduction largely embraces the
beliefs of the Reading Drama school as laid down in Pfister (1977), Scanlan (1988) and
Scolnicov and Holland, eds. (1991).
D1.5.1. Poetic Drama prioritizes the (printed) dramatic text. Reading the dramatic text is
seen as a uniquely suitable and rewarding experience, particularly when viewed against the
shortcomings of theaters, actors, and actual performances. Only the careful reading of a play
brings out the work's full aesthetic quality and richness.

Interpretive strategy: close reading (Brooks 1947).

Agenda: Dislike of actors, audiences, and theatrical institutions (expressly including the
Renaissance public theaters).

Catchphrases: Poetic drama, dramatic poetry, drama as literature, theater in the mind,
"inferior to the original".

Testimonial:

I hardly ever go to the theater ... although I read all the plays I can get. I don't go to the
theater because I can always do a better production in my mind. ... Is not Hamlet, seen in the
dream theatre of the imagination as one reads, a greater play than Hamlet interpreted even
by a perfect production? (qtd. Redmond 1991: 57-8).
D1.5.2. Theater Studies is an approach that privileges the performance over the text.
According to this approach, a play's text has no independent existence whatsoever. See Styan
(1975) for a programmatic exposition, Hornby (1977) for a critique of the Poetic Drama
approach, Levin (1979), Taylor (1985), Hawkins (1985) [all on the text vs performance issue as
related to Shakespeare].

Interpretive strategy: Analyzing a performance as the product of theatrical conditions;

the sociology of drama; stage codes and stage semiotics; stage histories of plays; the
dynamics of collaborative authorship.

Agenda: Establishing a distinct discipline; attacking Poetic Drama (D1.5.1) for finding
faults in plot construction that viewers are unlikely ever to notice.

Catchphrase: A play's "coming to life" in performance.

Testimonial:

Before introducing the plays in this volume to the reader, I should like to make some brief
observations on dramatic writing and my own particular attitude toward it. Although the
dramatist may also be a man of letters, capable of producing novels, poems, essays, criticism,
I believe that drama is not simply a branch of literature but a separate little art, with its own
peculiar values and technicalities. (And one day, if I am spared, I hope to deal with this
subject at some length, if only as a protest against the nonsense often offered us by literary
professors and lecturers who write about the drama without understanding the Theatre.) I
hope that the plays in this volume can be enjoyed by a reader, but I must stress the fact that
they were not written to be read but to be played in theatres, where if properly produced and
acted they come alive. A play that has never found a theatre, actors, audiences, is not really a
play at all. A dramatist is a writer who works in and for the Theatre. (It is a significant fact that
all considerable dramatists play an active part in the first productions of their plays, and never
accept the legendary role of the wistful little author whom everyone in the playhouse
ignores.) If there are any Cezannes of the Theatre, working throughout a whole lifetime,
misunderstood and neglected, I for one have never heard of them. A dramatist must have
actors and audiences in order to realise himself: thus he must come to terms with the Theatre
of his time. (Priestley 1948: vii)
Many theorists comment on the fact that analysis of performance is a notoriously difficult
undertaking. An opening night of a play is unlike that of the final performance, a performance
cannot be stopped in its course, there are no pages to turn back to or to skip, references and
interpretations are both difficult to document and difficult to verify (should all such references
be based on a video recording?). Consider the following skeptical comment by Laurence
Lerner:
I do believe that Shakespeare's plays are really plays, and take on their life in performance [. .
.]. But it was hard to know how to act on this belief. [. . .] There are two kinds of theatrecentred criticism. There are the attempts by scholars to write about the great actors of the
past: these are often fascinating, but I have never found that they tell us anything about
Shakespeare. There is even something ghostly about a discussion of the acting of Garrick or

Kean or Booth, dead before the critic ever went to a theatre. Then there are press notices of
plays: but are these not too ineluctably fixed in the here and now -- or rather the there and
then? Do we care what Miss Spinks was like as Hermia, or Mr Binks as Theseus, in a
performance we barely remember or never saw? (Lerner 1967: 14)
D1.5.3. Reading Drama is an approach which holds that the Poetic Drama and Theater
Studies schools are based on unnecessarily biased positions. Instead, Reading Drama
assumes an ideal recipient who is both a reader and a theatergoer -- a reader who appreciates
the text with a view to possible or actual performance, and a theatergoer who (re)appreciates
a performance through his or her knowledge and re-reading of the text. The text is accepted
both as a piece of literature and as a guide to performance; the movement from "page to
stage" is considered equally important as that from "stage to page" (Berger 1989). Like a
director, the reader of a play's text must be one "who is able to bring the numerous explicit
and implicit signs and signals inherent in the literary text to life in his imagination" (Pfister
1988: 13). Programmatic texts: Ubersfeld (1977) [a study entitled Lire le thetre], Elam
(1980), Pfister (1984 [1977]), Scolnicov and Holland, eds. (1991) [a collection of essays
entitled Reading Plays], Scanlan (1988) [a study entitled Reading Drama; author claims that
"The richness of drama is most fully experienced when the reader is simultaneously aware of
the structural and performance dimensions of the play" (p. iii)], Berger (1989) [excellent
discussion of the Theater Studies vs. Reading Drama debate, illustrated with reference to
"Shakespeare on Stage and Page"].

Interpretive strategy: performance-oriented textual analysis or "stage-centered

reading", "imaginary audition and visualization" (Berger 1989: 28); examination of the
playscript's "actability" and "realizability"; comparing the reading of plays to the
reading of novels. Example: Goodman and Burk 1996 on Churchill's Top Girls.

Agenda: partial rehabilitation of the text as a piece of literature; cross-disciplinary

exchange between critics, theorists, and theater practitioners.

Catchphrase: virtual performance (Issacharoff 1989: 4; Alter 1990: ch. III.3).

Testimony:

Krapp's Last Tape shares the formal ambiguity of all dramas: it is at once a text to be read and
reread and a guide for live performance. [...] Indeed, the reader's awareness of a potential
performance partially constitutes the text's meaning; if we are to make sense of the play, we
must read with especially active visual imagination (Campbell 1978: 187).
Consider also Berger's recipe for 'imaginary audition':
We practice imaginary audition when, in a dialogue between A and B, we imagine the effect of
A's speech on B; listening to A with B's ears, we inscribe the results of this audit in the
accounts we render of B's language. But we can also [...] listen to B's language with B's ears.
[...] As readers we join B [...] in monitoring his speech acts. This perspective converts B's
speech to continuous self-interpretation or -interrogation [...]. (Berger 1989: 46)
In the present writer's view, Reading Drama presents a most promising synthesis. Not only is
it the least apodictic of the approaches listed above, it also encourages the cross-disciplinary
exchange between the theory of drama and the theory of narrative prose (narratology) that
the following account largely builds on.
D1.5.4. In summary, the Reading Drama approach sketched above suggests that one should
be aware both of commonalities and of specificities, particularly concerning one's definition
of plays on the one hand and of 'epic narratives' (novels, short stories) on the other. Among
the various aspects that can be considered here are (1) how the respective genres are
received (the reception criterion), (2) what they are about (a thematic criterion), and (3) what
privileges and obligations they offer their authors.

Commonalities: What novels and plays have in common is that they are both narrative
genres. The narrative world of plays is not distinct in principle from any other narrative
world. Plays have a story and a plot (D7.2), and even if they do not literally "tell" their
story, tellability and experientiality are dramatic criteria as well as epic ones. Moreover,
as Chatman (1990: 9) rightly points out, plays have the 'double chronology' of all
narrative presentations (the duration of the action and the duration of the reception).
They also admit of the usual temporal manipulations ("anachronies").

Differences: The main distinction between the two genres is that novels (and
playscripts) are read by readers while plays are multimedial performances in front of
audiences. Additional distinctions are largely a matter of stylistic options rather than
sharp distinctions in kind. It is easier for the novelist to supply information on historical
backgrounds and knowledge states, to be spatially mobile ('omnipresent'), to present
authoritative and summary accounts (often by employing an 'omniscient narrator'), to
filter the story through the point of view of one or more characters, and to express a
character's secret inner life. There are dramatic equivalents to these, but they all have
to be imported via specific conventions (such as the soliloquy, 'alter-ego characters'
etc.) which are notably less natural than the established epic forms.

See Goffman (1974: 149-155); also the narratology part of this tutorial, especially the sections
on authorial narration (N3.3.1), point of view/focalization (N3.2), summary narrative mode
(N5.3.1), inside views (N8.8).
D2. Dramatic communication and communication in drama
D2.1. As Pfister (1988) and Chatman (1990) point out, drama is a narrative form that
represents or 'tells' a story, sometimes literally so. The following graphic shows that narrative
communication in general involves several levels. Each level of communication comes with its
own set of addressers and addressees (i.e., senders and receivers, story-tellers (narrators)
and audiences).

The level of nonfictional communication is the outermost level designating the

pragmatic (communicational) space in which an author (dramatist, playwright) writes
the text of a play. This text is used by a director, in collaboration with a producer,
actors, composers, etc., to stage a performance. In a sense, the playwright is the
'primary' author, while the director and his/her collaborators as 'secondary authors'.
Addressees on this level are either the readers of the play's text or the members of the
audience in an actual performance. The level is 'nonfictional' because all agents
involved are real persons.

The level of fictional mediation is an intermediate level which is activated in 'epic

drama' (D2.2, D6) only, i.e., mainly in plays that use a narrator figure who acts as the
teller, historian or commentator (e.g., Shakespeare's Pericles, Shaffer's Amadeus).

Since narrators are fictional addressers, their counterparts are fictional addressees or -narratologically speaking -- 'narratees'.

