Perrine’s Drama Chapter Two

REALISTIC AND NONREALISTIC DRAMA

Fantasy in Drama

• Fantasy plays a part in drama as it does in prose and poetry.
• There can be ghosts, fairies, witches, monsters, and guys walking around with an ass’s head. It is all part of the play.
• But they serve a purpose. Sometimes it’s a metaphor. Sometimes it is used to foreshadow something that is destined to happen.

Realistic or Nonrealistic

• A drama can be realistic or nonrealistic in terms of production as well as content.
• Things that affect the realism (or nonrealism) of a play besides just the story and action:
• Staging
• Makeup
• Costumes
• Acting

Audience Has to Use Imagination

• Only three walls to a room. And maybe only one (in a round stage production).
• Bare or lacking settings.

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Playwright’s Use of Language

• All degrees of realism are possible. And it is all up to the writer.
• Modern plays try to use realistic language. They will use stumblings, inarticulateness, slang and mispronunciations.
• Some even use curse words.
• Dramatic dialogue is definitely not realistic (think Romeo and Juliet and its perfect sonnet of iambic pentameter), it’s absurdly nonrealistic. BUT it does express emotional truth and passion.

Nonrealistic IS NOT the same as Unrealistic

• Realistic and nonrealistic are terms that describe the qualities of a play.
• Realistic means trying to imitate the speech and actions of real life. Nonrealistic does not.
• Unrealistic is a term that judges people’s action on a scale of good sense, practicality and possibility. A hopeless optimist (guy hoping that he will pass a test and he hasn’t even read the book) is a good example of unrealistic.

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Dramatic Conventions

• Audience has to accept departures from reality.
• Actors facing the same way (toward the audience) for most of the play.
• Four walls when there are only three.

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• Optional Conventions
• Soliloquies and asides.
• Heightened language
• Use of a narrator

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And that’s what I got. As realistic as I could be. ☺