Drama

Drama is a literary genre in which the performers portray several characters from the script to deliver the story to the audience and allow for interpretation. It is frequently created and built with theatrical portrayal in mind. Drama is one of the more engaging literary genres that has a tendency to simultaneously enlighten, educate, and entertain the audience.

A play is frequently contrasted with drama. A play is a work of writing that is composed of one or more acts, with various scenes in each act.

The basic distinction between a play and a drama is that a play is an on-stage dramatic production, whereas a drama is a prose or poetry literary piece that depicts conflicting dialogue that the main character strives to resolve.

Play Definition

Play is a type of dramatic performance that emphasises character interaction directly. It is intended for theatrical performance and is divided into scenes, acts, and dialogue. It can be a stage play, a screenplay, or a radio play because it is intended for a specific audience.

Characters serve as a vehicle for the writer’s thoughts, feelings, and feelings. The playwright uses a variety of dramatic devices to deepen the audience’s knowledge.

Plot, characters, dialogue, setting, conflict, and resolution are a play’s primary structural components. The play’s plot follows a pattern that begins with Rising Action, is followed by a Climax, and ends with Falling Action.

The meaning of drama

Drama is a category of fictional or non-fictional works that are frequently performed and presented through conversation on a stage, radio, or television. It can take the shape of a play, mime, opera, ballet, etc. It is a piece of literature that acts out a tale or portrays a character and has conflict, tension, and a range of other emotions. It can be written as prose or poetry.

A play (PLAY) is a piece of literature explicitly created for the theatre that dramatizes events using spoken dialogue and stage directions. Playwrights, who write plays, divide their productions into acts and scenes to increase suspense and make the narrative more engaging for viewers. Several plays, including those created for the stage, radio (radio plays), television, or film (screenplays).

Dramas, which have a serious tone and are frequently tragic, and comedies, which are cheerful and humorous, are the two primary genres into which plays are traditionally separated. All sports, however, strive to amuse audiences and impart essential insights into the human condition. Even when space is more absurdist or experimental in style, it speaks to emotional realities and provokes reflection.

The wordplay, which means a dramatic performance, dates back to the early fourteenth century and has Greek roots that imply “to act” (Paizo).

The Evolution of Plays

The origins of modern play can be found in ancient dramas. Western drama first appeared in ancient Greece, where playwrights created works to enter festivals celebrating the deity of wine and ecstasy, Dionysus. These performances ranged from comedies to tragedies to satyr plays, which were a bit like bawdy burlesque. Few people made it to the present period. Among the rare sports that have survived intact and are still played today are those by Aeschylus (Oresteia, Prometheus Bound), Euripides (Medea, The Trojan Women), and Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, Electra).

When the Roman Empire grew to include provinces in Greece, the Romans learned that plays were quite popular and spread this idea throughout the rest of Europe. A natural outcome of this development was that tragedies expanded beyond the three fundamental categories of comedy, tragedy, or satyr play as writers interpreted them in new ways. The issues tackled in sports were broader and more complex, and the spaces had more complexity and intelligence.

The earliest significant playwrights of the period were the Greco-Roman dramatists Livius Andronicus (Achilles, Gladiolus) and Gnaeus Naevius (Aegisthus, Lycurgus), albeit only remnants of their works have survived. They set the groundwork for the Roman playwrights who would come after them, such as Plautus (Casina, Mostellaria), Lucius Accius (Decius, Brutus), and Seneca the Younger (Thyestes, Phaedra).

The Middle Ages plays

Plays had essentially moved into the church’s purview by the Middle Ages, along with most other aspects of Medieval life. Mystery plays frequently featured portrayals of incidents from the Bible. These developed into the didactic dramas known as morality plays of the 15th century, which the Bible nevertheless strongly influenced. The main characters in morality plays are allegories who use straightforward plots to impart moral teachings to the audience. Examples include the sports Everyman and The Castle of Perseverance, both of which were written anonymously.

Stand-Up Comedy: What Is It?

A comedian tells unique jokes on stage in front of a live audience as part of a stand-up comedy show or performance to make them laugh. The marks have setups and punchlines because they are scripted. On average, the audience laughs four to six times per minute during stand-up comedy performances.

What Year Did Stand-Up Comedy Start?

Comedy shows have been put on since dawn, but the modern stand-up comedy genre is rooted in vaudeville performers from the late nineteenth century. Live performances of vaudeville acts frequently featured slapstick. Jokes began to alter as comedy gained in popularity. They came up with a straightforward setup and punchline.

The first authentic stand-up act is said to have been performed by African American vaudeville comedian Charley Case probably in the 1880s. In front of a crowd, he delivered humorous speeches without the costumes and antics of vaudeville. The case had anecdotal jokes—funny stories from his life—much like modern comedians. The beginning of stand-up comedy as we know it today.

Still a common type of entertainment, stand-up comedy. Comedy writing is regarded as fine art. The hosts of late-night television shows begin with a stand-up performance every night. If you’re a budding comedian, you may decide to relocate to a stand-up hotbed like Los Angeles, Chicago, or New York to be nearer to the action.

A Stand-Up Comedy Set Is What?