The level of fictional action is the level on which the characters communicate with
each other. As has been recognized in speech-act theory (Austin 1962, Searle 1974),
talking constitutes a special kind of act -- a speech act. Hence a distinction can be
made between 'verbal action' (speeches, dialogues, etc.) and 'nonverbal action' (mime,
gesture, movement, etc.).

Real-life persons can occupy more than one of the agent positions in this model. Many
playwrights (Albee, Ayckbourn, Pinter) double as directors. Perhaps the most famous
contemporary writer-director-designer-choreographer-performer in the British theater scene is
Steven Berkoff.
As in the narratological model and its treatment of embedded narratives (N2.4), additional
levels have to be used to capture the structure of a 'play-within-the-play' (as occurs in, e.g.,
Shakespeare's Hamlet,The Taming of the Shrew and Midsummer Night's Dream).
D2.2. The distinction between plays that do or do not use the level of narrative mediation
leads to the distinction between epic and absolute drama (Pfister 1988: ch. 1.2.3):

An absolute drama is a type of drama that does not employ a level of fictional
mediation; a play that makes no use of narrator figures, chorus characters, storyinternal stage managers, or any other 'epic' elements (to be specified in more detail
below). The audience witnesses the action of the play as if it happened 'absolutely', i.e.,
as if it existed independently of either author, or narrator, or, in fact, the spectators
themselves. Example: Hamlet, and many others. For Pfister, this is the prototypical
form of drama.

An epic drama, in contrast, is one that makes use of 'epic devices' such as those listed
above, mainly a narrator or teller figure. It is 'epic' in the sense that, just like in prose
fiction, there is a visible and/or audible narrator figure whose presence creates a
distinct level of communication (the intermediate level shown in D2.1) complete with
addressee, setting, and time line. Example: Shakespeare,Pericles (Gower is a
heterodiegetic narrator, N3.1.5); Shaffer, Amadeus (Salieri is a homodiegetic narrator).
Epic drama is closely related to Brecht's conception of an 'epic theater' (D6.1).

D2.3. Even though, in ordinary circumstances, the terms person, character and figure are
often used indiscriminately, modern theoretical discourse makes an effort to be more distinct
and accurate.

A person is a real-life person; anyone occupying a place on the level of nonfictional

communication. Authors, directors, actors, and spectators are persons.

A character is not a real-life person but only a "paper being" (Barthes 1975 [1966]), a
being created by an author and existing only within a fictional text, usually on the level
of action. Example: the character Hamlet in the play by Shakespeare.

An actor is the person who, in a performance, impersonates a character.

figure Also a type of being created by a fictional text. Often the term is used just as a
variation of 'character'; however, some theorists use it with specific reference to the
narrator (on the level of fictional mediation). For instance, Gower is a 'narrator figure' in
Shakespeare's Pericles.

By way of exercise, pick any play you know and place all of its real and fictional agents into
the functional slots of the model sketched in D2.1. Make a suggestion as to how to deal with
historical plays, i.e. when a play's protagonist is also a historical person (e.g.,
Shaffer's Amadeus).

D3. Basic technical terms

D3.1. The main divisions within a playscript or a performance are acts and scenes:

act A major unit (or structural division) of a dramatic text. Many classical plays are
divided into five acts; most modern plays have two, to allow for an intermission.
Usually, an act consists of a sequence of smaller action units called scenes. Other
popular formats are three-act plays and one-act plays.

scene An action unit within an act. Usually, transition from one scene to another
involves a new stage situation and a fresh episode, marked either by a change in time
and/or location, or by an empty stage, or by characters entering or going off stage.
A French scene (so-called after the practice of 17C French classical drama) is defined
purely by a new combination (or 'configuration', Pfister 1984: 5.3.3) of characters.

In critical practice, acts and scenes are usually referred to as I.1, IV.3 (alternatively, 1.1, 4.3)
etc. (read: Act 1, Scene 1 etc.). See Wallis and Shepherd (1998: 91-97) for a discussion of
character distribution patterns and a 'French scene analysis' of The Tempest. Also Pfister
1984: 6.4.2.
D3.2. Characters and setting are the main 'existents' (Chatman 1978) of a dramatic fiction.
There are two terms that specifically refer to setting-related features as represented in a
performance:

set The objects and the backdrop making up a stage scenery (e.g., a table, a couch,
three walls of a room). In a playscript, the set is usually described in an initial block
stage direction.

properties/props Generally, the set of moveable objects needed by the actors. In a

technically oriented or ('actorly') playscript, the disposition of these objects is
sometimes described in a textual section called 'property plot'. While many props are
simply realistic decoration, some serve as characteristic attributes (a pearl necklace, a
pipe, a crown), some propel or motivate action (a bottle of whiskey, a sword, a gun),
and some may have a richly symbolic value (the mirror in Richard II).

D3.3. Focusing on the playscript, we can see that it subdivides into two types of text: primary
text and secondary text (terms coined by Ingarden 1931: ch. 30):

The primary text of a playscript consists of the speeches of the characters, including
prologues and epilogues, if any. A prologue is an introductory speech (D6.4.1.); an
epilogue is a concluding speech.

The secondary text of a playscript consists of all textual elements that do not belong
to the primary text; specifically, the play's title, subtitle, historical notes, dramatis
personae, stage directions, speech prefixes etc.

In the terms introduced by Genette (1997 [1987]), secondary text elements such as prefaces
and 'postfaces', dedications, the title, the dramatis personae, textual notes etc.
are peritextual elements (situated on the periphery of the text).
D3.4. Here are the main elements of the primary text:

speech An utterance of a single speaker, either within a dialogue, a monologue, or an

aside.

dialogue A sequence of conversational 'turns' exchanged between two or more

speakers or 'interlocutors'. The more specific term duologue is occasionally used to
refer to a dialogue between exactly two speakers.

monologue A long speech in which a character talks to him- or herself. Often, only one
character is on stage during a monologue, in which case one also speaks of
a soliloquy (from Latin solus, 'alone'). Monologues and soliloquies serve a number of
dramatic functions: they foreground the monologist/soliloquist; they provide a transition
(or bridge) between scenes; they open a source of information and exposition; and they
let the audience know something of the private thoughts, motives, and plans of
characters. Typically, they are also 'great speeches' that constitute a play's dramatic
high points, especially in Shakespeare. For this reason, they are sometimes compared
to operatic arias.

aside A remark that is not heard by the other characters on stage. There are three
types of asides: monological, dialogical, and ad spectatores.
o

A monological aside is a remark that occurs in a dialogue, but is not meant to

be heard by any of the speaker's interlocutors (it is 'monological' because it is
basically a self-communication). Example:

King. But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son -Hamlet. [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? (I.2.65)
King Claudius's two turns are actually consecutive. He does not hear Hamlet's sarcastic
comment.
o

A dialogical aside, in contrast, is a remark that is addressed to a specific

hearer, but is heard by nobody else present (i.e., by nobody but the intended
hearer).

An aside ad spectatores is addressed directly to the audience (bypassing the

convention of the invisible 'fourth wall', see D5.5 and Pfister 1988: 4.5.3.1).
Example:

[Now, enter, at head of stairs, SIR THOMAS MORE.]

STEWARD. That's Sir Thomas More.
MORE: The wine please, Matthew?
STEWARD: It's there, Sir Thomas. (Bolt, A Man For All Seasons)
The Steward's first speech is an aside ad spectatores, identifying the character who has just
entered. Asides ad spectatores are typical of epic drama (D6).

implied stage direction An indication, in a character's speech, of some property or

behavior that should be perceptible to the audience. For instance, "I'll shave off my
beard" implies, even in the absence of an explicit stage direction (D3.5), that the
speaker should have a beard. Implied stage directions are particularly important in
Shakespeare because (a) in Shakespeare's time there was no precedent for stage
directions as we know them today, (b) most people who bought an original copy
(D4.5.3) of the text had seen the play and remembered its action, and (c) there was no
need to describe scenery etc. because the playhouse of the period (the Globe Theater)
provided a standard backdrop. See D4, below, also Shakespeare's use of 'verbal
decor', D4.4). Examples:
o

Catesby. The king is angry: see, he gnaws his lip. (Richard II IV.2.27)

Gloucester. By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done

To pluck me by the beard. (King Lear III.6.34)

D3.5. And here are the main elements of the secondary text:

dramatis personae The list (or cast) of characters. This is a peritextual element
usually accompanied by a brief explicit characterization indicating role, social status,
etc. ("JELLABY, a butler, middle-aged", Stoppard, Arcadia). Often the characters are
simply listed in their order of appearance, but other arrangements are also frequent.
For instance, the dramatis personae may reflect the hierarchy of an aristocratic society,
listing the king and his relatives first, then the dukes and earls, then the common
citizens, and then the beggars and prostitutes.

speech prefix, speech heading The name of the speaker, introducing a speech. This
is the dramatic equivalent of 'attributive discourse' or 'speech tags' in narrative theory
(N8.2).

stage direction (also didascaly (sg.) or didascalia (pl.) after the Greek and French
terms, cf. Issacharoff 1989: ch. 3) A descriptive or narrative passage of secondary text
(usually set in italics), either (a) describing set, scenery, props, costumes, characters,
or (b) recounting events and the behavior of the characters (such as their movements).
For narratological definitions of the terms description, scene, and summary report
see D8.6 and N5.3.1. In performance, a stage direction can normally be translated into
a property or a physical action which is directly perceptible to the audience. (Stage
directions that cannot be so translated, or are obviously addressed to the reader only
are termed autonomous stage directions (Issacharoff 1989: 20). On the widely
varying practice of authors to use long or short, strictly prescriptive or merely
suggestive stage directions, see Pfister (1988: ch. 2.1.3). For a very detailed typology of
stage directions, see Aston and Savona (1991). Generally, the authority of the stage
directions is a highly controversial issue (Carlson 1991). Examples:
o

Sitting at the table, facing front [...] a wearish old man: KRAPP. Rusty black
narrow trousers too short for him. [...] White face. Purple nose. Disordered grey
hair. Unshaven. (Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape 9) [A set of descriptive stage
directions at the beginning of a play. Note that the (omitted) verbs of the
elliptical sentences are either be or have.]

