B.

CHARACTERS/DRAMATIS
PERSONAE
Character – is a person created by the playwright to carry
the action, language, ideas, and emotion of the play

Accdg. to Aristotle playwright should aim for four things

when creating character

1. Must be good and that manifest oral purpose in his

speech
2. Must have propriety, or manly valor
3. Must be true to life
4. Must be consistent
DRAMATIS PERSONAE – Is Latin for the characters or persons
in a play.

TYPES OF CHARACTERS

ROUND CHARACTER- undergoes a change or development as the

play progresses

FLAT CHARACTER – is undeveloped, even though he/she may be

interesting, vital, and amusing

DRAMATIC CHARACTERS – can also be considered static that is

fixed and unchanging or dynamic that is growing and developing

PROTAGONIST – is usually the central character in the action

ANTAGONIST – opposes the protagonist and is often the villain

 CLASSIFICATION OF DRAMATIC
CHARACTER

REALISTIC CHARACTERISTERS – are

normally accurate imitations of individualized men
and women; they are given backgrounds,
personalities, desires, motivations, and thoughts

NON-REALISTIC CHARACTERS – are usually

stripped of such individualizing touches; they are
often underdeveloped and symbolic.

SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS – represent an idea,

a way of life moral value or some other abstraction
 SYMBOLISM AND ALLEGORY
DRAMATIC SYMBOLS – represent meaning or significance
beyond the intrinsic identity of the symbol itself.

 Symbols in drama can be persons, settings, objects, actions,

situations or statements.
 Playwrights have access to both universal and private symbols.

UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS – examples are crossses, flags,

snakes, flowers. These are generally understood by the audience or
reader regardless of the context in which they appear

PRIVATE SYMBOLS - develop their impact only within the

context of a specific play or even a particular scene
 C. THOUGHT/SUBJECT/THEME

THOUGHT – refers to the theme or the main

idea of the drama or play

 Plays may thus be about love, religion,

hatred, war, ambition, death, envy, or
anything else that is part of the human
condition.
 The ideas that the play dramatizes about its
subject make up the play’s theme or
meaning.
 A play might explore the idea that love will
always find a way of that marriage can be
destructive, that pride always leads to disaster,
or that grief can be conquered through
strenght and commitment to life.

Theme is the end result of all the other

elements of drama. It is one of the things we
are left to think about after we have read a play
or seen a production.
 D. DICTION/ DIALOGUE/ LANGUAGE/
POINT-OF-VIEW

DIALOGUE – is a conversation
between characters in a drama or
narrative. It is the lines or passages
in the story which are intended to be
spoken
DRAMATIC LANGUAGE – what we learn about
characters , relationship, and conflict is conveyed
through this

Decorum – the fitting of language to dramatic

circumstance

Soliloquy – the hero or villain reveals his or her

thoughts directly to the audience

Aside – allows the character to address brief remarks

to the audience or to another character which the other
characters do not hear
 E. MUSIC/MELODY / RHYTHM/
PERFORMANCE ELEMENTS
 When Aristotle wrote his poetics and outlined his six
elements of drama, nearly, all plays had music. Either the
actors sang many of their, or they acted with musical
accompaniment. But Aristotle was not only referring to music
that is featured in drama, Aristotle was also referring to the
rhythm of the actors’ voices as they speak.

