Introduction to Drama

Lessons

Senior 3 · English

Introduction to Drama

5 lessons

Lesson 3 of 5

One Ceremony, Four Endings: Comedy, Tragedy, Melodrama and Tragicomedy

30 min

Let's begin

The same situation can make an audience laugh until they cry, or simply cry. What decides it is the form of the play: the kind of drama the playwright chooses. Here is one situation written four ways. It is a gusaba, the ceremony at which the groom's family formally asks the bride's family for her hand, and in which spokesmen on both sides compete in clever, polite and often very funny speeches: a ceremony that is already a kind of theatre.

Read: four short scenes

All four scenes were written for this lesson. The characters are imagined.

Scene A

The groom's spokesman, MUNYANEZA, rises, and looks secretly at the notes written on his palm. They have been smudged by sweat.

MUNYANEZA: Honoured family, we have come because … (peering at his hand) … because our young man has seen a … a "cow"? (He turns his hand upside down.) A flower! A flower, in your garden, whose name is … (squinting) … Aunt Bernadette?

(AUNT BERNADETTE, seventy, sits up very straight and adjusts her headscarf.)

AUNT BERNADETTE: At last, someone in this family has good taste.

(Everyone laughs. The groom hides his face. The real bride laughs loudest of all.)

Scene B

Years later. The same yard, empty. KAREMERA, the bride's father, now old, sits alone holding a letter.

KAREMERA: They came to ask for her with gifts and songs, and I sent them away. I said the boy's family had insulted mine, long ago, over a cow. A cow! My pride stood at the gate like a soldier. So she left, and married him far away, and her letters stopped. (He looks at the letter.) Now her son writes to me. He asks what kind of man his grandfather is. (Pause.) I do not know what to tell him.

(The light fades slowly until only the letter is lit.)

Scene C

Loud, dark music. RUSAGARA, a rich moneylender in a shining suit, bursts into the ceremony.

RUSAGARA: Stop! This wedding will not take place! Karemera owes me one million francs. Pay me today, or your land is mine, unless your daughter marries my son!

(The bride faints. Her mother screams. Suddenly, sweet music. The groom rushes in, holding up an envelope.)

GROOM: Here is your money, Rusagara: every franc of my savings! Now leave this good family in peace!

RUSAGARA: (shaking his fist) You have not seen the last of me! (He runs out. Everyone cheers.)

Scene D

A hospital ward. The groom, his leg in plaster after a road accident, lies in bed. The two families crowd round it, still in their ceremony clothes.

MUNYANEZA: We had a long speech prepared. Forty minutes, about cows. (The groom laughs, then winces with pain.) The doctor has given us five.

KAREMERA: Then use them well. His bus driver did not live to see this evening. Let us not waste the life we have been given.

(Silence. Then the bride takes the groom's hand, and Munyaneza begins, very fast. The nurse checks her watch, smiling.)

Definition

comedy: a play that aims to amuse, with ordinary characters, misunderstandings and a happy ending, often a wedding or a reunion.

tragedy: a serious play in which the main character, often a person of importance, falls into suffering or death because of a tragic flaw (also called hamartia), such as pride.

melodrama: a play with exaggerated emotions, characters who are clearly good or evil, sudden turns of events and often music, usually ending with good winning.

tragicomedy: a play that mixes serious and comic elements, in which a story that could end in disaster ends with some hope, or laughter and pain stand side by side.

Comprehension

What mistake does Munyaneza make in Scene A, and why?
In Scene B, why did Karemera send the groom's family away?
In Scene C, what does Rusagara demand, and how is the problem solved?
In Scene D, what has happened to the groom, and why does the ceremony have only five minutes?
Match each scene with its form: comedy, tragedy, melodrama, tragicomedy. Give one piece of evidence for each.
Which scene do you find most moving, and why?

Show answersHide answers

He reads the wrong name from his palm (Aunt Bernadette instead of the bride), because his notes were smudged by sweat.
Because of an old quarrel between the families over a cow; his pride would not let him agree.
He demands one million francs, or the land, unless the bride marries his son. The groom arrives with his savings and pays.
He has been injured in a road accident and is in hospital; the doctor has allowed only five minutes.
A: comedy (a misunderstanding, everyone laughs, the bride is happy). B: tragedy (a proud father's flaw causes lasting loss; he ends alone and sad). C: melodrama (a clear villain, a fainting bride, a last-minute rescue, music telling us what to feel). D: tragicomedy (an accident and a death beside jokes about long speeches; the ceremony goes ahead with hope).
Open answer, with a reason.