KRAPP remains a moment motionless, heaves a great sigh, looks at his watch,
fumbles in his pockets, takes out an envelope, puts it back, fumbles, takes out a
small bunch of keys, raises it to his eyes, chooses a key, gets up and moves to
front of table. (Krapp's Last Tape 9) [A narrative stage direction, recounting a
character's non-verbal action.]

Carlson (1991: 40): The play [Shaw's Candida] ends with the famous stage
direction clearly communicable only to the reader: "They embrace. But they do
not know the secret in the poet's heart". [An autonomous stage direction.]

D3.6. Note that stage directions may either be 'readerly', catering to the needs of ordinary
readers, or 'actorly', catering to the needs of theater practitioners. Today, most printed
playscripts are readerly versions, whose secondary text describes stage and action from the
point of view of the audience and generally avoids technical jargon. In contrast, the 'acting
editions' published by Samuel French are dedicated actorly texts, containing terms like 'stage
left', 'upstage right', 'downstage center' etc., often abbreviated as SL, USR, DSC, etc. -- these
are directions which assume the point of view of an actorfacing the audience. (See D5.4 for a
sketch of the stage areas.)
D3.7. Analyze the following introductory stage direction:
There is a party at the Conways, this autumn evening of 1919, but we cannot see it, only hear
it. All we can see at first is the light from the hall coming through the curtained archway on
the right of the room, and a little red firelight on the other side. [...] And now HAZEL dashes
in, switching on the light. We see at once that she is a tall, golden young creature, dressed in
her best for this party. [...]With all the reckless haste of a child she [CAROL] bangs down all
this stuff, and starts to talk, although she has no breath left. And now -- after adding that

CAROL is an enchanting young person -- we can leave them to explain

themselves. (Priestley, Time and the Conways)
Question 1: Is this a readerly or an actorly stage direction?
Question 2: Who is the speaker of the stage directions? Write a brief essay discussing the
communicative status of stage directions, presenting an argument that upholds our model of
narrative communication, and the distinction between absolute drama and epic drama (see
Issacharoff 1989: ch. 3; Carlson 1991; Suchy 1991).
D4. Shakespeare
D4.1. The person, his time, and his work.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), a contemporary of Ben Jonson and Christopher

Marlowe, author of 37 plays, some longer narrative poems ("Venus and Adonis", "The
Rape of Lucrece") and a cycle of 154 sonnets (P2.7). The plays are traditionally
subdivided into 'comedies' (Much Ado About Nothing, Midsummer Night's Dream, As
You Like It, Twelfth Night, etc.), 'histories' (Richard II,Henry IV (2 parts), Henry
VI, Richard III, etc.), and 'tragedies' (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King
Lear, Othello, Julius Caesar). Historically, the plays are partly Elizabethan plays (i.e.,
written in the reign of Elizabeth I, 1533-1603), partly Jacobean (James I, 1603-1625).

Some comprehensive Shakespeare resources websites

are http://castle.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/ShaksitesAll.html , http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare
/ andhttp://web.UVic.CA/shakespeare/Library/Criticism/guide.html
D4.2. Shakespeare's plays were performed in basically three types of locations: (1) in public
theaters (such as the Globe Theater, located outside the City limits of London), (2) in private
theaters (such as the Blackfriars, in central London), and (3) in various venues for special
occasion -- public town halls, royal residences, etc.

The Globe Theater was the playhouse for which most of Shakespeare's plays were
originally written. Built in 1599, it burned down in 1613, was reopened in 1614, and
finally demolished in 1644 when the Puritans ordered all theaters closed. (They were
reopened in the Restoration period, from 1660 onwards.) Architecturally, the Globe was
a roughly circular (or, to be more precise, polygonal) building with an internal 'tiring
house' construction partly overshadowing the stage. The stage itself (an 'apron stage')
projected out into a central courtyard which was open to the sky. The Globe was owned
by a professional company called the Lord Chamberlain's Players, later (from 1603, the
beginning of the Jacobean period) the King's Men. Shakespeare was a shareholder, the
company's main playwright, and an occasional actor. A modern reconstruction of the
Globe, The New Globe, or 'Globe 3', was opened in London in 1997; it is one of the

major tourist attractions in London today (Mulryne, Shewring, and Gurr 1997; more
details on this in D4.3, below).

The Blackfriars Theater was located in a former monastery building in central

London. Its stage did not project out into the audience in the manner of an apron stage,
there was no standing room or 'pit', and the performances were not dependent on
daylight or climatic conditions. Entrance fees were much higher than those charged in
the Globe, and the performances were mostly upper-class festive events.

In the eyes of the city authorities, the Globe playhouse had a relatively bad reputation; it was
considered a dangerous environment which encouraged uncontrolled mixing of people from
all classes and casts of life, including prostitutes and pickpockets. Many critics believe that the
diverging interests of the Globe Theater's heterogeneous audience are actually reflected in
Shakespeare's choice and treatment of themes, characters, and language.
There are many excellent internet resources on the Shakespearean stage. Hilda D. Spear's
"The Elizabethan Theatre" is at www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/shakespeare/spear.html .
Both the University of Reading, UK, (www.rdg.ac.uk/globe/) and the US-based Shakespeare
Globe Center (www.sgc.umd.edu/home.htm) have excellent documents on historical and
architectural detail, performances, etc. A net-based bibliography can be found
at www.rdg.ac.uk/globe/newglobe/Bibliography.htm .
D4.3. In the following, I will try to highlight the dramatic options offered by the Globe Theater
stage. For a virtual tour through the Globe, let us use Walter Hodges's famous "conjectural
reconstruction" as reprinted in Harrison (1966: 126). (I am using this source for its ready
availability rather than for its historical accuracy. See the references just cited, as well as
those that follow below, for newer accounts. Needless to say, the exact shape and dimensions
of the Globe are still a highly disputed matter.)

(a) The sign over the entrance shows Hercules (or possibly Atlas) carrying the globe on his
shoulders -- an allusion to the name of the house as well as to the Elizabethan theater's claim
to present a mirror image of the world ("hold the mirror up to nature", Hamlet III.2).
(b) Basic entrance fee is a penny, entitling the spectator to use the standing room in the open
'Yard'. People standing in the Yard are called 'Groundlings'. For comparison, a quart of beer
(1.1 liters) cost 2 to 3 pennies. Today's entrance fee to the New Globe's Yard is GBP 5.
(c) Spectators who are willing to pay an extra penny are entitled to a seat in one of the
galleries (the 'twopenny rooms').
(d) In the lower galleries, both to the left and to the right of the stage, are the 'Lord's Rooms',
for members of the aristocracy and other VIPs.
(e) The stage itself is situated on a raised platform. In the middle of it, there is a trap-door
leading down to the 'hell'.
(f) The space underneath the stage -- the 'hell' -- is hidden from view by boards or lengths of
cloth.
(g) The tiring house construction is partly connected to the Globe's back wall, and partly
supported by two pillars in front (often integrated into a play as trees, masts, or hiding
places). On top of the tiring house is a "hut" containing pulleys and other machinery for
letting down ('flying in') or pulling up ('flying out') objects or people (for instance, Ariel in The
Tempest). (The 'fly floor' is usually also a feature of modern stage designs.) The ceiling of the
tiring house shows painted representations of the sun, moon, clouds, and planets.
(h) There are two main stage doors through which the characters enter or exit.
(i) Between the two doors, there is another opening, a 'discovery space', possibly a 'chamber'
suggesting a nightchamber, a sickbed scenes, etc. The exact nature and function of this space
is rather a controversial issue. It was the only space that could be concealed by a curtain -- an
interesting feature in view of the role of the curtain in later stage designs (D5.1).
(j) There is also a first-floor chamber or balcony one level up. This is used both as an
occasional acting area as well as a space for the musicians.
(k) At the back of the tiring house are the tiring rooms as well as store rooms for props,
wardrobes, etc.
(L) The roof as shown in Hodges's drawing is thatched. The story goes that the Globe burned
down in 1613 because the reed caught fire. (When the Globe was rebuilt it was fitted with a
shingled roof.)
(m) The playhouse flag was flown to indicate either that a performance was in progress or
about to begin. Performances usually began at 2 p.m. The main seasons in London were
autumn and spring (in other words, the playhouse was actually closed for most of the year).
Compare the dimensions in Hodges's 'conjectural reconstruction' with the ground plan as used
in the actual building of the New Globe. (The building's outer diameter is exactly 100 ft., and
rather than having 16 sides, it has 20.)

A more highly detailed version of this plan can be found

at www.rdg.ac.uk/globe/newglobe/MarkedPlan.htm . The graphic lists some of the newer
concepts as used in the Globe pages of the U of Reading atwww.rdg.ac.uk/globe/newglobe/ . If
you have plenty of time and patience you can also try your hand at building a cardboard
(1/150th) scale model: http://www.sgc.umd.edu/model.htm or Heritage Models
atwww.heritage-models.co.uk . Click globe1a.zip for downloading a scalable vector graphics
version (CorelDraw) of the above picture.
D4.4. Note the following reflection of the Globe architecture in Shakespeare's plays.

good acoustics and close contact. As shown in Hodges's drawing, distances were
small. The actors did not have to shout to make themselves understood, and they were
in visual contact with their audience.

(While this effect strongly promotes audience involvement and participation, see D7.9 for a
potential downside to this. Or, question, can you already see one for yourself?)