A set is an entire stand-up routine from beginning to end. There is a beginning, middle, and back to it. Whether a comedian is the opening act or the headliner affects how much of a performance they perform. Be prepared to spend an hour or more on stage if you’re the featured act.

Comedy’s dualistic view of the person as an inconsistent blend of instinctual physical and logical intellect is inherently ironic—implying the ability to see things from two perspectives. The comedic drama adopts satirical characteristics as it focuses on acts of virtue and their antitheses. Satire presupposes benchmarks by which trades and practices are assessed. The sarcastic perception grows darker and more intense when the professions show themselves to be hollow and the behaviors to be violent. The grotesque is implied by the mingling of incongruous elements, which is indicated by the aspect of paradox.

Theories

Aristotle is thought to have authored a treatise on comedy, but it has since been lost. However, an incomplete treatise on comedy is believed to be either a rewrite of a lost Aristotelian original or an expression of the intellectual school to which he belonged. This book is related to Aristotle’s treatise on tragedy, Poetics. The De Coislin Collection in Paris houses a manuscript from the 10th century that contains the Tractatus Coislinianus.

humor as a ritual

Since the Tractatus wasn’t published until 1839, the comedic theory has benefited from its influence until recently. In much the same way that James George Frazer integrated studies of primitive religion and society with anthropology in The Golden Bough, it is frequently used in studies that combine literary criticism and anthropology (1890–1915). In these pieces, both comedy and tragedy can be traced to a prehistoric ritual of death and resurrection, a seasonal pantomime in which the old year is killed in the form of an aged king (or hero or god), and the new spirit of fertility, the resurrection or initiation of the young king, is brought in.

Definitions and sources

Comedy appears to have derived from the Greek verb that means to “revel,” It developed from the revels tied to the rituals of Dionysus, a god of vegetation. Thus, the roots of comedy are tied to vegetation ritual. In his book Poetics, Aristotle claims that comedy originates in phallic songs and that, like tragedy, it started as improvisation. While the development of tragedy may be traced through distinct stages, comedy’s evolution went unrecognized because it was not taken seriously. Poets responded to tragedy and humor as they saw fit, writing one or the other. Poets of a lower kind, who had previously used invectives to describe the conduct of the lowly, switched to comedy; poets of a graver sort, who might once have been inclined to glorify the great in epic poetry, turned to tragedy. According to Aristotle, the fundamental difference between tragedy and comedy is that the former imitates those who are better than average, while the latter imitates worse men.

The paradox of human nature

When dealing with people as social beings, all great comic book creators have understood that they are dealing with a contradiction: beneath the social being, lain an animal being whose behavior frequently conflicts significantly with societal norms. Comedy has honored creative force since its ritual inception. The early celebrations that gave rise to comedy openly acknowledged man’s animal character; the phallic processions and animal masquerades are the apparent witnesses. Comedy demonstrates physical health, joy in life, and the will to keep living. When this rhythm of existence can be affirmed inside the orderly framework of human civilization, comedy is at its merriest and most joyous.

French tragedy

A type of tragedy originating in Europe in the 18th century is a bourgeois tragedy (German: Bürgerliches Trauerspiel). It is a byproduct of enlightenment thought, the rise of the bourgeois elite, and the ideals that it represents. It is distinguished by the fact that its main characters are ordinary people.
Wikipedia article

BURLESQUE

Entertainment geared toward adults includes dancing, simple costumes, singing, and comedic sketches in Europe and the USA starting in the 1840s.

COMEDY

A humorous performance intended to amuse the audience.
Any play with a happy conclusion was referred to as a comedy in Greek and Roman theatre, regardless of how humorous it was.
Sketch comedy is a collection of brief, unrelated sequences that feature comic and stylized acts and quips that may be sarcastic or on-topic.
High comedy is a subgenre distinguished by elegant speech, sarcasm, stinging humor, or critique of life. It is often referred to as pure comedy or highbrow comedy.
Low comedy, commonly referred to as lowbrow humor, is more physical comedy that employs slapstick or farce solely to make the audience laugh.
Also, see SATIRE.

THEATER AT DINNER

Is a theatre performance followed by dinner, either at a nearby restaurant. There are still numerous locations worldwide where a meal accompanies a live performance, typically in a tourist-focused themed attraction, even though it was popular in the 1950s in the USA (called Dinner Theater). Examples include murder-mystery themes, medieval themes, or magic acts with meals served. These occur daily in Las Vegas or Orlando, Florida.

DOCTORAL THEATRE

Theatre that employs entirely or partially pre-existing documentary content (such as newspapers, government reports, interviews, etc.) as source material for the script, ideally without changing its phrasing, is referred to as a documentary theatre, sometimes known as a theatre of fact.
It is referred to as VERBATIM THEATRE when it focuses entirely on the words of others, typically members of the public, in a specific circumstance.

DUMBSHOW
an imitation of action. Used to summarise and comment on the primary plot in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

END ON

Stage Layout for End-On (theatrecrafts.com)

Traditionally, the audience is seated so everyone can see the stage from the same angle. A Proscenium Arch theatre has seating like this.
Additionally called Proscenium Staging.

It is possible to divide the end-on stage into nine sections: upstage right, upstage center, upstage left, center stage right, center stage, center stage left, downstage right, downstage center, and downstage left.