Dramatic devices & techniques

1. Dramatic Devices & Techniques: For B.A English (Major)1 st Sem.GU Indranil Sarkar Assam, India

2. Aside, Monologue and Soliloquy Aside: The term aside means ‘A remark made in an undertone so as to be inaudible to others nearby’.‘ An  aside  is a traditional  dramatic device . Here, a  character  conveys important information to the audience. By convention it is assumed that the character's speech is unheard to the other characters present on stage. It may be addressed to the audience directly or represent an unspoken thought. An aside is usually a brief comment, rather than a speech, such as a  monologue  or  soliloquy . An aside differs from a monologue or soliloquy. Unlike a public announcement, it occurs within the context of the play. An aside is, by convention, a true statement of a character's thought ; a character may be mistaken in an aside, but must not be dishonest.

3. Aside An aside is neither a monologue nor a soliloquy. A  Monologue  may be interpreted as one character speaking to another without getting (or expecting) a response. This is because monologue (literally) means, half of a dialogue (mono- = one, dia - = two. Example: When Henry V delivers his speech to the English camp in the Saint Crispin's Day speech ("we few, we happy few, we band of brothers") it is a monologue since he is speaking to other characters.  A  soliloquy  is a character speaking his thoughts out loud for the audience to hear. The lines can be directed either to the audience or, more often, the character is just speaking to himself. 

4. Masque Masque : The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe. However, it originated in Italy in forms including the intermedio . A public version of the masque was called the pageant . A masque involved music and dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design . Here, the architectural framing and costumes were designed by a renowned architect to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Often, the masquers who did not speak or sing were courtiers: King James I 's queen consort , Anne of Denmark , frequently danced with her ladies in masques between 1603 and 1611, and Henry VIII and Charles I performed in the masques at their courts. In the tradition of masque, Louis XIV danced in ballets at Versailles with music by Jean- Baptiste Lully .

5. Disguise A disguise can be anything which conceals or changes a person's physical appearance , including a wig , glasses , makeup , costume or other ways. Camouflage is one type of disguise for people, animals and objects. Hats, glasses, change in hair style or wigs, plastic surgery, and make-up are also used. Disguises are used by criminals such as bank robbers and by spies seeking to avoid identification. A well-known person or celebrity may choose to go "incognito" in order to avoid unwelcome press attention. In comic books and films disguises are used by superheroes and in science fiction by aliens . Dressing up in costumes is a Halloween tradition.

6. Disguise In comic book and superhero stories, disguises are used to hide secret identities and keep special powers secret from ordinary people. For example, Superman passes himself off as Clark Kent , and Spider-Man disguises himself in a costume so that he cannot be recognized as Peter Parker. In science fiction , aliens often take on a human appearance wearing "human suits" as a disguise. In epic poetry, Odysseus uses the disguise of a beggar to test his family's and servants' loyalty upon his return from a 20 voyage. Disguise is sometimes used in criminal activity and in spying, and is a common trope in detective fiction and in spy stories. Sherlock Holmes often disguised himself as somebody else to avoid being recognized.

7. Mime Mime: Mime is considered one of the earliest mediums of self-expression. Before there was spoken language, mime was used to communicate what the primitive people needed or wanted. Instead of fading into obscurity when the spoken language was developed, mime had became a form of entertainment. It then developed into a true theatrical form in ancient Greece, where performers enacted everyday scenes with the help of elaborate gestures. The principle mimes were known as ethologues , and the scenes they would perform would teach moral lessons. Mime originated in the Theater of Dionysus in Athens. Masked actors performed outdoors, in daylight, before audiences of 10,000 or more at festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of theater. Mime enjoyed much success and growth under Emperor Augustus of Rome. The most elaborate form of Mime, known as hypothesis , may have approached the level of true drama. This would be performed by companies of actors, who would often concentrate more on the development of their characters, than the plot itself.

8. Mime Often one actor would play the part of several individuals in the production. Mime continued to entertain through the Middle Ages, and reached its height in sixteenth century Italy, in the form of Commedia dell'Arte . Commedia dell' Arte originated in the market places of the Italian streets in the early 1500's. Street performers began donning masks with exaggerated comical features to draw attention to themselves and to complement their acrobatic skills. The characters they created became affectionately known as Zanni . Basically, there are two major types of mime: literal and abstract or a combination of both. These types are evident in all the schools of mime. Literal mime is primarily used for comedy and story theater. Literal mime generally tells a story with a conflict through the use of a main character. The actions and visual design clearly tell the viewers the story which is usually humorous. Abstract mime is used to generate feelings, thoughts and images from a serious topic or issue. Normally there is no plot or central character. It is considered a more intuitive experience or image rather than literal actions.

9. A deus ex machina A deus ex machina Latin : "god out of the machine"; plural: dei ex machina ) is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. The Latin phrase deus ex machina comes to English usage from Horace 's Ars Poetica , where he instructs poets that they must never resort to a god from the machine to solve their plots. He refers to the conventions of Greek tragedy, where a crane ( mekhane ) was used to lower actors playing gods onto the stage. The machine referred to in the phrase could be either the crane employed in the task, a calque from the Greek "god from the machine" (" ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός ," apò mēkhanḗs theós ), or the riser that brought a god up from a trap door. The idea is that the device of said god is entirely artificial or conceived by man

10. A deus ex machina The Greek tragedian Euripides is often criticized for his frequent use of the deus ex machina . More than half of Euripides's extant tragedies employ a deus ex machina in their resolution and some critics go so far as to claim that Euripides invented the deus ex machina , although Æschylus employed a similar device in his ' Eumenides '. Aristotle criticized the device in his " Poetics ", where he argued that the resolution of a plot must arise internally, following from previous action of the play. During the politically turbulent 17th and 18th Centuries, the deus ex machina was sometimes used to make a controversial thesis more palatable to the powers of the day. The novelist Andrew Foster Altschul satirized reality television in a 2011 novel titled Deus Ex Machina . The classic novel Lord of the Flies uses a deus ex machina in its conclusion when the savage children are rescued by a passing navy man.