No curtain; fast moving action. There were no breaks between scenes; a change of
scene was indicated by one set of actors exiting through one of the two stage doors,
while the next scene's characters entered through the other. No change of location had
to be signalled because the tiring house facade provided a general scenery that was
suitable for practically all occasions.

'passe-partout scenery'. The doors, the trap-door, the balcony area, the pillars, the
curtained chamber, and the general tiring-house backdrop provided a highly functional
scenery that could be exploited whenever a play demanded it. With no extra effort of
scenery or decoration, the stage could suggest a variety of locations -- the deck of a
ship, a town hall, a street, a royal court, a forest, a battlefield, a graveyard, the walls of
a castle, in short, practically anything. Examples:

In As You Like It, Orlando sticks a love-poem on a tree.

The ghost of Hamlet's father calls out to Hamlet from "beneath".

Stage direction: Enter Julia above at a window.

Othello suffocates Desdemona in her bed.

From the battlements of a castle, Richard II talks to the commander of a rebel

force.

verbal decor/word scenery A setting created in words; an indication, in a character's

speech, of the current location, season, time of day, etc. Verbal decor complements the
functionality of the Globe stage, avoiding the necessity of elaborate or ad-hoc scenery.
Note the functional use of props and verbal decor in the following example:

Enter Banquo and Fleance with a torch.

Banquo. How goes the night, boy? (Macbeth II.1)
D4.5. The following paragraphs will briefly touch on sources, genres, and the early printed
texts, which form the basis of all modern editions.
D4.5.1. Shakespeare's sources. None of Shakespeare's plays was an 'original' play in the
modern sense of the word. By preference, Shakespeare and his contemporaries treated
classical or otherwise familiar stories whose didactic and entertainment value was well
established. Shakespeare often combined multiple sources, using both current translations of
classical authors like Plautus, Seneca, Plutarch (Lives), Ovid (Metamorphoses), Ariosto (I
Suppositi, Orlando Furioso), Boccaccio (Decameron), and Chaucer as well as contemporary
authors like Spenser (The Faerie Queene) and Sidney (Arcadia). The main source for his
English 'histories' was Holinshed's Chronicles. See Bullough (1957-73) [7 vols, an authoritative
account], Evans (1978c) [brief overview].
From this, one cannot conclude that Shakespeare lacks originality. Rather, his originality lies in
his ability to flesh out characters, his expressive language, the way in which he modifies and
composes existing stories to make a new one, and the way in which he is able to transform
action lines of epic dimensions into highly effective plays.
D4.5.2. Shakespeare's dramatic work is traditionally (and rather arbitrarily) divided into three
main genres: comedies, histories, and tragedies.

comedies, histories, and tragedies were the three genres used by Heminge and
Condell for their arrangement of the plays in the first complete edition (the 'first Folio'
of 1623).

romances A category used by modern critics and editors (e.g., the Riverside
Shakespeare) for 'serious' or 'problem comedies' such as Measure for
Measure, Pericles and The Tempest.

Roman plays A subgenre of tragedy dealing with the lives of classical Roman
characters (Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus).

None of these categories are what one would call watertight or exclusive: for instance, in their
titles, some of the histories are explicitly identified as tragedies (Richard II), and some are
comedies (Henry IV, part I).
D4.5.3. Early and modern Shakespeare editions. On average, Shakespeare wrote two to three
plays per year. It was only when a play had completed its current production run that a text
was printed which could be sold in the streets. Normally, the projected printing of a play was
registered with the Stationer's Company and listed in the Stationer's Register:

Stationer's Register All 16C and 17C printers were members of the 'Stationer's
Company' and registered their printing projects. The Stationer's Register is the first
institutionalized form of copyright protection. Though not a wholly reliable source, the
Stationer's register is an important source for dating the plays (Lloyd Evans and Lloyd
Evans 1978: 62).

Single plays were usually printed in small-size 'quarto' booklets; the first edition containing 36
of Shakespeare's plays (only Pericles was missing) was published in 1623, seven years after
Shakespeare's death.

quarto A book format produced by taking a sheet of printing paper and folding it twice.
This yields four sections which, when printed on both sides, yields eight pages of text.
Normally the printer needed about 7 sheets for a short play, 14 sheets for a long one.
The asking price for a quarto was one shilling (= 12 pence; seeing a play at the price of
one or two pennies was obviously much cheaper than buying the text). Most of the
quartos are 'good quartos', i.e., were carefully printed from either the author's

manuscript or a 'promptbook' (a specially prepared acting copy noting moves, cues

etc.). There are also some 'pirated' versions or 'bad quartos' that were illicitly printed
on the basis of an actor's recollection of the text, or even on the basis of a memorizer's
or stenographer's notes (Day 1963: 1.277-8).

folio The folio format is created by taking a large sheet of printing paper and folding it
once. This yields two pages per side, or four pages per sheet. The folio format is
roughly double the size of the quarto format. The Folio format was used to produce
more substantial books such as the collection of all of Shakespeare's plays. The asking
price for the First Folio was one pound (= 20 shillings), a considerable amount at the
time.

D4.5.4. To the 21C reader, the original early editions are full of spelling mistakes and
inconsistencies, even though such judgments are clearly relative. While many 19C editors
notoriously overdid correction, emendation, and wholesale rewriting of passages, the modern
scholarly approach is to treat the sources with great respect, and to follow the scrupulous
demands of textual criticism:

textual criticism A method of establishing an authoritative version of a text by

weighing all textual evidence, by studying the transmission of the text, its printing
conditions etc. With Shakespeare, the general strategy is to pick either a good quarto
or a folio version of the play as a 'control text', and to keep the number of editorial
changes to a minimum. All modern editions are accompanied by peritextual editorial
notes (the 'textual apparatus') and various explicatory annotations. Evans (1978b).

D4.5.5. In Shakespeare's time, most of the people who bought a text had seen the play in the
Globe, and the text basically served as a reminder of what the play had been like (Pfister
1988: 14). For this purpose, printing the text of the speeches (i.e., the primary text, D3.3) was
quite sufficient. Contemporary readers automatically remembered and re-imagined the
performance, the backdrop of the Globe, the props, the costumes, and so on. They did not
have to be told, by detailed stage directions, what the characters were doing in a particular
situation; also, much of the nonverbal action was reflected in implied stage directions (D3.4).
Interestingly, this mode of re-imaginative reading comes very close to the Reading Drama
approach sketched in D1.5.3. As Harrison points out,
It is indeed a revelation to read a familiar play for the first time in a Quarto or Folio text. The
reader finds himself at once in the atmosphere of the Globe Theatre. Most plays in the original
texts have no scene division; many even have no act division. There are none of those place
headings which editors have added [...] These were not noted in the original text because in
the Elizabethan theatre there was no scenery and little physical indication of a change of
locality. (Harrison 1966: 82)
D4.5.6. All plays (including the printed versions) were subject to censorship, especially with
regard to political, religious, and moral aspects. Plays could be censored for treason, heresy,
and blasphemy, and sanctions included the closing of playhouses or the deletion of offending
expressions or scenes (for instance, the famous deposition scene in Richard II was omitted
from the Folio edition [Lloyd Evans and Lloyd Evans 1978: 294]). No women were allowed on
stage prior to 1665, and all female roles had to be impersonated by boy actors. The main
censorship authorities were the city administrators of London (who tended to obstruct the
public playhouses on moral grounds), the Lord Chamberlain (the person in charge of matters
of royal entertainment) and the monarch's privy council (the Queen herself is known to have
been a supporter of the theater companies). Interestingly, there was no ban on obscenity or
violence -- if there had been, very few of Shakespeare's texts would have survived
uncensored.
For an example, consider the case of Othello. In the quarto edition of the play the speeches
are liberally dotted with religious oaths and expletives -- expressions like 'Sblood [= God's
blood], Zounds [= God's wounds] etc. These exclamations were all removed from the text of

the 1623 Folio edition, whose editors evidently feared being charged with publishing foul
language and profanities.
Censorship was formally abolished in Great Britain in 1968; today it is largely a matter of selfregulation. Today, judging from recent productions, basically "anything goes".
D4.6. Shakespearean language is a variant of Early Modern English, whose main
characteristics, from today's point of view, are variability and flexibility. Both characteristics
are probably due to the period's lack of authoritative dictionaries (the first true dictionary,
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language did not appear until 1755).

word formation New words are coined spontaneously and in great numbers. For
instance, "You can happy your friend, foot your enemy, speak of a fair (a beautiful
women) or a he (man)" (Abbot 1966).

pronunciation (1) Shakespeare's verse are full of metrically motivated contractions:

words like e'er, e'en, ne'er, o'er (= ever, even, never, over; pronunciation as
in air, Ian, nair, or. (2) Metrical expansion occasionally yields a stressed syllable in
scansion (e.g., discovered = o1o1) (Levin 1978: 10). (3) A number of polysyllabic words
had different stress patterns than they have today; for instance, the word condemn was
stressed (scanned) 1o. (4) Words like prove/love and find/wind were rhymes. See the
poetry section for a more detailed discussion of scansion, contraction, expansion etc
(P1.4, P1.11).

grammar The most striking grammatical feature of Shakespeare's language is that

questions and negations often appear without the auxiliary do-construction that is
obligatory today ("Goes the king hence?" "I like him not" etc). The subjunctive form was
still in common use: "Take Anthony Octavia to his wife" (Anthony and
Cleopatra II.2.129) (cp. "God save the Queen").

thou The historical form denoting the second person singular (today's you).
Whenever thou is used, it triggers an inflected form of the verb as in thou art, thou
didst, thou climb(e)st etc. In object case position, thou becomes thee as in of thee, to
thee, I love thee. The possessive form is thy as in thy book, thy kingdom come (note
subjunctive case). If the next word begins with a vowel thy becomesthine as in Know
thine enemy.

