Part IV, Chapter 20: The Dramatic Vision: An Overview, Part 2

In fiction, point of view refers to the narrative voice of the story, the speaker or guiding intelligence through which the characters and actions are presented.

In drama, the term refers generally to a play's perspective or focus—the ways in which dramatists direct attention to the play's characters and their concerns.

Playwrights have unique ways of conveying tone or atmosphere beyond those techniques used by poets and fiction writers.

Playwrights have unique ways of conveying tone or atmosphere beyond those techniques used by poets and fiction writers.

One of the most common methods playwrights employ to control the tone of the play is dramatic irony.

This type of situational (as opposed to verbal) irony refers to circumstances in which characters have only a partial, incorrect, or misguided understanding of what is happening, while both readers and other characters understand the situation completely.

This type of situational (as opposed to verbal) irony refers to circumstances in which characters have only a partial, incorrect, or misguided understanding of what is happening, while both readers and other characters understand the situation completely.

Dramatic symbols, which can be characters, settings, objects, actions, situations, or statements, can be either cultural or contextual.

Cultural or universal symbols—such as crosses, flags, snakes, and flowers—are generally understood by the audience or reader regardless of the context in which they appear.

Cultural or universal symbols—such as crosses, flags, snakes, and flowers—are generally understood by the audience or reader regardless of the context in which they appear.

Contextual or private symbols develop their impact only within the context of a specific play or even a particular scene.

When a play offers consistent and sustained symbols that refer to general human experiences, that play can be construed as an allegory, or at least as being allegorical.

The ideas that the play dramatizes make up the play's theme or meaning.

It is performance that makes a play immediate, exciting, and powerful. The elements of performance are the actors, the director and producer, the stage, sets or scenery, lighting, costumes and makeup, and the audience.

When they move about the stage according to patterns called blocking, they move as they imagine the characters might move—slowly, swiftly, smoothly, hesitatingly, furtively, stealthily, or clumsily, and gesturing broadly or subtly.

In the theater, all aspects of performance are shaped and supervised by the director and the producer.

In the theater, all aspects of performance are shaped and supervised by the director and the producer.

Most modern theaters feature an interior proscenium stage—a picture-frame stage that is like a room with one wall missing so that the audience can look in on the action.

Most productions use sets (derived from the phrase "set scenes," i.e., fixed scenes) or scenery to establish the action in place and time, to underscore the ideas of the director, and to determine the level of reality of the production.

Some productions employ a single, neutral set throughout the play and then mark scene changes with the physical introduction of movable properties (or props)—chairs, tables, beds, flower vases, hospital curtain-enclosures, trees, shovels, skulls, and so on.

The result is that lighting has become an integral element of set design, especially when the dramatist uses a scrim (a curtain that becomes transparent when illuminated from behind), which permits great variety in the portrayal of scenes and great rapidity in scene changes.

Actors make plays vivid by wearing costumes and using makeup, which help the audience understand a play's time period together with the occupations, mental outlooks, and socioeconomic conditions of the characters.

Television has brought film versions of plays to the home screen, together with innumerable situation comedies ("sitcoms"), continuous narrative dramas (including soap operas), made-for-TV films, documentary dramas ("docudramas"), short skits on comedy shows, and many other types.

Television has brought film versions of plays to the home screen, together with innumerable situation comedies ("sitcoms"), continuous narrative dramas (including soap operas), made-for-TV films, documentary dramas ("docudramas"), short skits on comedy shows, and many other types.

Television has brought film versions of plays to the home screen, together with innumerable situation comedies ("sitcoms"), continuous narrative dramas (including soap operas), made-for-TV films, documentary dramas ("docudramas"), short skits on comedy shows, and many other types.

The choruses were made up of young men who sang or chanted lengthy songs that the Athenians called dithyrambs; the choruses also performed interpretive dance movements during the presentations.

Soon, additional men from the choruses took acting roles, and the focus of the performances shifted from the choral group to individual actors. Greek tragedy as we know it had come into being.

Not long after the emergence of tragedy, comedy became an additional feature of the festivals.

The goal of the new plays was to create a complete cycle, dramatizing the biblical accounts of world history from the Creation to Judgment Day.

The major purpose of farce, which was also a strong element in the Athenian Old Comedy, is to make audiences laugh.

Resembling tragedy but stepping back from tragic outcomes is melodrama, a form in which most situations and characters are so exaggerated that they seem ridiculous.