Drama and Theatre
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Theatre is live art in which performers present a story or situation to an audience. It combines literature, acting, design, music, and movement.
The Elements of Drama
Aristotle named six parts of tragedy (plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle), which remain a useful framework (Aristotle, trans. 1996). Modern teachers also refer to conflict, setting, theme, tension, and climax.
A Short History of World Theatre
| Period | Notes |
| Ancient Greece | Tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; comedies by Aristophanes; the chorus; open-air theatres |
| Ancient Rome | Comedy (Plautus, Terence) and tragedy (Seneca); large amphitheatres |
| Sanskrit theatre | Kalidasa's Shakuntala; the Natya Shastra's rules; stylized gesture and rasa |
| Medieval Europe | Mystery and morality plays in churches and marketplaces |
| Elizabethan England | Shakespeare, Marlowe; the Globe |
| Neoclassical and Romantic | French classical drama (Moliere, Racine); German Romantic theatre |
| Realism | Ibsen, Chekhov, and Stanislavski's acting "system" |
| Twentieth century | Brecht's epic theatre; theatre of the absurd (Beckett); political and experimental theatre |
| Contemporary | Devised, physical, community, and digital theatre |
For surveys, see Brockett and Hildy (2014) and Wilson and Goldfarb (2018).
Traditional Theatre of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has a rich heritage of ritual, folk, and modern theatre (Sarachchandra, 1966).
| Form | Description |
| Ritual theatre (thovil, sanni) | Healing ceremonies with masked dance, drumming, song, and comedy |
| Kolam | Masked dance-drama, with comic and satirical episodes, from the low country |
| Sokari | A folk drama performed as a votive offering to the goddess Pattini; not bound to a caste and highly theatrical (Obeyesekere, 1984; Sri Lankan Theatre blog, 2010) |
| Nadagama | A sung drama with Dravidian (South Indian) origins, which developed in Sinhala and Tamil; early Sinhala Nadagama plays were adapted from Tamil sources (Sri Lankan Theatre blog, 2010) |
| Koothu (Kooththu) | The Tamil folk drama tradition of the north and east, with regional styles often called Vadamodi and Thenmodi in the scholarship of Sivathamby and others (Sivathamby, 1981) |
Modern Sinhala theatre began a new phase in the 1950s. Ediriweera Sarachchandra combined elements of Nadagama, ritual drama, and folk music in his plays Maname (1956) and Sinhabahu (1961), which set a model for a Sinhala theatre rooted in tradition but modern in vision (Sarachchandra, 1966; Sri Lankan Theatre blog, 2010). Playwrights and directors such as Henry Jayasena and Dayananda Gunawardena continued to develop the form. Tamil theatre has its own scholars and practitioners, including the pioneering researchers of Jaffna and the East, such as K. Sivathamby, who studied the history of Tamil drama (Sivathamby, 1981).
Acting
| Skill | What it involves |
| Voice | Projection, articulation, pitch, pace, and pause |
| Body | Posture, gesture, movement, and stillness |
| Emotion and imagination | Believable inner life; Stanislavski (1936) taught actors to use the "magic if" and concentration |
| Improvisation | Spontaneous creation, listening, and responding |
| Ensemble | Working with others, and trust |
Brecht (1964) proposed that actors might show a character, not merely become one, in order to prompt the audience to think. In the Natya Shastra tradition, an actor expresses rasa through codified gestures, facial expressions, and movement.
Stagecraft and Production Roles
| Area | Content |
| Directing | Interprets the script and unites all elements |
| Set design | The physical environment |
| Lighting | Mood, focus, and time of day |
| Costume and makeup | Character and period |
| Sound and music | Atmosphere and cues |
| Stage management | Running rehearsals and performances |
| Producing and front of house | Budgets, publicity, and audience care |
Stage directions use the actor's viewpoint: stage right and stage left are from the actor's perspective facing the audience; upstage is away from the audience, and downstage is toward the audience.
Analyzing a Script
Read the play several times. Identify the central conflict, the main characters and their wants, the structure (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), the themes, and the style. Consider how you would stage it, and what the audience should feel.
Devising and Creating Theatre
Devised theatre is created collaboratively from a starting point such as a theme, a story, or an image (Schechner, 2013). Use improvisation, research, and rehearsal, and keep a log of decisions. Brook (1968) writes that theatre needs only an empty space, a performer, and an audience.
Being an Audience
Prepare, listen, and respond. After a performance, write what you noticed in the acting, direction, design, and script, and how it affected you.
CHAPTER 8