Dramatic technique by Baker, George Pierce, 1866-1935. To the discussion and illustration of them the larger part of this book is devoted. The term dramatic literature implies a contradiction in that literature originally meant something written and drama meant something performed. What has just been said makes obvioug that the dramatist never works directly, but through intermediaries, the actors and the producer., More than that, he seeks to stir the in- dividual, not for his own sake as does the novelist, but be- cause he is a unit in the large group filling the theatre. Currently, the use of dramatic Then he, He is not here; he has risen, as was foretold. Made as concise as possible by the dramatist, it is meant to be packed with meaning, not only for the actor, but for the producer. Each period demands in part its own technique. TECHNIQUE IN DRAMA 7 than is the case with the novelist, for one swingeing blow must, with him, replace repeated strokes by the novelist. Today we hear much discussion whether it is what is done, 7.e. Merely to see a fatal runaway or automobile accident sends us home sick- ened or unnerved. Instead, it is the art that, drawing to its aid all its sister fine arts, in splendid codpera- tion, moves the masses of men as does no other art. Like the dramatist, they must understand char- TECHNIQUE IN DRAMA 5 acterization and dialogue or they could not have written suc- cessful stories. Now in the drama we cannot harbour this suggestion; what we hear has happened in the story, we see really occur; what we would doubt of in the story, in the drama the evidence of our own eyes settles incontrovertibly. Is not play-writing an art of falsification rather than truth?” A living French novelist once exclaimed, “I have written novels for many years, with some returns in reputation but little return in money. For theatrical talent consists in the power of making your characters not only tell a story by means of dialogue but tell it in such skilfully de- . In the theatre, according to the size of the auditorium, from one hundred to two thousand people watch the play, and under given conditions of light, heat, and ventilation. Nor do I believe that it should be given except by persons who have had ex- perience in acting, producing, and even writing plays, and who have read and seen the drama of different countries and times. Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. Scenery, lighting, and cos- tuming render unnecessary many descriptions absolutely required in the novel. The novel appeals to the mind and the emotions through the eye. 4 0 obj This he safely copies. (See scene). Though aiming at a real diffi- culty, this device missed because it so vulgarized the original. He has produced something stamped as not of his time nor by him, but as at best a successful literary exercise in imitation. In each, something is said or done which moves the reader or hearer as the author wishes. Study of the technique of a special period, if the temper of his public closely resembles the inter- ests, prejudices, and ideals of the period he studies, may give him even larger results. As long as they stirred his imagination, that was all he asked of them. Dramatic Irony occurs when the reader knows a secret, but the characters in a play or work of fiction do not. Drama techniques Different drama techniques can be used to explore situations and issues. Reproduce accurately on the stage the terrors of the book and some persons in the audience would probably go as mad as did people in the story. It is very im- portant, however, to guard against modern associations with this term. The character of the matron in the story pro- vokes a not unpleasant sarcastic smile at the audacity of wedded love; in the drama this becomes repulsive, horrible. The contents of this book were originally brought together from notes for the classroom as eight lectures delivered be- fore the Lowell Institute, Boston, in the winter of 1913. If he is like most young dramatists, for example Shakespeare on the one hand and Ibsen on the other, he works imitatively at first. To create a dramatist would be a modern miracle. CLEARNESS THROUGH WISE SELECTION 73 . Evidently, too, they must know something about structure. The novelist, as has been pointed out, deals with the indi- vidual reader, or through one reader with a small group. At once, all the stuffing drops away, and the vital active part, the verb of the novel comes to the fore. Such special needs no textbook can forestall. I wish it distinctly understood that I have not written for the person seeking methods of conducting a course in dramatic technique. 829-330. The dramatist has no time to waste. 154 . Most of the problems, and much of the By what is done in the play; by characterization; by the language the people of his play speak; or by a combination of two or more of these. In a story or novel, mere clearness would demand more because the author could not be sure that the reader would hit the right intonation or feel the gesture which must accompany the words. endobj Throughout the centuries a very different technique has distinguished them. The mere possibility of such an action diverted us; its reality shows it in all its atrocity; the suggestion amused our fancy, the execution revolts our feelings, we turn our backs to the stage and say with the Lykas of Petronius, without being in Lykas’s peculiar posi- tion: ‘Had the emperor been just, he would have restored the body of the father to its tomb and crucified the woman.’ And she seems to us the more to deserve this punishment, the less art the poet has expended on her seduction, for we do not then condemn in her weak woman in general, but an especially volatile, worthless female in particular.” + As Lessing points out, in the printed page we can stand a free treatment of social question after social question which on the stage we should find revolting. Chiswick Press, London. Of the three kinds of technique, then, — universal, special, and individual, —a would-be dramatist should know the first thoroughly. The facts account, too, for the repeated efforts in the past to put popular novels on the stage as little changed as possible. Now that soliloquy and the aside have nearly gone out of use, the dramatist, when compared with the novelist, seems, at first thought, greatly hampered in his expression. In the drama, the soldier’s persuasions do not seem nearly so subtle, importunate, triumphant, as in the story. Writers for radio next learned how to suggest place and time by word of mouth, accompanied by the impressionistic use of sound and music. Even, however, if we go farther back, to the origin of Greek Drama in the Ballad Dance we shall find the same results. Imagine the horror and outcry if we were to put upon the stage a dramatized news- paper or popular magazine. From Supsect to Prot: ARRANGEMENT FOR CLEAR- ness, Empuasis, MoOvEMENT. Shakespeare's key dramatic techniques in Macbeth include: The Supernatural. Resting on what he knows of the ele- ments common to all good drama, alert to the significance of the hints which the special practice of any period may give him, he thinks his way to new methods and devices for get- ting with his public his desired effects. Recognizing the limitations of the second and third, he should study them for suggestions rather than for models. His- tory shows indisputably that the drama in its beginnings, no matter where we look, depended most on action. Few untrained imaginations respond quickly enough to feel the full significance of the printed page of the play. For the moment the better the imitation, the better he is satisfied; but shortly he discovers that somehow the managers or the public, if » % 2 DRAMATIC TECHNIQUE his play gets by the managers, seem to have very little taste for great dramatists at second hand. They can be used to create characters or investigate how characters think and feel. Personification . We read to the end, though horrified, the Red Laugh of Andreiev. From that he should move to a technique that is his own, a mingling of much out of the past and an adaptation of past practice to his own needs. P. Baker “I. Dramatic techniques or devices are used by playwrights. Imitation of this individual technique in most instances results, like wearing the tailor- made clothes of a friend, in a palpable misfit. The dramatist, if he tries for the same results as the novelist, must work more concisely. The trouble with both these critics of the drama was that they held a view of the stage which makes it necessary to shape, to twist, and to contort life when represented on it. This is “The School of Experience.” Though a long and painful method of training, it has had, undeniably, many distin- guished graduates. CHAPTER II THE ESSENTIALS OF DRAMA: ACTION AND EMOTION Wuat is the common aim of all dramatists? When all is said and done, this time difficulty caused by the greater vividness of stage presentation remains the chief obstacle in the way of the dramatist who would write of TECHNIQUE IN DRAMA ml a sequence of historical events or of evolution or devolution in character. The terms have been collected and adapted from various sources, listed at the end of this document. Then he added his magic. In most novels, the reader is, so to speak, personally con- ducted, the author is our guide. The man who grows from a technique which per- mits him to write a good play because it accords with his- torical practice to the technique which makes possible for him a play which no one else could have written, must work under three great Masters: Constant Practice, Ex- acting Scrutiny of the Work, and, above all, Time. The teacher who is not widely eclectic in his tastes will at best produce writers with an easily recog- Vi PREFACE nizable stamp. Dramatic irony Is when the words and actions of the characters of a work of literature have a different meaning for the reader than they do the characters. CHARACTERIZATION . In turn the drama which aimed to copy them, the so-called Heroic Plays of England from 1660 TECHNIQUE IN DRAMA 3 to 1700, differed. Lessing. The classroom permits a teacher such adaptations of existing PREFACE Vv usage. One young author went so far as to make the first lover of Blanche flirt so desperately with a maid-servant off stage that the report of his conduct by a jealous man-servant was the last straw to bring about the change in Blanche’s feelings. The technique of any dramatist may be defined, roughly, as his ways, methods, and devices for getting his desired ends. Act: A major division in a play. Literary techniques are used in literature for a variety of purposes. “An Aleut, who was armed with a bow, represented a hunter, another a bird. While the third respond is chanted, let the three others approach, all alike vested an copes, bearing thuribles, (censers) with incense in their hands, and, with hesitating steps, in the semblance of persons seeking something, let them come before the place of the sepulchre. He at last, after a long delay, pulled his bow and shot: the bird reeled, fell, and died. Many an attempt has been made to dramatize in one act Stevenson’s delightful