11. Dance Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, [1] used as a form of expression , social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting. Dance may also be regarded as a form of nonverbal communication between humans, and is also performed by other animals ( bee dance , patterns of behaviour such as a mating dance). Gymnastics , figure skating and synchronized swimming are sports that incorporate dance, while martial arts kata are often compared to dances. Motion in ordinarily inanimate objects may also be described as dances ( the leaves danced in the wind ). Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social , cultural , aesthetic , artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as folk dance ) to virtuoso techniques such as ballet .

12. Dance Dance can be participatory , social or performed for an audience . It can also be ceremonial , competitive or erotic . Dance movements may be without significance in themselves, such as in ballet or European folk dance , or have a gestural vocabulary / symbolic system as in many Asian dances. Dance can embody or express ideas, emotions or tell a story . Dancing has evolved many styles. Breakdancing and Krumping are related to the hip hop culture . African dance is interpretative. Ballet, Ballroom, Waltz, and Tango are classical styles of dance while Square Dance and the Electric Slide are forms of step dances . Every dance, no matter what style, has something in common. It not only involves flexibility and body movement, but also physics. If the proper physics are not taken into consideration, injuries may occur. Choreography is the art of creating dances. The person who creates (i.e., choreographs) a dance is known as the choreographer

13. Dance What is the importance of ‘Dance’ in a drama? “Dance, the most physical of all the arts, is the one that speaks most eloquently about the implications of mortality -- and at the same time voices our defiance. No other art form speaks so directly about the ephemerality of life, or about the human instinct to aim for that perfect moment of self-realization. No other art form gives such a visible immediacy to that transience, that striving. Dance happens and is gone, nothing more than a trace in the air, as evanescent as a dream. What we treasure about it, as much as the moment of dance itself, is the memory of that moment. It is an art form that marries celebration to regret: an art form that, entirely through the language of the body, speaks about the whole human conundrum.“: Max Wyman

14. Chorus Chorus is a group of actors who function as a unit. It was a characteristic feature of the Greek tragedy. The members of the chorus shared a common identity, such as Asian Bacchantes or old men of Thebes. The leader of the chorus was called choragos . He sometimes spoke and acted separately. In some cases, the chorus participated directly in the action; in others they were restricted in observing the action and commenting on it. The chorus also separated the individual sins by singing and dancing choral odes, though just what the singing and dancing were like is uncertain. The odes were in strict metrical patterns; sometimes they were direct comments on the action and characters, and at other times they were more general statements and judgments. A chorus in Greek fashion is not common in later plays, although there are instances such as T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, in which the Women of Canterbury served as a chorus.

15. Play within a play A play within a play is a  dramatic  device where a play is performed on stage by characters in a play, often with other characters forming an "audience". The play within a play often has symbolic and psychological significance, as well as having an important function in the  plot . The device of ‘Play within a play’ was apparently first used by  Thomas Kyd  in  The Spanish Tragedy  around 1587.There it formed the spectacular resolution of the story.  William Shakespeare  used this device in  A Midsummer Night's Dream  and his  Hamlet . In his use of the play within the play, Kyd seemed to take  Aristotle's  idea of drama as  catharsis  to its  apocalyptic  conclusion. Play within a play can also be an ironic comment on drama itself, with inversions and reversals of its basic elements: actors become authors, while the audience in the theatre sometimes loses its privileged omniscient position because it is suddenly not clear what the characters on stage are doing. Alternatively, a play might be about the production of a play, and include the performance of all or part of the play, as in  Noises Off  or  The Producers .

16. Songs and Music ‘Songs and Music’ are essential components of a drama. They help developing total dramatic effect in a play or theatre. Music provides various functions in a play in addition to their entertainment role . Songs in a play may be viewed under the following heads according to their functions: I.Exposition songs: In ancient Greek dramas, the chorus used to introduce the plot and purpose of the drama to the audience in the form of Exposition songs. It has been proved a very effective dramatic device. The tradition has been continuing from ‘ Dr.Faustus ’ to ‘Life of Galileo’.

17. Songs and Music ii.Conflict songs: At the heart of every drama lies conflict. Bernard Shaw says: ‘No conflict, No Drama’. A conflict song narrates the mental-conflict of the character when he struggles to attain differing goals. Sometimes these songs narrate the general conflict of the plot. iii. Narration Songs: Not all pertinent action in drama occurs on stage. Narration songs describe events that we otherwise do not see. iv. Emotional climax songs: When characters reach a point in the drama where they can’t help but explode with feelings of love or success or simply the joy of life, music serves to amplify these emotions to a level above mere words. Emotional climax songs are exuberant, celebratory, and infectious, allowing the audience to share the characters’ passion and excitement. iv.Summary songs: Similar to narration songs, summary songs compress lengthy amounts of time into one number.

18. Edited By: Indranil Sarkar Sapatgram,Assam,India NB.It's a non-profit academic presentation for time-pass.