For addressing a single person, a Shakespearean character can use either you or thou. You in
Early Modern English counts as a polite form, whereas thou can be made to transmit three
basic connotations which variously signal, uphold, modify or manipulate pragmatic (speakerhearer) relationships:

the intimate or affectionate thou is normally used among friends and lovers;

the condescending thou is used to address servants or subjects;

the contemptuous thou is used as a consciously offensive form of address towards

strangers or enemies.

D4.7. In Shakespeare's plays, situational conditions and pragmatic circumstances can be

interestingly complex. A speaker can address a hearer using thou in one situation and you in
another. Imagine, for instance, a courtier talking to his king. Normally, the appropriate form
would be the respectful you. But if the courtier is John of Gaunt, head of a powerful
aristocratic family, old, wise, and near his death, somebody who feels ill-treated by the king
and perhaps wants to make it obvious that the king is young, inexperienced, and
irresponsible, then it is not so surprising to find him addressing the king as follows:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee (Richard II II.1.86).

D4.8. Verse vs. Prose. Shakespeare's plays are predominantly written in verse, and editors
usually number a play's lines to allow references such as IV.3.112 (= act 4, scene 3, line 112).
The standard type of verse employed by Shakespeare is the blank verse:

blank verse An unrhymed iambic pentameter line, as in Hamlet's "To be or not to be,
that is the question".

Note the following important deviations from this standard scheme: (a) many of the plays
include songs which use their own type of meter and rhyme scheme; (b) sometimes the text
shifts from blank verse to a sequence of heroic couplets (i.e., rhymed iambic pentameters); (c)
a single heroic couplet may also signal the end of an act or scene; (d) the later plays make
increasing use of prose passages. As in the case of thou vs you, the use of blank verse vs
prose and of blank verse vs rhyming couplets is usually motivated by pragmatic factors that
merit close stylistic analysis. See, e.g., Brockbank's (1976: 185) note onCoriolanus II.3.111123.
D5. The picture-frame stage
D5.1. In the previous section, we argued that the Globe theater stage exerted a strong
influence on many aspects of Shakespearean drama -- duration of a performance, verbal
decor, passepartout scenery, etc. Continuing this line of approach, we will now examine in
how far the architecture of the modern stage (often called a 'picture frame stage') exerts a
similar influence on 19C and 20C drama. The transition from the 16-17C Globe theater stage
to the modern picture frame stage is best illustrated by using two (highly simplified) models
(Pfister 1988: 20).

The arrow in this graphic is an invitation to conduct a mental experiment. Imagine a cartoon
sequence that transforms the shape of the Globe into the shape of the picture-frame stage
(cp. Lloyd Evans and Lloyd Evans 1978: 83). You can do this, for instance, by moving the
Globe theater's apron stage to the back of the auditorium, removing the tiring house, and
transforming the circular shape of the Globe into a foreshortened rectangle. Finally, let the
Globe's small curtain become more substantial and move it to the front so that it forms the
dividing line between stage and auditorium (which is the main characteristic of the pictureframe stage).
D5.2. The transition from the Globe architecture with its apron stage and its ready-made
scenery to the picture-frame stage and its variable sets begins, even in Shakespeare's time,
with the work of Inigo Jones (1573-1652), an English architect. Jones's main achievement
was to craft highly elaborate scenic detail, facades, perspective paintings and other types of
backgrounds to stage sophisticated 'masques':

masque/court masque A brief dramatic representation celebrating a current occasion

or a classical event; a "spectacular entertainment, which combined music and poetry
with scenery and elaborate costumes" (Hartnoll 1995: 531). Players often wore masks,
and the occasion usually ended in a ceremonial dance in which the courtiers joined the
actors. On the Globe Theater stage, masques were usually integrated into longer plays,
either as individual scenes or as little 'plays within the play' (e.g. in
Shakespeare's Tempest and As You Like It). Autonomous masques became particularly
popular during the reign of James I. Many of the court masques were written by Ben
Jonson and staged by Inigo Jones. Jonson's masques usually carried an educational and
ethical message, some were even cautiously critical of current ethics and manners.
Basically, however, they were a form of institutionalized flattery, aimed at a single
special spectator: the king.

D5.3. In overview, the main contrasts between the two stage constructions are as follows:

In the Globe, the players played (more or less) in the midst of the audience; on the
picture-frame stage there is a curtain and a ramp which form a dividing line separating
stage and audience.

This dividing line is emphasized by the fact that during a performance the stage is
illuminated while the audience is in darkness. Hence the eye-to-eye contact between
actors and audience that the Shakespearean stage encourages is almost impossible
under the standard conditions of the modern stage.

Finally, the modern curtain has the important function of hiding the changing of the
scenery between acts or scenes, making it possible not only to use very sophisticated
types of scenery but to do so without undermining the dramatic illusion.

D5.4. The picture-frame stage has a number of clearly defined acting areas that are often
referred to in the stage directions.

upstage The area at the back of the stage (distant from the audience).

downstage The area close to the audience.

The terms upstage and downstage refer to the fact that many stages are (or were) angled (or
'raked') downwards. Hence 'up' actually means in the back, and 'down' means close to the
ramp. Consequently, to 'upstage' somebody means to play so well or so conspicuously as to
push another actor from a position of interest (a downstage or center-stage position) into the
background (an upstage position) -- this is commonly called 'stealing the show'. As Lathan
(2000) points out, "in most modern theatres it is the audience seating that is raked, not the
stage". Exercise: indicate the location of a stage direction such as 'upstage left' ('USL') in the
drawing above (D3.6 for help).

center stage The central area of the stage, usually, the space holding the main focus
of interest.

forestage A special part of the downstage area located between the curtain and the
ramp. This is normally used by actors for taking their bows or 'curtain calls'; but it is
also a possible acting area for prologue and epilogue speakers.

pit A sunken area between the ramp and the auditorium, usually for accommodating
an orchestra.

D5.5. The picture-frame stage lends strong support to a specific type of play: the realist play.

the realist illusion The picture-frame stage supports and encourages realist plays
that create the illusion that the audience is witnessing not a scene in a play, but a
scene from real life. Although still requiring a certain amount of 'willing suspension of
disbelief' (Coleridge 1983 [1817}: vol. 2, p. 6), the realist illusion is an illusion of
absoluteness, autonomy and independence (hence the term 'absolute drama' [D2.2]).

Assuming that the stage represents a room, audience and stage are separated by what is
called an 'invisible fourth wall':

invisible fourth wall The spectators' perceptual illusion that they can look into a room
through an invisible (a better term is 'transparent' or 'missing') fourth wall. This
does not mean that the characters, for their part, are supposed to be able to see the
audience -- for them the fourth wall remains as opaque as the other three walls. As
Goffman (1974: ch. 5.5) points out, the convention of the invisible fourth wall is a
culturally determined feature of modern Western drama. The original stage scenario of
classical Greek and Roman drama used open (outdoor) spaces mainly.

Compare this (a) to the conditions in the Globe theater which thrives on the visual contact
between actors and audience [D4.4], and (b) to the conception of epic drama (below), which
makes an attempt to subvert the realist illusion.
D6. Epic drama and epic theater
D6.1. Although realism is an important stylistic force in 19 and early 20C drama (Ibsen,
Hauptmann, Shaw, Pinero), many authors and directors consider the theater of illusion a
restrictive and paralyzing invention. There are several ways of escaping from the restrictions
of purely absolute drama. An obvious one is to reactivate the convention of a play-internal
narrator figure. The anti-illusionist countermovement culminates in Brecht's 'epic theater' and
its radical 'alienation effects', which undermine the illusion potential of the picture-frame
stage (D5).

narrator A mediator situated on an intermediate level of fictional communication

(D2.1), typically also the prologue speaker or epilogue speaker, ostensibly telling,
summarizing or commenting on the story that is/was enacted in the play. The play's
action may be suspended while the narrator speaks, and in this case, his/her speeches
constitute a narrative pause (as in prose fiction -- N5.2.3).

alienation effect Bertolt Brecht's term for a wide variety of anti-illusionist dramatic
techniques. For instance, alienation may require actors to 'emancipate' themselves and
begin to speak 'out of character', to comment on or criticize their roles (Pirandello), and
to use asides ad spectatores (D3.2). Furthermore, the theatrical apparatus (machinery,
stage hands, etc) may intentionally become visible; sound and light effects may go
against rather than strengthen the dramatic illusion; the auditorium itself may be used
as an acting area or as backdrop scenery. Often, the curtain is not used, the lights are
left on, and members of the audience are invited onto the stage and to play or sing
along.

D6.2. There is one type of drama in particular that foregrounds the epic element of selfreflexivity (reference to itself):

metadrama A "drama about drama" (Hornby 1986: 31); a dramatic form that explores
the notion that life imitates art (drama) rather than the other way round (Aristotle's
assumption). Often, metadrama uses a theatrical location as a setting, and a rehearsal
or a play-within-the-play as part of the action. Examples: Schnitzler, Der grne Kakadu;
Stoppard, The Real Thing (1982); Frayn,Noises Off. The basic idea is well expressed by
Jacques in As You Like It II.7.140: "All the world's a stage / And all the men and women
merely players / That have their exits and their entrances". This topos is also known as
the theatrum mundi (world-as-theater) motif.

