Natures of Drama

A detailed Summary of Natures of Drama

Throughout history numerous playwrights have brought about many contributions to the theatrical world. As I have discovered throughout my three semesters of Dramatic Literature, playwrights have different approaches to theatricality. Some of the plays we have read seem like gibberish when being read, but when acted out fly by the seat of their pants with comedy. Other plays were phenomenal to read, but hard to envision on stage. This is partly due to the different approaches in theatrical language.

In Corrigan's book, The World of the Theatre, he lays the ground work for the use of language in successfully writing a play. Corrigan states in order for a playwright to be successful, they must have four essential qualities of theatrical language present in their work. These four qualities are: character consciousness while developing action, eloquence, use of gestures, and the quality of presences(Corrigan 230). In this paper I will discuss these four qualities of theatrical language, and provide examples of their theatrical success through the works of Arthur Miller and Samuel Beckett.

The first quality of theatrical language is to reveal the consciousness of the character while concurrently developing the action. Corri

This example shows how crucial the physicality is in this play. Gesturing is used to change the subject of discussion. The gesture, in this case, is irrelevant but the presence is the underlining motivation in changing the subject and wasting time. I think this use of gesture and presence is a central focus because they are not going anywhere or doing anything really important. The physicality drives the action. They are just waiting and hoping Godot will come and save them. During this wait there is a lot of time to fill. I think if Waiting for Godot didn't have the physicality it does, there would be no comedy and it would be very, very long and boring.

In Death of a Salesman the gestures and presence are slightly toned down. Willy is highly emotional and both angry and afraid at the same time. He puts on the physicality of a proud, confident person. In reality, he is very unconfident, afraid and angry. This contradiction is present in his personality.

Waiting for Godot is a prime example of the balance between characters' consciousness and action. At first it seemed both action and character consciousness were missing from this play. However, as the play developed, the characters became more conscious of their actions and existence.

The eloquence in Death of a Salesman is completely different. The rhythm seems quite a bit faster. Perhaps it is the "salesman" type speed Arthur Miller is trying to parallel. There is also a sense of awkwardness with his family. The relationships between the family members seem to be superficial. These relationships inspire the audience or reader to consider their relationship with their own families. In general, I thought reading Death of a Salesman was a long read that would just fly in a production.

I don't think the characters were ever conscious previously of their complete existence, but I think Beckett did this purposely to make a statement to the au

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Approximate Word count = 1304
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English