Stories That Walk and Talk: What Drama Is, How It Differs and What It Does – Introduction to Drama (Senior 3 English) | Ganzaa

Introduction to Drama

Lessons

Senior 3 · English

Introduction to Drama

5 lessons

Lesson 1 of 5

Stories That Walk and Talk: What Drama Is, How It Differs and What It Does

30 min

Let's begin

In S1 you met drama as one of the genres of literature, and in unit 4 you learned the language of the stage. This unit is an introduction to drama itself: what it is, how plays are built, the forms they take and the techniques actors use, ending with a play that you write and perform. It begins with a question older than writing: why do people act out stories at all?

Before you read

Have you ever watched a play, a sketch at a school event or a drama on television or radio? What do you remember about it?
What can a play do that a story in a book cannot?

Reading: Stories That Walk and Talk

An information text written for this lesson.

1 Long before anyone wrote a play down, people were acting out stories. Hunters showed how a hunt was won by playing both the hunter and the animal. In Rwanda, a young man reciting his ibyivugo, a poem praising his own courage, stepped forward, raised his spear and spoke with his whole body. At an igitaramo, a good storyteller changed her voice for every character, and the listeners answered back. All of these were the seeds of drama.

2 The word drama comes from a Greek word meaning "action" or "a thing done". In ancient Athens, plays were performed at festivals in honour of the god Dionysus, in open-air theatres cut into hillsides, where thousands of people watched together. The Greeks gave us two of the forms that are still performed today, tragedy and comedy, and many of the words we use to describe plays.

3 What makes drama different from the other genres? A story in a novel is told by a narrator, who can describe what characters think and explain what happened. A poem speaks in a voice, often in lines with rhythm and imagery. A play, on the other hand, is shown. It is written to be performed by actors in front of an audience, and almost everything we learn comes from what the characters say and do. Its script has only two kinds of writing: the dialogue that the characters speak, and the stage directions that tell the actors how to move and the director what the audience must see and hear. And it happens in the present: the events take place in front of us, now.

4 Drama lives in many places today: on the stage, on the radio, on television and in film. Radio drama is especially popular in Rwanda. Urunana, a radio soap opera about health and family life set in an imaginary village, has been broadcast since 1999, and Musekeweya ("New Dawn") tells the story of two neighbouring villages learning to settle their conflicts peacefully. Without any scenery at all, voices, music and sound effects create a whole world in the listener's mind.

5 Why has drama lasted so long? First, it entertains: people have always loved to laugh, cry and gasp together. Second, it educates: a play can show the result of a choice more powerfully than a lecture, which is why health workers and teachers use it. Third, it preserves culture, keeping alive songs, dances, proverbs and ways of speaking. Fourth, it criticises society, often through laughter, so that audiences can see their own faults and those of their leaders. Finally, it brings people together: actors must work as a team, and an audience that shares an experience leaves a little more united than it came.

Definition

Glossary

ibyivugo (n): traditional Rwandan poems of self-praise, recited with bold gestures, in which a speaker celebrates his courage and deeds.
genre (n): a kind or type of literature, such as prose, poetry or drama.
audience (n): the people who watch or listen to a performance.
script (n): the written text of a play, film or broadcast.
soap opera (n): a drama series on radio or television that follows the lives of the same characters over a long time.
sound effects (n): sounds other than speech or music, such as rain or a knock at the door, made for a performance.
preserve (v): to keep something alive or in good condition for the future.

Comprehension

Give two examples from paragraph 1 of "seeds of drama" before plays were written down.
What does the word drama mean in Greek?
Where and for what occasion were plays performed in ancient Athens?
What are the two kinds of writing in a script?
Name the two Rwandan radio dramas in paragraph 4 and say what each is about.
Explain the difference between a story that is "told" and a play that is "shown".
How can radio drama "create a whole world" without scenery?
Which function of drama do you think matters most in your community today? Give a reason.

Show answersHide answers

Any two: hunters acting out a hunt; a young man reciting ibyivugo with gestures; a storyteller at igitaramo changing her voice for each character.
"Action" or "a thing done".
In open-air theatres cut into hillsides, at festivals in honour of the god Dionysus.
Dialogue and stage directions.
Urunana: a radio soap opera about health and family life in an imaginary village. Musekeweya ("New Dawn"): two neighbouring villages learning to settle their conflicts peacefully.
In a told story a narrator describes and explains events and thoughts; in a play, the audience learns almost everything from what the characters say and do in front of them.
Through voices, music and sound effects, which make the listener imagine the place and the action.
Open answer, with a reason.

