Introduction to Drama
Senior 1 · Music
Introduction to Drama
Lesson 3 of 4
25 min
A house is built from a foundation, walls, a roof, doors and windows. A play is built from parts too, called the elements of drama. Knowing them helps you in two ways: you can explain why a play works or fails, and you can build a play of your own.
More than 2,300 years ago the Greek philosopher Aristotle, in a book called the Poetics, listed six parts of a tragedy: plot, character, thought, diction (the language), melody and spectacle. Teachers today use a slightly longer list, but Aristotle's six are still at its heart. Notice that one of them is melody: for the Greeks, song and music were part of every play.
Read this scene first. The elements are explained below it.
The Last Saturday
Characters: GATETE, an S1 student who loves football; his GRANDMOTHER; UMUTONI, the head of the village.
Setting: the yard of a house in a village, half past seven in the morning on the last Saturday of the month: the day of umuganda, the monthly community work.(GATETE, in a football shirt, tiptoes towards the gate with a ball under his arm. GRANDMOTHER comes out of the house carrying two hoes.)
GRANDMOTHER: Good morning, Gatete. You are up early. (holds out a hoe) Here is yours.
GATETE: Grandmother... today is the final of the inter-village cup. The whole team is waiting for me.
GRANDMOTHER: And the whole village is waiting for us. We are clearing the path to the health centre.
GATETE: (to the audience) One path. Other people can clear it. The cup comes once a year!
(He leans the hoe against the wall and runs for the gate. UMUTONI hurries in.)
UMUTONI: Come quickly, everyone! Last night's rain has washed stones across the path to the health centre. The ambulance cannot get through to old Habimana, and the men are carrying him on a stretcher.
(GATETE stops at the gate. Silence. He looks at the ball, then at the hoe.)
GATETE: (quietly) Old Habimana... he taught me to kick a ball.
(He puts the ball down, grabs the hoe and runs out ahead of the others. GRANDMOTHER smiles and follows.)
(Later. GATETE comes back, muddy and tired, with GRANDMOTHER and UMUTONI.)
UMUTONI: Habimana reached the health centre in time. The path is clear, thanks to young arms like yours.
GATETE: (sadly) And I have missed the final.
UMUTONI: Oh, the final? The referee was clearing the path with us. It will be played tomorrow.
(GATETE throws both arms in the air and freezes. The end.)
The plot is the sequence of events in a play, linked by cause and effect: this happens, so that happens. Many plays follow a shape called the plot pyramid, based on the work of the German writer Gustav Freytag, published in 1863.
Conflict is the struggle between opposing forces. Without it there is no drama: if Gatete had simply gone to umuganda happily, there would be nothing to watch. The main kinds are:
| Element | What it is | In The Last Saturday |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | where and when the action happens | a village yard, early morning, the last Saturday of the month |
| Theme | the main idea the play explores (Aristotle's "thought") | responsibility to the community |
| Dialogue | the conversation between characters | "And the whole village is waiting for us." |
| Monologue | a long speech by one character | none: the scene is too short to need one |
| Aside | a short remark to the audience that the other characters are supposed not to hear | "One path. Other people can clear it." |
| Stage directions | written instructions for movement, action and sound, in brackets and italics | "(GATETE stops at the gate. Silence.)" |
| Spectacle | everything the audience sees: set, costumes, props (objects the actors use), lighting | the football shirt, the ball, the hoes, the mud on Gatete's clothes |
| Music and sound | songs, drums, sound effects and silence (Aristotle's "melody") | the silence at the gate, which lets the audience feel Gatete's choice |
| Audience | the people the play is made for | a Rwandan school audience that knows umuganda |
The theme is a topic; the message is what the play says about it. Theme: responsibility to the community. Message: "When the community needs us, our own plans can wait."
Tip
No conflict, no drama. To analyse any play, ask five questions: Who? (characters) Where and when? (setting) What happens? (plot) What is the struggle? (conflict) What is it really about? (theme). Then find the climax: the moment the struggle turns.
Which moment in The Last Saturday is the climax? Give a reason.
Solution: Gatete stopping at the gate after Umutoni's news, then choosing the hoe. It is the moment of greatest tension, and his decision turns the story.
Name the kind of conflict. (a) A girl wants to join the school drumming group, but her village's custom says drumming is only for boys. (b) Farmers struggle to save their crops during a long drought. (c) A boy finds a wallet full of money and cannot decide whether to hand it in.
Solution: (a) person against society; (b) person against nature; (c) person against self.
Write a stage direction that shows, without any words, that Grandmother is disappointed when Gatete runs for the gate.
Solution (one possibility): (GRANDMOTHER watches him go, shakes her head slowly and lowers her hoe.)
What is the difference between dialogue and an aside?
Solution: dialogue is spoken between characters, who hear and answer each other. An aside is spoken to the audience, and the other characters on stage are supposed not to hear it.
In version C of Mugisha's story (previous lesson), name the exposition and the resolution.
Solution: exposition: Mugisha, a proud cyclist, takes his uncle's new bicycle to deliver milk despite a warning about the brake. Resolution: he confesses, offers to work to repay the loss, and the cooperative keeps buying the family's milk.
Remember
Sources and credits
The scene The Last Saturday, the plot pyramid diagram, the elements table and the practice were written by Ganzaa.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
