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    Elements of Drama

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    Amir Gamal
    This document summarizes the key dramatic elements that playwrights use to tell stories in plays: characters, plot, setting, and symbolism. It provides examples from August Wilson's play Fences to illustrate how scripts convey these elements through dialogue, stage directions, character descriptions and basic plot outlines. The summary highlights that plays are meant to be performed before an audience rather than read, and must effectively convey setting and character details visually through staging rather than lengthy descriptions.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Elements of Drama

    Uploaded by

    Amir Gamal
    24 views3 pages
    This document summarizes the key dramatic elements that playwrights use to tell stories in plays: characters, plot, setting, and symbolism. It provides examples from August Wilson's play Fences to illustrate how scripts convey these elements through dialogue, stage directions, character descriptions and basic plot outlines. The summary highlights that plays are meant to be performed before an audience rather than read, and must effectively convey setting and character details visually through staging rather than lengthy descriptions.

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    Elements_of_Drama

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    This document summarizes the key dramatic elements that playwrights use to tell stories in plays: characters, plot, setting, and symbolism. It provides examples from August Wilson's play Fences to illustrate how scripts convey these elements through dialogue, stage directions, character descriptions and basic plot outlines. The summary highlights that plays are meant to be performed before an audience rather than read, and must effectively convey setting and character details visually through staging rather than lengthy descriptions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    24 views3 pages

    Elements of Drama

    Uploaded by

    Amir Gamal
    This document summarizes the key dramatic elements that playwrights use to tell stories in plays: characters, plot, setting, and symbolism. It provides examples from August Wilson's play Fences to illustrate how scripts convey these elements through dialogue, stage directions, character descriptions and basic plot outlines. The summary highlights that plays are meant to be performed before an audience rather than read, and must effectively convey setting and character details visually through staging rather than lengthy descriptions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    Elements of Drama: Characters, Plot, Setting & Symbolism

    Paulina M.
    Teacher I Love the way lessons are structured.
    Mexico
    03/09/2018

    Create an account

    Lesson Transcript

    Have you ever wondered how actors in a play can convey a story without the audience reading the script? Watch and learn
    how playwrights use dramatic elements to tell a story on the stage.

    Understanding Drama
    A drama, or a play, is a piece of writing that is presented almost exclusively through dialogue. Like a short
    story or novel, it has a setting, characters, plot, and even symbolism. However, the way in which they are
    presented to the audience is di erent, because unlike a short story or novel, the play is meant to be
    performed in front of an audience, not read.

    Dramatic Form
    Plays are not written in paragraphs like a novel or short story. Instead, they are written as lines of dialogue
    in the form of a script. You can see in this example from August Wilson's Fences that the characters are
    told exactly what to say for the dialogue. Typically, these scripts are broken down into one or more acts, or
    major divisions of the play. And each act is then subdivided into a scene, or smaller divisions within the act.
    Usually a change in setting means there will be a change in either the act or the scene. In this case, this is
    Act I, Scene 2, and the scene has shifted onto Rose.

    Act I

    Scene 2

    The LIGHTS come up on ROSE hanging up clothes.

    SHE hums and sings softly to herself.

    It is the following morning.

    ROSE. (Sings.)
    Jesus, be a fence all around me every day

    Jesus, I want you to protect me as I travel on my way.

    Jesus, be a fence all around me every day.

    (TROY enters from the house)

    ROSE

    Jesus, I want you to protect me

    As I travel on my way.

    (To TROY.) Morning. You ready for breakfast? I can x it as soon as I nish hanging up these clothes?

    TROY. I got the co ee on. That'll be all right. I'll just drink some of that this morning.

    Setting and Staging


    In addition to the dialogue, a script will also include stage directions. These notes, which are often in
    italics or parentheses, help the actors interpret the scene for the audience. In this example, when Rose
    transitions from singing to speaking directly to Troy, the stage directions tell her to whom she is talking.
    The audience will only see her turn and direct her comment to Troy.

    ACT I

    Scene 1

    The setting is the yard which fronts the only entrance to the MAXSON household, an ancient two story brick house
    set back o a small alley in a big-city neighborhood. The entrance to the house is gained by two or three steps
    leading to a wooden porch badly in need of paint. A relatively recent addition to the house and running its full
    width, the porch lacks congruence. It is a sturdy porch with a at room. One or two chairs of dubious value sit at
    one end where the kitchen window opens on to the porch. An old-fashioned icebox stands silent guard at the
    opposite end.

    Unlike a novel, which may devote several paragraphs to describing the setting, the play is limited to what
    the audience can see on stage. It is important that the playwright give some indication to setting, especially
    if the actors will use the items on stage. In some cases, the stage directions provide information on what
    the stage should look like. Other times, they tell the actors where or how to move, or what facial
    expressions or tone of voice is appropriate when speaking a line.

    In this except from Fences, the director and actors can visualize how the stage should appear to the
    audience. And while they will not have an actual house on a stage, they will have the window and entrances
    in corresponding places so that the audience can visualize the scene as well.

    Characters and Actors


    Before the dialogue in a script, the playwright will often include a cast of characters. Typically, each
    character, both major and minor, is listed alongside a brief description of the character's role in the story.
    In this example, you can see that Troy is the main character, and each character is described in relation to
    him.

    Characters

    TROY MAXSON

    JIM BONO, Troy's friend


    ROSE, Troy's wife

    LYONS, Troy's oldest son by previous marriage

    GABRIEL, Troy's brother

    CORY, Troy and Rose's son

    RAYNELL, Troy's daughter

    This list is usually given to audience members on a printed playbill, or program, as they enter the theatre,
    so that they may identify the major characters and the actors who will play them. Of course, the biggest
    di erence between characters in prose and characters in drama is that live people, or actors, are
    representing the characters in drama. The actors are chosen based on both their physical and verbal ability
    to interpret the character. Sometimes it's important that an actor have certain physical characteristics, such
    as red hair or stocky nature, because it is an important aspect of the play.

    Plot
    The plot structure of the play doesn't really di er from that in prose. There is an exposition, a rising action,
    a climax, falling action, and the resolution.

    In the play Fences, the exposition explains that Troy Maxson is a garbage man who loves his family, in spite
    of the fact he is cheating on his wife, Rose. The main con ict comes when Troy's son, Cory, wants to go to
    college on a football scholarship, but Troy doesn't want him to go because he's afraid he'll be discriminated
    against like he had been when he played baseball. In the rising action, Troy goes to Cory's coach and tells
    him that Cory can't play football anymore. Cory accuses Troy of being jealous. Troy's a air with Alberta
    comes out when she becomes pregnant.

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