THE NATURE OF DRAMA
THE
NATURE OF DRAMA
LECTURE
BY
EGURIASE
S.M OKAKA
Drama is a narrative art one of several modes in which
mankind has learned to present a story. Stories presented to give pressure,
entertain and educate. Drama can pass a moral message or teach a lesson as in
the case of THE BOWELS OF MERCY and
THE STORY OF THE EPILEPTIC MAN both
plays by Eguriase S.M. Okaka. In addition, drama have a wide range function in
the society, they may for example do the following:
1.
Conserve it
legend
2.
Order it laws
3.
Explore it
problems
4.
Demonstrates it
codes
5.
Ridicules it
weakness
6.
Extend it
knowledge
Stories must in some way happen within the range of
human nature; the emotions of the Character, their reasons for doing what they
do and how it feels to them to be in such situations must be within the range
response of the recipient of the story. If the story is of an age and order of ideals
different from his own, he must be able to transplant himself to be an ancient
Greek, a medieval man, a renaissance man.
Stories may be heard as recited by a storyteller, read
by a solitary reader or seen and heard in
the dramatic mode by a spectator in a theatre. Our concern is with a forth mode
of enjoying a story better than that of the reader of a play.
Drama is composed nor a reader as fiction and poetry are, but for the
spectators or audience as the case may include. The playwright composes under a
knowledge of the limitations and advantages of a specific kind of theatre.
He then entrust his play to a director, actor, who
produces the play before an audience. The production is INTERPRETED AND EXECUTED for a given kind of stage in a given kind
of theatre. The particular kind varying in different period and times. The
audience reacts as a group, interprets and varies in their interpretation not only from
age to age but from night to night , from matinee to evening. (i.e afternoon performance of a play)
What the playwright sets down in words is usually restricted to direction
for the setting and costuming, directing for the acting and the speeches of the
characters. The result is an ‘IMITATION
OF AN ACTION’ a story acted by its characters. In an ideal completeness,
the result comes to a spectator who as one in an audience sea, hears and feels
the effect of the performed play in the ‘dramatic
present’
The dramatic present is a complex spell cast over the
spectators as they untie in a place or theatre seeing and hearing a story which
is happening there on the stage before them.
Playwrights are at one with actors, directors and technicians in dedication to a living
performances. With each performance, ideally happening for the first time and
with no one aware of the conclusion until the conclusion appears. Reflection and criticism must wait
until the final contain: Immediacy and intensity are re-created in each
performances before each audience. Even though the spectator is aware that he
is in a theatre watching a performance and that he knows the out come of the
play, the pull of dramatic present is forward.
Conclusively, the nature of drama is in the
presentation and performance of the play in the theatre. Drama is not meant to
be read like other forms of literature as we do to poetry and prose.
Thanks!
By Eguriase S. M. Okaka
07069229588 or 08026711232
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