Contexts of Drama

Drama, Literature and Representational Art

The particular word drama itself brought or invented from Greek which means thing done or to act or to do. Drama in literature is a representational art that carries theory of make- believe through the direct presentation of its imaginative reality. The drama begins in make belief in the play acting of children, in the ritual of the primitive religion. And it never gives up alternate forsakes its primitive beginnings for imitative action is its essence. Though the drama is neither primitive ritual nor child play but it does share with them the essential quality of enactment. Drama is a form of literature is also a representational art because it is to be acted, performed and represented on the spectacular stage in front of the audience by the real characters with the help of dialogues and action. Drama as a literary art it is fiction made out of words. When a play is performed in the theater unlike stories and novels there is no need of narrator’s word or his intermediate comment or explanation. It offers the audience or a direct presentation of its imaginative reality. It has got the plot, characters and dialogue that's why drama is a representational art.

Drama in the sense is paradoxical from the literature point of view because it is the literature itself and a play can be read at the same time it is performed as the representational art where a play is meant to be witnessed by the audience. Most plays are written to be performed but there is the little exception which cannot be performed but only can be read and it is called closest drama.

• The drama begins in make belief. Imitation is its essence. When an actor appears on the stage, s/he makes us believe s/he someone other than himself/ herself.
• Like play acting and ritual, drama creates its experience that can be heard and seen. The word drama comes from Greek that means thing done and it’s creating its world that is a world model as ours.
• Drama is not the only form of literature. It is literary art and at the same time, it is the representational art. As a literary art, a play is a fiction made out of words. It has a plot, setting, character and dialogue.
• A play is a specific kind of fiction acted out rather than narrated. In a fiction, we come to know about characters and events. The character appears and events happen in front of us. In this regard, drama offers us a direct presentation of its imaginative reality. So it is the representational art.
• As a literature, a play can be read and as representational art, it can be a weakness.

Drama and theoretical performance

Drama is a form of literature which not basically for reading rather performing, acting and representing it in the theater. In the theatrical performance of play right gives important to the characters movement, events and dialogues. One of the most important parts of the theater is spectacles that help drama to come to its life in front of the audience. The theatrical system such as sound, light, music, gas, setting, customs, mask, place stage, props or position, blocking or arrangement of the character and the facilities brings life into the imaginative play. Such spectacles enlighten theatrical performance at the same time excite the audience. Because of the magical performance of the theater audiences start believing the theatrical performance as a real. For example, its ability to conjure up event such an incredible character as the ghost in the Hamlet, the witches in the Macbeth or death in every man etc.

It is not enough to read the dramatic text as normal text where character utters dialogues talk to each other or themselves. We must read the text as straight of a writer for performance. By keeping in the mind suppose we are director-actor of the play. If the reader is well known about the age movement of the history whether the play is written in the neoclassical drama, 17rth century drama or the modern or post-modern drama. Then the reader might be able to image the context of that period. The text contains various clues from which a reader can construct spectacles suitable in the mind and eyes, only the reading can be effective and meaningful. By keeping those spectacle elements in the mind we can picture how the play looks and sounds like on the stage. After that we enter into the world of play understand its meaning and experience it. There is some dramatist such as Ibsen, Shaw and the Williams who provide extensive and explicit direction for performance and require us to introduce elements of spectacles from the dialogue itself. Other dramatists such as Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Moliere do not provide explicit guidance about staging. We must gather question entirely from dialogue reading of their plays. That’s why we must consider that drama is a theatrical performance.

Drama and other literary forms

Drama is a primary theatrical event which is a representational form of literature that is dialogic, performative and interactive. The theory of interpretation becomes only possible when the lines of the play enacted and deliver to the audience on the stage. None of the production can convey all the implication in the language of the play. They stress important works and minimize other words. This particular system makes the drama a literature and art made out of words in their particular movement it should be understood in relation not only to the theater but also to other literary forms such as story, poem and essay. Drama shares some common technique to the other literary form that is a story, poem and essay. Though the essential quality of drama is interaction like a story drama is concerned with plot and character and also uses narrations. Like a poem, it is overheard or meditated rather than address to the reader. Like an essay, it conveys issues and purposes meaning directly and indirectly to the reader. Those connections are the relationship of drama and other literary forms.

Reference-

Klaus, C. H. (2013). New York: Oxford University Press.