Drama, poetry and prose side by side

	Prose (stories, novels)	Poetry	Drama (plays)
Made to be	read	read or recited	performed and watched
Who tells it	a narrator	a speaker (persona)	no narrator, usually; the characters speak for themselves
Written in	sentences and paragraphs	lines and stanzas	dialogue and stage directions, divided into acts and scenes
Thoughts shown by	the narrator's description	the speaker's words and images	speech, action and special techniques such as the soliloquy
Time	usually told in the past	any time	happens in the present, in front of the audience
Needs	a reader	a reader or listener	actors, a space and an audience

Vocabulary: the people and parts of a play

Word	Meaning
playwright	a person who writes plays (not playwrite: a wright is a maker)
director	the person who decides how the play is performed and guides the actors
cast	all the actors in a play; to cast someone is to give them a part
role / part	the character an actor plays
lines	the words an actor must learn and speak
rehearse / rehearsal	to practise a play before the performance; a practice session
costume	the clothes an actor wears to play a character
props	objects used on stage, such as a basket or a letter
scene / act	a short section of a play in one place and time / a main division of a play, made of scenes

Worked example

Turning a line of prose into drama

Prose: Gisa was frightened of the dog, but he did not want his sister to know, so he pretended to laugh.

Remove what only a narrator can say: "he was frightened" and "he did not want his sister to know" are thoughts. A play must show them.
Show the fear through action, in a stage direction: (GISA steps back quickly from the dog.)
Show the pretending through dialogue and a direction on how to speak: GISA: (laughing too loudly) Ha! Look how fat he is!
Result: the audience sees the fear and hears the false laugh, and works out the truth for itself. That is drama "showing", not telling.

Important

Listening script: a scene from a radio drama, for four readers

Only the readers open the script; everyone else keeps it closed until the tasks are done. About three minutes. The programme, "Our Hill", and its characters are imagined. The reader of SOUND makes the sound effects or reads them aloud.

Open the script (readers only)Open the script (readers only)

SOUND: Rain on a metal roof. A baby crying.

NARRATOR: It is evening on Our Hill. In Uwizeye's house, the baby has been crying since sunset, and the rain has not stopped.

UWIZEYE: Shh, shh, little one. Mama, tomorrow is vaccination day. The health worker says I must take him to the health centre in the morning.

MUKARUSHEMA (her mother-in-law): Vaccination? Haven't you heard what they're saying at the market? That the injections make babies ill.

UWIZEYE: Who says that?

MUKARUSHEMA: Everybody. Nyirangeri heard it from her cousin, and her cousin read it on her phone.

SOUND: A knock at the door.

NIYONZIMA: Good evening! It's Niyonzima, the community health worker. May I come in out of this rain?

MUKARUSHEMA: (coldly) You've come at the right time. We were talking about your injections.

NIYONZIMA: (laughing gently) Then let's talk. What have you heard?

UWIZEYE: That they make babies sick.

NIYONZIMA: Some babies have a sore leg or a little fever for a day afterwards. That is normal; it means the body is learning to fight. But ask yourself where that message came from. Did a nurse write it? A doctor? Or a cousin of a cousin?

SOUND: A long pause. The rain.

MUKARUSHEMA: (quietly) When I was young, nobody on this hill was vaccinated against measles. I lost a son to it. He was four.

NIYONZIMA: I'm sorry, Mama. That is exactly the illness this vaccine prevents.

MUKARUSHEMA: (after a moment) Uwizeye. What time does the health centre open?

SOUND: Music rises.

NARRATOR: Will Uwizeye and her mother-in-law be at the health centre in the morning? Listen again next week, on "Our Hill".

First listening: the gist

What problem does the family face?
Who helps them to decide, and how does the scene end?

Second listening: the details

Where did Mukarushema hear that injections make babies ill, and where had the story started?
According to Niyonzima, what small effects can follow a vaccination, and what do they mean?
Which three sound effects are used, and what does each tell the listener?

Third listening: drama for the ear

What is the job of the NARRATOR in a radio drama? Why would a stage play need one less?
What makes Mukarushema change her mind? Why is this more powerful than a list of facts?
Which functions of drama from the reading does this scene show?