The four forms side by side

	Comedy	Tragedy	Melodrama	Tragicomedy
Aim	to amuse and to show human foolishness	to move the audience deeply and make it think about suffering	to thrill and stir strong, simple feelings	to show that life mixes joy and pain
Characters	ordinary people, often foolish or proud in a harmless way	a tragic hero: usually important and admired, but with a fatal flaw	stock characters: a pure hero, an innocent victim, a wicked villain	realistic people who face real danger but are not destroyed
Typical plot	misunderstandings, mistaken identity, tricks that go wrong	a fall from happiness to suffering, which the hero causes and recognises too late	sudden dangers, chases, last-minute rescues	a serious crisis with comic moments, turning towards hope
Ending	happy: often a wedding or reconciliation	unhappy: loss, ruin or death	good is rewarded and evil punished	mixed, but hopeful
The audience feels	amused, relieved	pity and fear, then a kind of release (catharsis)	excited, then satisfied	both sad and glad
Examples	Wole Soyinka, The Lion and the Jewel; Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream	Sophocles, Oedipus the King; Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet; Ola Rotimi, The Gods Are Not to Blame	many television soap operas and action films	Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale; Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, which Beckett called "a tragicomedy"

Comic relief is a funny moment placed inside a serious play to release tension for a while, like the joke about the forty-minute speech in Scene D.

The shape of each form

Worked example

Proving that Scene B is a tragedy

Is there a hero of some standing who falls? Karemera is a respected father and head of a family; he ends old and alone.
What is the tragic flaw? Pride: "My pride stood at the gate like a soldier."
Did his own choice cause the fall? Yes: he sent the families away over an old quarrel "over a cow".
Does he recognise his error too late? Yes: his daughter is gone, and he does not know how to answer his grandson.
Conclusion: a fall from happiness to loss, caused by a flaw and recognised too late: the pattern of tragedy.

Worked example

Why is "The Boundary Stone" not a tragedy?

Look for the flaw: Ndoli has one: fear and pride lead him to cheat.
Look at the ending: he recognises his error in time, puts the stone back, and the families agree to work together.
Decide: a serious play with a hopeful ending is closer to a serious drama or a tragicomedy than a tragedy.
Test: what would make it a tragedy? If Ndoli refused to move the stone, the families fought, and he lost his sister and his son's respect for ever.

Tip

Ask how it ends, and why. A happy ending through luck and laughter suggests comedy; a sad ending caused by the hero's own flaw suggests tragedy; good rewarded and evil punished, with big emotions, suggests melodrama; a mixed but hopeful ending suggests tragicomedy.

Warning

A sad play is not automatically a tragedy. In a tragedy the hero's own flaw or choice causes the fall.
A comedy is not just "a funny play": it also has a shape that moves from confusion to a happy ending.
Melodrama is not the same as "a drama with music". The word comes from the Greek melos, a song, but its key features are exaggerated emotion and simple good-and-evil characters.

"What is a Tragedy?", a literary guide for students from Oregon State University's School of Writing, Literature and Film. Note what the speaker says about hamartia and catharsis, then test both ideas on Scene B.

✦

Practice

Which form? (a) A king's jealousy destroys his family, and he realises his error only at the end. (b) Twin brothers are mistaken for each other in a market, and both end up happily married. (c) A wicked landlord ties the heroine to a railway line, and the hero rescues her just in time.
Give the term: (a) the tragic hero's fatal weakness; (b) the release of pity and fear that an audience feels at the end of a tragedy; (c) a funny moment in a serious play.
True or false? Correct the false ones. (a) Every play with a sad ending is a tragedy. (b) Melodrama uses stock characters such as heroes and villains. (c) Beckett called Waiting for Godot a tragicomedy.
Find in Scene C three features of melodrama.
Which line in Scene D is an example of comic relief? Explain why it is placed where it is.
Rewrite the ending of Scene A in 6 to 8 lines so that it becomes a melodrama.
Choose a familiar story (a folk tale or a recent event). In 80 to 100 words, explain how you would tell it as a comedy and how you would tell it as a tragedy.

Show answersHide answers

(a) tragedy; (b) comedy; (c) melodrama.
(a) tragic flaw (hamartia); (b) catharsis; (c) comic relief.
(a) False: in a tragedy the hero's own flaw or choice causes the fall; some sad plays are not tragedies. (b) True. (c) True.
Any three: loud, dark music for the villain and sweet music for the hero; a clearly wicked villain; a fainting bride and screaming mother; a last-minute rescue; the villain's threat "You have not seen the last of me!"; everyone cheering.
"We had a long speech prepared. Forty minutes, about cows." It comes in a sad, frightening situation (the accident, the hospital) and lets the audience and the characters laugh for a moment before the serious line about the bus driver.
Open answer. Check for a villain or danger, exaggerated emotion, and good winning in the end.
Open answer. A good answer changes the ending and the cause of events, not only the mood.

Sources and credits

Four scenes of the gusaba (imagined characters), definitions, comparison table, worked examples and practice: written by Ganzaa.
Diagram "The shape of each form": drawn by Ganzaa.
Video: "What is a Tragedy?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers, OSU School of Writing, Literature and Film, embedded from YouTube, not copied.

Written by Ganzaa.

1Read: four short scenes

2Comprehension

3The four forms side by side

4The shape of each form

Read: four short scenes

Comprehension

The four forms side by side

The shape of each form