 In today’s theatre, there is sometimes music soundtrack but

Aristotle’s element of music is now said to be sound
elements of a play, including the delivery of lines of the
actors and the accompanying acting.
 ACTORS OF PERFORMANCE ON
STAGE
1.ACTING – refers to the use of face, body, and
voice to portray character
Character motivation – refers to the
reason or reasons for a character’s behavior;
incentive or inducement for further action for
a character.
Character analysis – refers to the
process of examining how the elements of
drama- literary, technical, and performance-
are used.
Empathy – refers to the capacity of the
actors/ to relate to the feelings of another.
2. SPEAKING – refers to the mode of expression or
delivery of lines
Breath control – refers to the proper use of
the lungs and diaphragm muscle for maximum
capacity and efficiency of breath for speaking
Vocal expression – refers to how an actor
uses his or her voice to convey character
Inflection – refers to the change in pitch or
loudness of the voice
Projection – refers to how well the voice
carries to the audience
Speaking style – refers to the mode of
expression of delivery of lines
Diction – refers to the selection and
pronunciation of words; clarity of speech
3. NON-VERBAL EXPRESSIONS
GESTURES – refers to any movement of
the actor’s head, shoulder, arm hand, leg or
foot to convey meaning and reveal character
FACIAL EXPRESSION – refers to the
facial and vocal aspects used by an actor to
convey mood, feeling, or personality
TONE AND ATMOSPHERE
TONE – signifies the way moods and
attitudes are created and presented
In plays, tone may be conveyed
directly to the spectator through
voice and through the stage
gestures that accompany dialogue,
such as rolling one’s eyes, throwing
up one’s hands, shaking one’s head,
jumping for joy, and staggering
backward in grief. Even silence can
be an effective device for creating
tone and mood.
Tone may create an atmosphere or mood
that dominates a play. In the determination
of tone, it is important to distinguish
between the tone of an individual character
and playwright’s tone that shapes out total
response to the play. Specific characters
may be sincere, sarcastic, and joyful or
resigned, but the entire drama may reflect
only one or even none of these tones.
F. SPECTACLE (OPSIS) / VISUAL AND
TECHNICAL ELEMENTS/ MISE-EN-SCENE

Opsis is the Greek word for spectacle in the theatre and

the performance. Its first use has been traced back to
Aristotle’s Poetics. In Theories of the Theatre by Marvin
Carlson, the word opsis is replaced with the English
equivalent “Spectacle,”. It is now taken up by theatre
critics, historians, and theorists to describe the “mise
en scene” of a performance or theatrical event.
(Opsis,” 2017)
1. COSTUMES – refer to the clothing and accessories worn by actors to
portray character and period

2. MAKE UP – refers to facial and bodily make –up, wigs, prosthetics,

and body paints used to transform an actor into a character.

3. PROPS – short for properties, it refers to any article, except costume or

scenery, used as part of a dramatic production; any moveable object that
appears on stage during the performance, from a telephone to a train.
Examples are The Christmas tree in A Doll’s House and Laura’s
Collection of glass animals in The Glass Menagerie.

4. SCENES/ SCENERY/ SET

 SCENE – is a traditional segment in a play. Scenes are used to

indicate 1) a change in time 2) a change in location 3) provides
a jump from one subplot to another, 4) introduces new
characters 5) rearrange the actors on the stage. Traditionally
plays are composed of acts, break down into scenes.
SCENERY OR SET – refers to the theatrical equipment,
such as curtains, flat, backdrops, or platforms, used in a
dramatic production to communicate environment

In the production, the scenery is the first thing we see on the
stage, and it brings the written directions to life through the
backdrops, furnishing, props and lighting.

Setting – is usually described in the opening stage

directions. Its function is to establish the play in a specific
time and place, and it may also determine the play’s level of
reality
Setting may be realistic setting or non-
realistic.
Realistic setting – requires extensive scenery
and stage furniture, for the object is to create
as real an environment as possible.

5. STAGING/STAGE DIRECTION

A playwright’s descriptive comments that

provide readers (and actors) with information
about the dialogue, setting, and action of a
play, including the position of actors on stage,
the scenic background, props and costumes,
and the lighting and sound effects.
Modern playwrights , including Ibsen,
Shaw, Miller, and Williams tend to
include substantial stage direction,
while earlier playwrights typically
used them more sparsely, implicitly, or
not at all.

Tennesse Williams describes these in

his detailed stage directions go The
Glass Menageries and also in his
production notes for the play
6. LIGHTS/LIGHTING/ LIGHT EFFECTS
- refers to the placement, intensity, and color of
lights to help communicate environment, mood, or
feeling.

The intensity, direction, and quality o lighting can

influence an audience’s understanding of characters,
actions, themes and mood. Light (and shade) can
emphasize texture, shape, distance, mood, time of
day or night, season, glamour; it affects the way
colors are rendered, both in terms of hue and depth,
and can focus attention on particular elements of
the composition.
7. Sound/ Sound Effects
The effect an audience hears during the performance to
communicate character, context, or environment.

Examples:
In the musical Phantom of the Opera, the phantom
rows his boat through a maze of floating candles. The boat
actually lifts off the stage and moves through a bunch of
candles

In the musical The Lion King, a vision in the sky of

Mufasa, the protagonist’s dead father, suddenly becomes a
flock of birds that fly away.
In the musical Miss Saigon, an actual helicopter lands
on the stage .
THANK
YOU!