Shared Drama Knowledge and Skills

The drama toolkit

Whether you are analysing a set text or performing it, you use the same toolkit of drama knowledge and skills. This applies to any play, so it is worth mastering once. This module covers the elements to look for, the choices that shape a performance, and the context that gives a play its meaning.

Dramatic elements

When you analyse a play, these are the elements to look at, and the examiner wants the right word for each:

Match each dramatic element to its meaning

Spot the structure

Here is a short description of a production. Tap the part that describes the play's STRUCTURE, not its costume, lighting or genre.

• The production is billed as a comedy.
• It opens with the final scene, then jumps back three years and works forward
• .
• The whole cast wear identical grey overalls
• .
• A single spotlight follows the narrator throughout
• .

Space and the audience

How the space is used shapes meaning. Proxemics, the distance between actors, shows relationships and status, and levels show power. The four staging types differ on one thing, where the audience sits, and that is what the questions turn on:

Place the audience

Staging where the audience sits at the front only, end-on, is _____. With the audience on three sides it is _____. With the audience on all sides it is _____, and there the actors have no permanent back to turn on anyone. With the audience on two opposite sides it is _____.

Production elements

Four production elements bring a play to life, and a mark is given for the EFFECT, not the element: - Set: establishes the location and time period. - Costume: shows a character's personality, status and era. - Lighting: creates mood and directs the audience's attention. - Sound: builds atmosphere and sets the scene. Naming the element on its own scores nothing. Always finish the sentence with what it does to the audience.

Match each production element to its effect

The power of lighting

Select ALL THREE things stage LIGHTING can be used to do.

• Create a mood, such as tense or cheerful
• Focus the audience's attention on part of the stage
• Suggest the time of day
• Establish a character's accent
• Show a character's status and era
• Build atmosphere through underscoring and effects

Context matters

A play does not exist in a vacuum. Its social, historical and cultural context shapes what it means. That includes the theatrical conventions of the period it was written and first performed in: how audiences behaved, what staging was available, and what ideas were current. Knowing this helps you read the characters and the play's original impact.

Reading in context

Why does knowing the social and historical context of a play matter?

• It helps you understand the characters' choices and what the play meant to its first audience
• It tells you the ticket price
• It has no effect on how the play is interpreted
• It is only about the actors' names

Bringing a scene to life

Put the steps of preparing to perform a scene into a sensible order.

• Read the scene and work out what is happening
• Identify each character's motivation
• Decide how to use voice and movement to show it
• Choose production elements (set, lighting, sound) to support it
• Rehearse and refine the performance

Good drama analysis

Select ALL THREE statements about analysing drama that are TRUE.

• A production choice should be linked to its effect on the audience
• The set can establish where and when a play is set
• Context can shape how a play is interpreted
• Costume has no effect on meaning
• Genre means the same thing as structure
• Lighting can only make the stage brighter

Stage the scene

You are staging a two-hander about a power imbalance between an employer and a worker. Make three choices, using the elements this module has covered.

• You want the audience to read the power imbalance the moment the lights come up, before anyone speaks. What do you use?
• Later the worker gains the upper hand. You want the shift visible in how the two bodies relate in space. What is that called?
• You want the audience close on every side, so neither character can hide from them or play only to a front. Which staging?

Drama summary

When studying drama, describe not just a choice but its _____ on the audience. The _____ establishes the location, costume shows character, _____ creates mood, and sound builds atmosphere. The social and historical _____ of a play shapes how it is understood.