DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS

DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS

In drama,  playwright tries to present life as it is lived in the real world. However, it is not possible to present real life on stage so he presents an illusion of reality. He needs certain devices to make this illusion as realistic as possible and the audience accepts the devices. In Shakespearean plays, sometimes a character talks to himself and this is called soliloquy.

In real life people do not talk to themselves like that but since the public especially in that age accepted it, it becomes a convention. Also in the Classical Age the convention was that the dialogue is presented in verse but in the modem convention in most plays the dialogue is presented in prose. Another good example of dramatic convention is in play production where the convention is that a room has three walls instead of the four walls and the action of a play in which the events take place in various places is presented on a single stage. In the words of Abrams, “conventions are necessary .or .convenient .devices, widely .accepted .by .the .public, for solving problems imposed by a particular artistic medium in representing reality.”  There are also conventions in terms of style. Abrams explains further: “conventions are identifiable elements of subject matter, form, or technique which recur repeatedly in works of literature. Conventions in this sense may be recurrent types of character, turns of plot, forms of versification, kinds of diction and style.”  It is not compulsory for every work to conform to preexisting conventions but what matters is how effectively an individual writer makes use of them.

Prologue:

This is the introductory part of the play. It could be an opening scene, a speech or an address. In most cases, it introduces the action and makes a statement on what the audience should expect in the play. In many plays the prologue foreshadows the events in the play and sometimes gives a background to the play as can be seen in the example below taken from Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus.

[Prologue] Enter Chorus.

Not marching in the fields of Trasimene

Where Mars did mate the warlike Carthagens

Nor sporting in the dalliance of love

In courts of kings where state is overturned,...

The form of Dr Faustus’ fortune, good or bad:

And now to patient judgments we appeal

And speak for Faustus in his infancy.

Now is he born of parents base of stock

In Germany within a town called Rhode;

At riper years to Wittenberg he went

Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up.

So much he profits in divinity

That shortly he was graced with doctor’s name

Excelling all, and sweetly can dispute

In th’ heavenly matters of theology;

Till swoll’n with cunning, of a self-conceit,

His waxen wings did mount above his reach

And melting, heavens conspired his overthrow!

For falling into a devilish exercise

And glutted now with learning’s golden gifts

He surfeits upon cursed necromancy :

Nothing so sweet as magic is to him      ,

Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss—

And this man that in his study sits.

Epilogue:

This is the direct opposite of the prologue. It is presented at the end of the play. It sums up the action of the .play and in some cases, makes a statement (an advice or a lesson to be learnt) on the action or events presented in the play.

Interlude:

An interlude in a play is a short piece of entertainment that is presented between the acts or major scenes in a play. It is believed that the term came into drama during the Renaissance Period to describe the dramatic form of early Tudor Period. It was then referred to as Tudor Interlude. Queen. .Elizabeth loved entertainment, funfair .and ceremonies so much that she was accompanied by extravagant display of affluence each time she made public appearance. These displays included some dramatic shows among which the interlude was most popular.

(5) Soliloquy:

Soliloquy is a speech made by a character when he is alone. The audience hears it but the other characters are not expected to hear it. It is very common in Renaissance plays. Shakespeare in particular made use of soliloquies in his play a lot. Playwrights use this device to reveal the thoughts or the feelings of specific characters in reaction to certain events or situations. “Customarily, the soliloquy is a means of giving expression to a complex state of mind and feeling, and in most cases the speaker is seen struggling with problems of utmost consequence.  This accounts for the intensity we find in soliloquy. Here, the character .thinks aloud as he talks to himself. He pretends that the audience is not there. Soliloquy also offers the dramatist a means of providing a point of view on the action of the play. Apart from serving as a means for revealing characters, it is used to make significant commentaries on events of the play. In the first soliloquy in Hamlet, Hamlet presents the state of his mind and his view on the world:

O that this too solid flesh would melt,

Thcnv and resolve itself into .a .dew,

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon against self-slaughter. O God I God!     ,

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

From it we learn of his father’s death?. the incestuous affair between his mother and his uncle and it foreshadows the catastrophe at the end of the play when he predicts that the affair will come to no good. He continues:

But two months dead- nay, not so much, not two- ,

So excellent a king, that was to this

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother

That he might not permit the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth,

Must I remember? Why, she would hang him

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on. And yet within a month-   -

Let me not think on it- Frailty, Wer name is woman- A little month, before those shoes were old With which he followed my poor fathers’s body,

Like Niobe, all tears- why, she- O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourned longer- married with my uncle,...

She married- O most wicked speed! To post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, and it cannot come to good

Break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

(Act t scene ii)

Aside is a dramatic convention in which a character speaks to himself or makes a comment in the presence of another character. However, that other character is not expected to hear the comment but the audience hears it. There is an actual stepping aside of the character who utters an aside from the other characters on the stage. This makes it more unrealistic because it is not possible for him to make the remark in their presence and they will not hear it. An aside is a very brief remark and in most cases it is indicated in the stage direction. Here is an example taken from Hamlet when Hamlet feigns madness and is discussing with Polonius:

POL. [Aside] though this is madness, yet there is method in it. Will We walk out of the air my lord?