Fall 2003: Modern Drama: Selected Plays from 1879 to the Present Walter Levy, Pace University ISBN: 0-13-226721-7 Prentice Hall Paper; 985 pp Published: 10/21/1998
Use glossary, topics, subjects and themes pages!
NEW :
2003-2004 * Modern Drama (textbook): This comprehensive and balanced anthology offers a collection of 25 works of modern and contemporary drama from the 1870s through the early 1990s. Features twenty-five plays that often demonstrate a significant breakthrough in maturity of expression and style for each playwright — important leaders in the development of modern and contemporary drama. [ ... ]
Dramatic Literature
* Fall 2003 THR413 (see new script.vtheatre.net/413 subdirectory)
Three Parts: Craft, Art, Theory
Drama Analysis for Theatre Majors
[ I will try to move most of the Craft Pages (composition, exposition and etc.) to script.vtheatre.net/213 ]
First, read vtheatre.net/200 -- core aesthetics!
ShowCases -- selected playwrights!
Useful Questions to Ask Yourself about a Script Under Review 1. Is there anything special about the title? Does it focus on a character, the milieu, or a theme? Is it taken from a quotation or is an allusion? Does it contain a point of view or suggest a mood?
2. Make a note of unrealistic elements and consider their meaning. Does it include documentary material and, if so, to what effect?
3. Is there a main theme? Consider the tempo of the various sections?
4. How many acts and scenes are there? What motivates the divisions of the play and how are they marked (curtains, blackouts, etc.)?
5. What are the retrospective elements of the play and are they explicit or implicit?
6. Is there secondary action and what is its relationship with the main action?
7. Consider the characters entrances and exits and how they are motivated?
8. Is there any difference between playing time (the time it takes to perform the play) and illusory time (the time the action is supposed to take)? What is the relationship between the two, if any?
9. Where is the play enacted? Is the playwright vague or exact about the environment? Is this important?
10. How does the playwright economize with the number of roles? Could any be omitted or doubled? What function do the various secondary characters have?
11. Who is the protagonist? The antagonist?
12. What are the relationships among the characters and how do they change?
13. Is the play in verse, prose, or a mixture?
14. Is the play a translation? Can you compare it to the original? With other translations? Are there significant differences?
15. Is the playwright making significant points of interpretation with the use of punctuation? With breaks and overlaps? With silence?
Context * Plot Overview * Characters * Character Analysis * Themes * Scenes * Quotations * Key Facts * Study Questions * Quiz * Further Reading * Notes *
"Grammar of Drama" * About The Book * Preface * Overview * Table of Contents * About the Author * What's New * Feature Summary * Supplements * PageOut * Credits *