Show answersHide answers

Uwizeye should take her baby to be vaccinated tomorrow, but her mother-in-law has heard that the injections make babies ill.
Niyonzima, the community health worker. It ends with Mukarushema asking what time the health centre opens, and the narrator asking whether they will go.
At the market, from Nyirangeri, who heard it from her cousin, who read it on her phone.
A sore leg or a little fever for a day; they show the body is learning to fight the illness.
Rain on a metal roof (evening, bad weather, the setting); a baby crying (the baby is unsettled, the reason for worry); a knock at the door (someone arrives). Music at the end closes the scene.
To describe the setting and link the scenes, because the listener cannot see anything. On a stage the audience sees the set, the time of day and the actors, so less needs to be said.
She remembers losing her own son to measles. A personal memory makes the audience feel the danger, not just know it, so the change is believable and moving.
It educates (about vaccination and false messages) and entertains (it keeps us waiting for next week); it also shows the family coming together.

Tip

Read a play as a director. When you read a script, picture the stage: who is standing where, what they are holding, what the audience sees. Read the stage directions as carefully as the speeches; they often carry the most important information.

Warning

A play is not the same as a story with a lot of speech in it. A story has a narrator; a play has a script of dialogue and stage directions.
Spell it playwright, not playwriter or playwrite.
Audience is a group noun: The audience was silent (or were in British English when you think of the individuals). Never audiences for one group.

The emergence of drama as a literary art, a TED-Ed lesson by Mindy Ploeckelmann. Note how drama began in ancient Greece and two features of early plays that are still used today.

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Practice

Give the word for each meaning: (a) a person who writes plays; (b) all the actors in a play; (c) objects used on stage; (d) to practise a play before performing it.
Prose, poetry or drama? (a) It is written in lines and stanzas and has a speaker. (b) It has dialogue and stage directions. (c) A narrator tells us what a character is thinking.
True or false? Correct the false ones. (a) A play is mainly written to be read silently. (b) Radio drama uses sound effects instead of scenery. (c) The word drama comes from a Latin word meaning "story".
Which function of drama does each example show? (a) A play about cholera performed at a market. (b) A comedy that makes fun of a lazy official. (c) A performance of an old dance and song at a wedding.
Turn this prose into two lines of drama with one stage direction: Keza was angry with her brother for losing her phone, but she spoke very quietly.
In three sentences, explain to a friend who has never seen a play how a play differs from a novel.
Listen to, or remember, a radio drama. Write 60 to 80 words describing how it uses voices and sounds to tell its story.

Show answersHide answers

(a) playwright; (b) cast; (c) props; (d) rehearse.
(a) poetry; (b) drama; (c) prose.
(a) False: it is written to be performed in front of an audience. (b) True. (c) False: it comes from a Greek word meaning "action" or "a thing done".
(a) to educate; (b) to criticise society; (c) to preserve culture.
Sample answer: KEZA: (very quietly, not looking at him) Where is my phone? BROTHER: I … I left it on the bus.
Sample answer: A novel is read, and a narrator tells you what happens and what people think. A play is performed by actors in front of you, and you learn everything from what they say and do. It is happening now, as you watch.
Open answer. Check that it names specific voices or sounds and their effect.

Sources and credits

Information text "Stories That Walk and Talk", glossary, comparison tables, worked example, radio drama script "Our Hill" (imagined programme and characters), listening tasks and practice: written by Ganzaa.
Facts on Urunana (on air since 1999): Urunana Development Communication, About us. On Musekeweya: J-PAL, Using Media to Change Norms and Behaviors in Rwanda.
Photo: Performance in the Theatre of Epidaurus, 091065, Zde, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Video: The emergence of drama as a literary art, Mindy Ploeckelmann, TED-Ed, embedded from YouTube, not copied.

Written by Ganzaa, except the photo credited above. This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1Before you read

2Reading: Stories That Walk and Talk

3Comprehension

4Drama, poetry and prose side by side

5Vocabulary: the people and parts of a play

6First listening: the gist

7Second listening: the details

8Third listening: drama for the ear

Before you read

Reading: Stories That Walk and Talk

Comprehension

Drama, poetry and prose side by side

Vocabulary: the people and parts of a play

First listening: the gist

Second listening: the details

Third listening: drama for the ear