D6.3. While realist drama consistently appeals to the audience's willing suspension of
disbelief, epic drama makes temporary use of epic elements or alienation techniques only. In
other words, realist drama is a pure form, whereas epic drama is a composite form, mixing
illusionist and anti-illusionist elements. Very few plays can manage without any make-believe
at all, although Peter Handke's Insulting the Audience (1966), a play whose 'action' consists
entirely of a group of actors doing precisely what is announced by the title, is a useful
counterexample (Pfister 1988: 248). Normally, an epic play's narrative level forms a mediating
and exposition-oriented frame in which realist elements (such as the play's proper action) are
embedded. In his preface to A Man For All Seasons, an avowedly epic drama, Robert Bolt
passes the following instructive comment on the dangers of overdoing Brechtian alienations:
Simply to slap your audience in the face satisfies an austere and puritanical streak which runs
in many of his [Brecht's] disciples and sometimes, detrimentally, I think, in Brecht himself. But
it is a dangerous game to play. [...] Each time it is done it is a little less unexpected, so that a
bigger and bigger dosage will be needed to produce the same effect. If it were continued
indefinitely it would finally not be unexpected at all. The theatrical convention would then
have been entirely dissipated and we should have in the theatre a situation with one person,
who used to be an actor, desperately trying to get the attention -- by rude gestures, loud
noises, indecent exposure, fireworks, anything -- of other persons, who used to be the
audience. [...] When we use alienation methods just for kicks, we in the theatre are sawing
through the branch on which we are sitting. (xvii-xviii)
D6.4. Examples. As an exercise, identify and comment on the epic characteristics of the
following excerpts, mainly incipits (beginnings).
D6.4.1. A metadramatic/narrative prologue.
Enter GOWER.
To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come,
Assuming man's infirmities,
To glad your ear and please your eyes.
It has been sung at festivals,
On ember-eves and holy-ales;
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives.
The purchase is to make men glorious;
Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius.
If you, born in those latter times,
When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man sing

May to your wishes pleasure bring,

I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you, like taper-light.
This Antioch, then, Antiochus the Great
Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat;
The fairest in all Syria -- (Shakespeare, Pericles)
Gower, actually a historical poet, a contemporary of Chaucer, introduces himself as a narrator
figure (level of fictional mediation), identifies the story's genre (interestingly calling it a
"song"), comments on its didactic purpose and its original addressees, points out that it is
based on a successful story (D4.5.1), and generally tries to capture the audience's attention
and benevolence (so-called captatio benevolentiae). The passage concludes with Gower
providing some verbal decor ("This [is the city of] Antioch") which serves as a transition to the
ensuing scenic action. On the whole, the passage is an epic frame providing both
metadramatic comment and exposition.
(Q: Gower's verses are clearly different from those used in the play's verbal action. In what
way, and for what purpose?)
D6.4.2. Music as commentary.
ELEANOR and KATE stay in the hall. ELEANOR helps KATE with her outdoor clothing. They talk,
but their dialogue is drowned by a sudden fortissimo burst of choral music. Mozart's Requiem:
from 'Dies Irae' to 'Stricte Discussurus'. (Peter Nichols, Passion Play)
D6.4.3. Epic use of lighting effects etc.
SALIERI [Singing]
Appear -- Posterity!
[The light on the audience reaches its maximum. It stays like this during all of the
following.]
[Speaking again] There. It worked. I can see you! (Shaffer, Amadeus)
D6.4.4. Alienation effects.
When the curtain rises, the set is in darkness but for a single spot which descends vertically
upon the COMMON MAN, who stands in front of a big property basket.
COMMON MAN: It is perverse! To start a play made up of Kings and Cardinals in speaking
costumes and intellectuals with broidered mouths, with me.
If a King, or a Cardinal had done the prologue he'd have had the right materials. [...] But
this!
Is this a costume? Does this say anything? It barely covers one man's nakedness! A bit of
black material to reduce Old Adam to the Common Man. (Bolt, A Man For All Seasons)
[self-reflexivity, emancipated actor.]
D6.4.5. Epic elements in a 'memory play'.
TOM enters dressed as a merchant sailor from alley, stage left, and strolls across the front
of the stage to the fire-escape. There he stops and lights a cigarette. He addresses the
audience.

TOM: Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a
stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the
pleasant disguise of illusion. To begin with, I turn back time. [...]
The play is memory.
Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic.
In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains the fiddle in the wings.
I am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it. (Tennessee Williams, The Glass
Menagerie)
[aside ad spectatores; narrator figure.]
D6.4.6. Identify and categorize the drastic anti-illusionist elements in the following passage.
As was argued in D6.3, even the most dedicated of epic plays cannot use epic elements all of
the time. What is the function and/or effect of this mixture of anti-illusionist and illusionist
elements?
No curtain.
No scenery.
The audience, arriving, sees an empty stage in half-light.
Presently the STAGE MANAGER, hat on and pipe in mouth, enters and begins placing a table
and three chairs [...]
When the auditorium is in complete darkness he speaks.
STAGE MANAGER: This play is called Our Town. It was written by Thornton Wilder; produced
and directed by A.... (or: produced by A....; directed by B....). In it you will see Miss C....; Miss
D....; Miss E.... [...]
[He approaches the table and chairs downstage right.]
This is our doctor's house -- Doc Gibbs's. This is the back door.
[Two arched trellises, covered with vines and flowers, are pushed out, one by each
proscenium pillar.]
There's some scenery for those who think they have to have scenery. [...]
So -- another day's begun.
There's Doc Gibbs comin' down Main Street now, comin' back from that baby case. And
here's his wife comin' downstairs to get breakfast. [...]
Doc Gibbs died in 1930. The new hospital's named after him. (Wilder, Our Town)
D7. Action analysis
D7.1. Although 'action' is a more or less self-explanatory term, let us try to give it a precise
and useful definition.

action The sum of events or action units occurring on a play's level of action.
Sometimes it is possible to distinguish the 'primary story line' from other external
events that take place before the beginning or after the end of the play.

D7.2. The terms 'story' and 'plot' were originally introduced by E.M. Forster in Aspects of the
Novel (1976 [1927]). Since we are here assuming that drama is a narrative form (D1.1), story
and plot are applicable to drama, too (Pfister 1988: ch. 6). Actually, one should perhaps
distinguish three action-related aspects: (i) the sequence of events as presented in the play's

text or performance (= order of presentation); (ii) the chronological sequence of the action
units (= story); and (iii) the action's causal structure (= plot).

story The chronological sequence of events. Story analysis examines the chronological
scale and coherence of the action sequence. The basic question concerning story
structure is "What happens next?" Forster's example is "The king died, and then the
queen died". Note, however, that a play need not present its story in strict
chronological order. A play's text may easily begin with action unit M, execute a
flashback to G, jump forward to P, etc. (example: Priestley, Time and the Conways;
Churchill, Top Girls; Pinter, Betrayal; see flashforwards, flashbacks, anachrony
under N5.2.1).

plot The logical and causal structure of a story. The basic question concerning plot
structure is "Why does this happen?" Forster's example is "The king died, and then the
queen died of grief". Texts can have widely differing degrees of plot connectivity: some
are tightly plotted or have 'linear plots' (Scanlan 1988: ch. 7]) where everything ties
in with everything else (the characters want to fulfil dreams, go on a quest, realize
plans, inhibit the plans of others, overcome problems, pass tests etc.); others
have mosaic plots (Scanlan 1988: ch. 7), i.e., are loosely plotted, episodic, accidentdriven, and possibly avoid causal plotting altogether.

To illustrate, fairy tales are usually tightly plotted following the pattern A does X because B
has done (or is) Y. -- The Queen is jealous because Snow-White has become more beautiful
than she is. So she orders a huntsman to kill her. But the huntsman does not do it because he
takes pity on Snow-White (because she's so beautiful). . . etc. Forster (1976 [1927]); Bremond
(1970); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: ch. 1); Pavel (1985); Ryan (1991).
D7.3. General summaries or 'synopses' normally present a plot-oriented content paraphrase.
For a detailed story analysis, it is advisable to work out a story's time line so that all main
events can be situated in proper succession and extension. Generally, a time-line model is a
good point of departure for surveying themes and action units; it also helps visualize events
that are presented in scenic detail as opposed to events that are skipped or merely reported
by, e.g., a messenger or a narrator. A time-line model can also show up significant
discrepancies between story time and performance time ('story time' vs 'discourse time' in
narratological terms, N5.2.2). Pfister (1988: ch. 6, ch. 7.4.3); Genette (1980: ch. 1-3).
The graphic below presents a discourse/performance-time oriented model of Beckett's Krapp's
Last Tape. The numerical values on the scale represent line numbers in the Faber edition; the
story's main events, which include three flashbacks, are indicated in shorthand fashion. The
play's story line covers the protagonist's 69th birthday, when he listens to a tape recorded on
his 39th birthday. As we learn from the tape, on his 39th birthday he listened to a tape
recorded ten years ago.

D7.4. Although the time structure of Krapp's Last Tape is far from simple, more complex
(indeed, more creative) models are needed for plays whose scenes are presented in
'anachronic' order, or epic plays that have a narrator whose narrative act has a time line in
addition to the play's actual story line. In certain experimental forms of drama, one

sometimes encounters 'split scenes' that simultaneously show events either occurring at the
same time, or at totally different points in time (example: Nichols's Passion Play).
D7.5. 'Freytag's pyramid' is a well-known time-line model which attempts to capture the
general structure of a classical five-act tragedy (as established by Horace 50 BC). Freytag
(1965 [1863]); Sternberg (1993 [1978): 5-8); Pfister (1988: 6.4.3.1).

