Chapter 15-Reading Drama
Playwrights have several things to think about besides just the reader. An author can think solely about the reader, but the playwright also thinks about what actors will do. He thinks about how producers will interpret what he has to say. How might the director look at something? He’ll also have to think about how costuming. How can a designer create the needed set? Is the play all set in one place or several places? How do the sets work with the technicians, the lighting, the sound; a playwright has to think about many other things along with his or her audience, so writing a play is a much more technical process than writing a novel. The writing is a different type of writing as well, but drama is literature. Many plays are read as literature, but it’s literature that has arms and legs. Instead of telling the reader that somebody whispers, they actually whisper. Instead of telling the reader that someone’s going to shout, they actually shout. Plays are sometimes seen as literature brought to life. Many readers love to make literature come to life in their heads when they read a novel. With a play, the reader sees it actually come to life. The difference is they see somebody else’s version, as the audience does with a movie, so what a person might have pictured in his or her head will be a little bit different than what they might put on the screen or on the stage, but it is literature coming to life. Sometimes the setting is a little bit more dramatic or a little less dramatic than it would be in a novel because the reader sees the director’s vision for the setting rather than his or her own.
Playwrights create plays to be performed. They will satisfy the audience when seen on the stage more than when read flat on the page. Many readers love reading Shakespeare and find it rewarding; however, those who see Shakespeare performed are often more satisfied. Nevertheless, reading plays flat on the page is satisfying if the reader imagines the work as they read. If the reader imagines the accents and actions of the characters, a play will read similarly to a novel.
Two main differences between plays and novels are how they are broken up and how exposition is given. A playwright breaks up the work into separate pieces called “acts,” often for technical reasons, but also for dramatic reasons. An act could end because of a dramatic moment, or the stage needs a reset, or the plot changes direction. Acts are broken even smaller into “scenes.” Novels often have chapters, but rarely smaller sections than chapters.
A playwright may have a more difficult time with exposition because that is where the reader receives explanations and information and that’s easier to do in a novel. To provide those in a play, the writer can include monologues or have an actor stand and talk to the audience, called an aside. This happens when, in the middle of a scene, an actor steps to the edge and says something directly to the audience. The playwright could write a dialogue between two people where they reveal information, but having exposition in a drama requires different methods than in a novel.
Plays share most characteristics with other types of creative writing, but those characteristics play out a bit differently. Plays are basically built on dialogue. Novels may have short sections of dialogue, but most plays are almost exclusively dialogue. Play have conflict just as novels and short stories do. Great literature doesn’t really happen without a conflict of some type. Plays have a plot line and often some kind of subplot. It’s rarely one plot straight through. Just as with most novels, there are going to be a few things going on to the side beyond the main plot. The playwright will create a protagonist and an antagonist just in any other type of writing. He or she will create a main character and the person that main character is having a conflict with. The structure can be a little different because of this idea of acts and scenes. Shakespeare used a classic pattern where he would do a five-act play, and the climax always came towards the end of the third act, so it’s still it’s a similar “rising action-falling action” pattern as in a novel or a short story, but it’s sometimes more clearly defined because of having acts and scenes.
Drama today can be a little bit different in that most of the drama people see is on TV or in movies. Live performances can have unexpected things happen compared to a performance on film. On film, the director and actors have a chance to do take after take, while a stage performance of a play must keep moving no matter what happens.
Enjoy reading some plays and enjoy the differences between plays and other types of creative writing!