story, The Sire de Maletroit’s Door, but all have come to grief because the greater vividness of the stage makes the necessary lapse of considerable time too apparent. in full detail for himself, An intelligent producer who reads the play with comprehension but follows only the letter of the stage directions gives a production no more than adequate at best. Lyric poetry consists in meditation or highly wrought description taking such forms as odes, sonnets, hymns, — poetry that lends itself to elaborate rhythms and other devices of musical art: here the music is the element of the Ballad Dance which has come to the front. In its context, however, it is as dramatic dialogue perfect. Today we regard the stage, as we should, as plastic. A thoroughly sympathetic and finely imaginative producer may, like an equally endowed actor, reveal genuine values in the play unsuspected even by the dramatist himself. Is it not odd that most adaptations of successful stories and most noveliza- tions of successful plays are failures? \ What the dramatist selects for presentation must be more productive of immediate effect 1 Robert Louis Stevenson: The Dramatist, p. 7. From this difficulty have arisen, to create a sense of time, the Elizabethan use of the Chorus, our entr’acte pauses, interpolated scenes which draw off our attention from the main story, and many other de- vices. }�p��"�e�yz���"&��"��GB�yڳf_���5���$��S ~������������X���/䏏נ�EB���e8.�l# ������$�i�C���˽dPv��%� �5 x.4,>��O�k����b��l���"���?�����ˬ2��>~�‚e2�uH�������oX�$�;�ew���׀n4��&5l���'��]�_�878_�:C�:��ك�:z[��q� �c��E�_@��o�ߺ��oam�Ծ��gxa�qӴ�-��yl�ԭ7p}&2������b8��E1�U&����ZIA�@ The differences brought about by the greater speed, greater compactness, and greater vividness of the drama, with its impersonality, its codperative nature, its appeal to the group rather than to the individual, create the fundamental technique which distinguishes the drama from the novel. Plot refers to the action; the basic storyline of the play. AndI have done it a long while, — and nothing ever came of it.” ? Certain literary techniques are used to increase the dramatic tension in a novel or short story. Low light can create a frightening effect. In the novel, the author describes, narrates, analyzes, and makes his per- sonal comment on circumstance and character. Dramatic techniques include literary devices and staging elements determined by the playwright, director or stage manager. Comparison for a moment of the stage of the Greeks with the stage of the Elizabethans, the Restoration, or of today shows the truth of the first statement. ? The reputation of the novelist rests very largely on the verdict of his individual readers. It's important to remember, when reading a play, that drama is written to be performed, rather than to be read. In the drama, so far as the dramatist is concerned, we must travel alone. At first untrained and groping blindly for the means to his ends, he moves to a technique based on study of successful drama- tists who have preceded him. We rather expect a novelist to reveal himself in his work. These facts account for the widespread and deeply-rooted belief that any novelist or writer of short sto- ries should write successful plays if he wishes, particularly if adapting his own work for the stage. Therefore, the words or actions of a character carry a special meaning for the reader, but are understood differently by the character. 1 Early Plays, pp. A person reads a book to himself or toa small group. novelist — to make a rough generalization — works through the individual, the dramatist through the group. GLOSSARY OF DRAMA TECHNIQUES voice, body, movement and use of space VOICE Pitch the highness or lowness of a sound Pace the rate at which words are spoken Pause where sound stops, how often and for how long Projection enables audience to hear the voice Volume how loudly/softly the words are spoken Articulation clarity of voice Tone the feeling/emotion in the voice Your lines are just words until you deliver them, but unless your voice is well-trained, they’ll still fall flat or sound forced. An act can be sub-divided into scenes. %���� Simile: An indirect relationship where one thing or idea is described as being similar to another. . (See scene). Just in this intense vividness, this great reality of effect, lies a large part of the power of the stage. When novelists and would-be playwrights recognize that it is, has been, and ought to be an independent art, we shall be spared many bad plays. On the other hand, this very vividness may create difficulties. This de- mands very skilful selection among his materials to gain his desired effects in the quickest possible ways. It is also a dramatic irony for the people to think that the person lying on the stone of sacrifice is Wara while it’s actually Parker. Sud- denly the dead bird rose, turned into a beautiful woman, and fell into the hunter’s arms.” ” Look where we will, then, — at the beginnings of drama in Greece, in England centuries later, or among savage peoples today — the chief essential in winning and holding the attention of the spectator was imitative movement by the actors, that is, physical action. \\The relative space granted novelist and dramatist is the first condition which differentiates their technique.) Some drama techniques can be used in devising and rehearsing plays. To develop theories of the drama apart from the practice of recent and remoter dramatists of differ- ent countries would be visionary. Which is the chief essential in good drama? 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