Abrams (1964) illustrates Freytag's pyramid using Shakespeare's Hamlet as an example: "the
rising action (or what Aristotle called the complication) begins with the ghost telling Hamlet of
his murder, and continues with the conflict between Hamlet and Claudius, in which Hamlet,
despite setbacks, succeeds in controlling the course of events. The highest point of the rising
action, the climax, comes with the proof to Hamlet of the king's guilt by the device of the play
within the play, Act II, scene II. The falling action begins with the 'turning point,' or Hamlets
failure to kill the king while he is at prayer. From now on the antagonist, Claudius, for the most
part controls the action until the tragic catastrophe, at which point occurs the death of the
hero" (Abrams 1964: 72). Holman (1977: 174) adds: "The latter part of the falling action is
sometimes marked by an event which delays the catastrophe and seems to offer a way of
escape for the hero (the apparent reconciliation of Hamlet and Laertes). This is called the
'moment of final suspense' and aids in maintaining interest."
D7.6. The terms of Freytag's pyramid can be put to excellent use when one is asked to
describe a scene's or an episode's structural position. Here are some additional structural
concepts:

point of attack The event chosen to begin the play's action (Pfister 1988: 7.4.3.2
[term originally coined by Archer 1912]). There are three main options: (i) a play
beginning at an 'early' point of attack or ab ovo (literally, 'from the egg') typically
begins with a state of equilibrium or non-conflict; (ii) for a beginning in medias res ('in
the midst of things'), the point of attack is set in the middle of a conflict or even close
to the climax of the action; and (iii) for a beginning in ultimas res ('with the last
event'), the point of attack occurs after the climax and near the end.

exposition The introduction of time, place, characters and background of the play's
action. Exposition analysis deals with the questions of how, when, and to what extent
the recipient is informed about the play's background and its existents. Although the
exposition is usually expected as an isolated block situated at the beginning of a play
(this is the place it has in Freytag's pyramid), Pfister suggests that one should
distinguish a type of 'isolated exposition in the initial position' (Pfister 1988: 3.7.2.2)
from an 'integrated exposition', which, distributed in "a number of smaller units"
(Pfister 1988: 88) across the whole text, successively and cumulatively informs the
recipient about the play's background (time, setting, etc.).

dnouement The final resolution of the plot(s), leading to the play's 'closure'.

closure The type of conclusion that ends a text. Tightly plotted texts often have a
'recognition scene' (in which the protagonist finally recognizes the true state of affairs),
and in the course of the dnouement the conflict is usually resolved by marriage,
death, or some other aesthetically or morally satisfactory outcome. Many modern plays
lack closure, however, are open-ended, simply stop, or conclude enigmatically and
ambiguously.

D7.7. Open and closed forms of drama. Classical drama builds on plot patterns that develop
"out of a transparent initial situation based on a [...] comprehensible set of facts" and lead
"towards an unambiguous solution in the end" (Pfister 1988: 241). In the terms proposed by
Volker Klotz (1975), plays that present an "unambiguous solution in the end" exemplify a
'closed form' of drama, while plays that lack typical closure patterns are, reasonably enough,
'open forms'. Most prominent among the open forms are naturalist and documentary plays,
Brecht's 'epic theater', and the 'drama of the absurd'. Georg Bchner's Woyzeck (1836; first
performance 1913) is usually cited as the prototypical example of an 'open form'. Pfister
(1988: 6.4.3.1, 6.4.3.2).
D7.8. The main defining feature of a tragedy is that its protagonist dies in the end:

A tragedy is a serious play whose protagonist dies in the end. A fall-of-princes

tragedy is one that treats the tragic downfall of a prince ('prince' is a generic term that
covers kings and queens as well); a domestic tragedy is one that presents the
unhappy fate of a more common person; a revenge tragedy is propelled by the motif
of violent revenge (the first play of this kind is thought to be Kyd'sSpanish Tragedy,
1586). Hamlet is a fall-of-princes and a revenge tragedy; Othello is a domestic tragedy.

In his Poetics, Aristotle (384-322 BC) describes a tragedy's protagonist as a valuable

character, somebody who has both strengths and weaknesses, most importantly, somebody
the spectators can empathize or identify with. The tragic hero's downfall is usually caused not
only by adverse circumstances but also by his/her misassessment of a situation ('hamartia')
and a certain amount of overconfidence ('hubris'). Co-experiencing the protagonist's tragic
fate, the spectators feel 'pity and fear', making it possible for them (a) to deal with these
emotions in real life, and (b) to cleanse their minds of them (this is the famous effect of
'catharsis' or purging). In sum, then, a tragedy stages a character's downfall to allow the
spectators a purifying vicarious experience.
D7.9. A comedy shares many structural aspects of a tragedy (such as exposition -- climax -denouement), but it does not end in a catastrophe. Typically, but not necessarily, it also
contains a variety of humorous elements. Hence,

comedy A humorous play with a happy ending. More generally, a play with a nontragic
ending.

There is a typical comedy plot pattern that has become known as Benson's law:

Benson's law Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl (qtd Scanlan 1988: 45).

An important subtype of comedy is the farce:

farce A type of comedy capitalizing on broadly humorous elements such as

stereotyped characters (the mother-in-law, the inept do-it-yourselfer, the upper-class
twit), accidents, mishaps, disguises, mistaken identities etc. The genre goes back to the
Roman dramatist Plautus, 254-184 BC. Usually, a farce's characters are placed in
unexpected or improbable situations that bring out their weaknesses, and this makes
us laugh. Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is a Plautine farce freely borrowing plot
elements from Plautus's Menaechmi. One of the standard modern 'broad' farces is
Brandon Thomas'sCharley's Aunt (1892). Farces in other media include TV sitcoms such
as Roseanne and Cheers. Modern mainstream authors of farces include Harold Pinter

(psychological farce), Alan Ayckbourn (Bedroom Farce), Joe Orton (anarchic farce: What
the Butler Saw), Caryl Churchill (political farce: Serious Money), and Tom Stoppard. Alan
Ayckbourn, in particular, has perfected the subgenre of the 'black farce' (Preface
to Joking Apart and Other Plays [London: Penguin, 1982, p. 7]; Watson 1981: 24):
although not culminating in outright tragedy, a black farce shows suffering characters
trapped in serious existential and psychological problems. See Page (1983); Cornish
and Ketels (1986); Zapf (1991) [survey of modern farce types], Krieger (1998: ch. 5).
Finally, a very popular, seasonal type of low comedy is the (Christmas) pantomime:

pantomime or Christmas pantomime A type of 'low' comedy whose action and

characters are usually based on familiar legends, fables, fairy tales, or other popular
stories. Pantomimes usually include dances and songs, cross-dressing, speaking
animals etc. Typically, pantomimes are appreciated as a type of family entertainment,
and audience participation -- singing along, hissing the baddies, warning and
encouraging the goodies -- is strongly invited.

For two interesting cases of plays mistakenly (?) perceived as pantomimes, consider the
reception notes to Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion (1913), and the reviews of the 1998
revival of the Merchant of Venice at the New Globe. Here is Shaw, complaining about a
deteriorating first performance: "[T]he [...] playgoers did not know what to make of it. At first
they settled down to a Christmas pantomime, with low comedians and a comic lion, and
began to laugh very good-humoredly. Then they suddenly found their teeth set on edge [...]"
(Collected Plays, vol. 4, ed. Max Reinhardt, London 1972, p. 649). On the Merchant, see
the Theatre Record reviews (18.11: 687-91): "[Shakespeare's] plays are very popular there
[the Globe], but half the time they are like the summer equivalent of Christmas pantomime.
The audience is never so happy as when it can boo, hiss, cheer or roar with laughter" (p. 689,
Alistair Macaulay). (See also D4.4., and www.rdg.ac.uk/globe/Interviews/TimesRylance.htm for
a reply by Mark Rylance, the New Globe's director.)
D7.10. Plot and characters. Often, plot is associated with the actions of protagonist and
antagonist, or with certain groups of characters. For instance, Shakespeare's Much Ado About
Nothing involves two 'courtship plots', the Claudio-Hero plot, and the Beatrice-Benedick plot.
Very basically -- the scheme can easily be refined -- the two plots involve the following action
units:
Claudio-Hero plot
1. Claudio and Hero fall in love and agree to marry.
2. Complication: a villain plans an intrigue against Hero.
3. The conspiracy succeeds; the marriage falls through.
4. Hero fakes her own death.
5. The conspiracy is found out.
6. Hero is rehabilitated and 'revives'.
7. Happy ending.
Beatrice-Benedick plot
1. Benedick and Beatrice profess not to love each other.
2. Their friends conceive of a plan to make them fall in love.
3. Benedick is deceived into believing that Beatrice loves him.
4. Beatrice is deceived into believing that Benedick loves her.
5. They fall in love.

6. Complication: no happy ending is possible until Hero (Beatrice's friend) is rehabilitated.

7. The conspiracy against Hero is found out.
8. Hero is rehabilitated.
9. Happy ending
(Q: In extreme reduction, both plots are illustrative of which 'law'?)
D7.11. So far, we have been looking at characteristic action patterns as defining features of
certain types of plays. Of course, it is also possible to recognize similar patterns on a smaller
scale and hence to identify tragic and comic episodes, respectively. While the mixing of comic
and tragic episodes was considered a stylistic flaw in classical drama theory, Elizabethan and
later English drama is famous for its effective use of 'comic relief' and 'tragic relief':

comic relief A comic episode in a tragedy. This can either have the function of
retarding the primary action (usually creating additional suspense) and/or of creating a
momentary reduction of a play's tragic impact. Example: the gravedigger scene
in Hamlet, strategically placed before the play's catastrophe.

tragic relief A tragic (or near-tragic) episode in a comedy. Tragic relief often has the
function of allowing the spectators to empathize with a protagonist or to give them
some breathing space between particularly hilarious scenes.

The definitions given here imply (a bit too narrowly, perhaps) that there can neither be tragic
relief in a tragedy nor comic relief in a comedy. Do feel free to use a slightly broader definition
if you come across a case that demands it.
D8. Characters and characterization
Characterization analysis investigates the ways and means of creating the personality traits of
fictional characters. The basic analytical question is, Who (subject) characterizes whom
(object) as being what (as having which traits or properties). For a general introduction, see
Chatman (1978: 107-133); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 59-70); Pfister (1988: ch. 5); Bonheim
(1990: ch. 17).
D8.1. Characterization analysis focuses on three basic oppositional features: (1) narratorial
vs figural (identity of characterizing subject: narrator or character?); (2) explicit vs
implicit (are the personality traits expressed in words, or do they have to be inferred from
somebody's behavior?); (3) self-characterization (auto-characterization) vs alterocharacterization (does the characterizing subject characterize himself/herself or somebody
else?).
D8.2. For a reasonably complete survey of dramatic characterization techniques, we will use
a modified version of Pfister's famous diagram (1988: 184).

D8.3. The modifications to Pfister's original model concern the following items. First, Pfister's
opposition self commentary: commentary by others (also, 'outside commentary') has been
replaced by auto-characterization and altero-characterization, two terms that more
appropriately capture the subject-object relations involved. Second, Pfister's
opposition figural: authorial has been replaced by figural:narratorial. Authorial
characterization in Pfister's model covers characterizing strategies variously issuing from a
play's 'implied author' or its real author (cf. Pfister 1988: 184, 194). Among the authorial
phenomena listed by Pfister are 'telling names', explicit characterizations in stage directions
(whose subject can hardly be an 'implied' author), and strategic arrangements of scenes and
situations (mainly parallels and contrasts). All narratorial agents of the epic forms of drama
appear to fall under 'figural' characterization in Pfister, confounding the levels of action and
fictional mediation (D2.1).
Our modified model, in contrast, aims at capturing a play's characterizing subjects at the level
of fictional action (figural characterization, issuing from characters) and at the level of
narratorial mediation (narratorial characterization, issuing from narrators). In our view, neither
the author nor an implied author can act as characterizing subject, at least not in the play
itself (which is what we are interested in). Characterization in stage directions is here treated
as a special form of narratorial characterization (cf. D3.5).
D8.4. In figural characterization, the characterizing subject is a character. On the level of
explicit characterization, a character either characterizes him- or herself, or some other
character. The reliability or credibility of a character's judgment largely depends on pragmatic
circumstances: (1) autocharacterization is often marked by face- or image-saving strategies,
wishful thinking, and other "subjective distortions" (Pfister 1988: 184; consider, e.g., the
reliability of marriage ads, letters of applications etc., situations in which one wants to look
one's best and to gloss over one's faults); (2) alterocharacterization is often strongly
influenced by social pressures and "strategic aims and tactical considerations" (Pfister 1988:
184), especially when the judgment in question is a public statement made in a dialogue (as
opposed to when it is made in a soliloquy), and even more so when the person characterized
is present (in praesentia) -- it can clearly be dangerous to criticize a tyrant; (3) for the
audience, it makes a difference whether the figure characterized has already been on stage or
not (characterization before/after the character's first appearance) (Pfister 1988: 186).
Example:
POTHINUS. I have to say that you have a traitress in your camp. Cleopatra -THE MAJOR-DOMO [at the table, announcing] The Queen! [Caesar and Rufio rise].

RUFIO [aside to Pothinus] You should have spat it out sooner, you fool. Now it is too late.
Cleopatra, in gorgeous raiment, enters in state. [. . .] Caesar gives Cleopatra his hand, which
she takes.
CLEOPATRA [quickly, seeing Pothinus] What is he doing here?
CAESAR [seating himself beside her, in the most amiable of tempers] Just going to tell me
something about you. You shall hear it. Proceed, Pothinus.
POTHINUS [disconcerted] Caesar -- [he stammers]. (Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra)
The excerpt illustrates what happens when an in-absentia characterization turns into an inpraesentia characterization. Pothinus tells Caesar that Cleopatra is a traitress, which is fine as
long as Cleopatra is not present. As soon as Cleopatra enters, Pothinus finds it very difficult to
continue.
D8.5. In a narratorial characterization the characterizing subject is a narrator. A narrator
can be a figure in the primary text (as in epic drama, see D2.2 and D6.1), in which case s/he
can act as a homodiegetic narrator (first-person) or a heterodiegetic narrator; and/or s/he can
be the (usually, heterodiegetic) narrative agency of the stage directions (i.e., within the
secondary text). (However, recall that all stage directions, including their narratorial voice, are
lost when the text metamorphoses into a performance.) Examples:
He is a small, thin, ridiculous man who might be any age from thirty to fifty-five. He has sandy
hair, watery compassionate blue eyes, sensitive nostrils, and a very presentable forehead; but
his good points go no further [...]. (Shaw, Androcles and the Lion)[A narratorial
alterocharacterization in a stage direction. Q: Is this also an autocharacterization?]
TOM: [...] I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance
of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. (Tennessee Williams, The Glass
Menagerie) [narratorial autocharacterization in the primary text, uttered by a homodiegetic
narrator].
Although most of the pragmatic features associated with figural characterization (see above)
are irrelevant for narratorial characterization, a dramatic narrator need not necessarily be
reliable.
D8.6. An explicit characterization is a verbal statement that ostensibly attributes (i.e., is
both meant to and understood to attribute) a trait or property to a character who may be
either the speaker him- or herself (autocharacterization), or some other character
(alterocharacterization). An explicit characterization is usually based on a descriptive
statement (particularly, a sentence using be or have as its main verb) that identifies,
categorizes, individualizes, and evaluates a person. Characterizing judgments can refer to
external, internal, or habitual traits ("John has blue eyes, is a good-hearted fellow, and smokes
a pipe"). Note that an explicit characterization is mainly defined as being one that is meant
and understood to be a verbal characterization -- however, the characterizing statement itself
can clearly be quite vague, allusive, or elliptical (as in "he is not a person you'd want to
associate with"). See Srull and Wyer (1988) for a theory of character attribution in social
cognition and the supporting concepts of 'identification', 'categorization', and
'individualization'.
D8.7. An implicit characterization is a (usually unintentional) autocharacterization in which
somebody's physical appearance or behavior is indicative of a characteristic trait. X
characterizes him- or herself by behaving or speaking in a certain manner. Nonverbal
behavior (what a character does) may characterize a person as, for instance, a homosexual, a
fine football player, or a coward. Characters are also implicitly characterized by their dress,
their physical appearance (e.g., a hunchback) and their chosen environment (e.g., their
rooms, their pet dogs, their cars). Verbal behavior (the way a character speaks, or what a
character says in a certain situation) may characterize a person as, for instance, having a

certain educational background (jargon, slang, dialect), as belonging to a certain class or set
of people (sociolect), or as being truthful, evasive, ill-mannered, etc.
D8.8. At crucial moments, an implicit characterization can significantly clash with an explicit
characterization. In fact, all explicit characterizations are always also implicit
autocharacterizations. (Why? Because the way you characterize somebody -- other people as
well as yourself -- always also characterizes yourself.) Example:
JERRY: [. . .] You're an educated man, aren't you? Are you a doctor?
PETER: Oh no; no. I read about it somewhere: Time magazine, I think. (He turns to his book)
JERRY: Well, Time magazine isn't for blockheads.
PETER: No, I suppose not. (Albee, The Zoo Story)
Jerry explicitly calls Peter an "educated man". Peter remarks that he is a reader
of Time magazine, apparently without meaning this to be understood as an
autocharacterization. Jerry rightly points out that Peter's being a reader of Time actually
supports his prior explicit characterization. Peter agrees, but his nonverbal action -- "turns to
his book" -- indicates his unwillingness to be drawn into a conversation. Ignoring the hint, and
continuing the dialogue, Jerry indicates that he does not care. It is the undercurrent of these
implicit characterizations that anticipates the lethal power struggle that develops between
these two characters in the further course of Albee's play.
D8.9. How much a character knows about himself or about others is an important aspect of
his or her characterization. One can be well informed or badly informed, know everything or
nothing, be fully aware of something or partially aware of something. There is a saying
"knowledge is power"; to know nothing about what one is expected to know is to be ignorant
(an 'ignoramus'). There is also the additional question whether one's lack of knowledge can be
blamed on oneself or on others. Rather than assess a person's knowledge in absolute terms,
one can also compare it to the level of knowledge of others, specifically comparing characters
vs. characters, and characters vs audience. Comparatively speaking, then, there can
be congruent awareness or discrepant awareness. Discrepant awareness, in particular,
results from a party's superior or inferior awareness.
D8.10. Even though, normally, the audience starts out on a state of inferior knowledge, it
usually does not take long for them to learn the characters' goals and secret plans. The title
and the genre of a play may also contribute essential information. Frequently, the resulting
superior audience awareness is the basis for creating comic effect. For instance, the audience
may know that the person whom somebody addresses disrespectfully is actually the King in
disguise. Analytical drama (e.g., Oedipus Rex and The Mousetrap), on the other hand, relies
on the fact that the viewers, just like the characters, are left either uncertain or ignorant
about essential parts of the plot.

dramatic irony usually results from an audience's superior awareness. As Holman

(1977: 171) puts it, "The words or acts of a character in a play may carry a meaning
unperceived by himself but understood by the audience". A character says and means
one thing, but the audience has reason to suspect (or already knows for certain) that a
different interpretation is much more appropriate -- either in the sense that what the
character says is totally off the mark, or that it unwittingly anticipates a tragic outcome
(hence also the term 'tragic irony'). Examples:
o

Othello on Iago: A man he is of honesty and trust (I.3.280)

Othello on himself: If it were now to die,/ 'Twere now to be most happy (II.1.183)

Othello on Desdemona and himself: Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul/

But I do love thee! And when I love thee not,/ Chaos is come again. (II.3.90)