MONOGRAPH ON DRAMATIC ART BY AKWU SUNDAY VICTOR - NIGERIA

Introduction
This study is aimed at enriching the you with the knowledge of dramatic literature. Drama is an art form that has a long history and tradition. We shall, however, concern ourselves with the description of drama, types of drama, terms used in dramatic studies and criticism and above all dichotomize the nexus between radio drama and television drama.

Objective
By the end this study, it is hoped that you will get yourselves acclimatized with what dramatic literature entails.  Drama is an amalgamation of speech (dialogue) and gestures (actions) in an artistic, organic whole. Thus grasping all the condiments that come together in dramatic composition will help in the deconstruction of meaning by a critical reader.

DEFINITION OF DRAMA
Drama has been defined by many literary scholars from different perspectives. Below are some of the definitions proffered by scholars.

John Dryden defines drama thus "a play ought to be a just and lively image of human nature representing its passions and humours and the change of fortune to which it is subjected for the delight and instruction of mankind drama has also been."

Drama is the representation of human life, actions, sorrows, joys, emotions, conversations, etc. on a stage before a live audience.

Aristotle in his definition of drama emphasizes the concept of mimesis,  which means imitation of human beings in action. He conceives of drama as a story acted out by people on stage before an audience, who should better be described as participants  because drama is an expressive form designed  mainly for our perception.

THE NATURE OF DRAMA
We learn by imitation. We imitate our parents and friends consciously or unconsciously. We imitate the mannerism, gestures, postures of others; a times, we make caricature of others as to evoke laughter in our audience. Children are known for imitating their parents in what is referred to as Children Play. Children assume the social roles of their parents without the influence of the 'outside' world. The girls play the role of 'mothers' and 'daughters' while the boys that of 'fathers' and 'male children' to those who are of the older generation. Imitating others, therefore, is an innate aspect of man.

Drama, as a genre of literature thrives on the imitation of human nature. Dramatic literature imitates man when he is happy (comedy) and when he is sad (tragedy.) Through drama, a certain aspect of man that is not good could be ridiculed and subjected to general laughter (satire).

To achieve the dramatic, two things come into play. The first is the "story" while the second is "the stage." Drama is performed or acted before live audience. A dramatic book is but a script. It is dead. The characters are also lifeless, numb and dumb. On the stage, drama is given a dose of life. Characters transmuted into actors and actresses. They gesture with their hands and body and they deliver their lines (dialogue.)

We then can say that a drama is unique in many ways. It is a story presented not by one voice but by the combined voices of the playwright and the play figures who themselves may be historical personages or figments of the writer's imagination. Stephen Minot outlines the following as the core essence of dramatic literature in his book, The Three Genres: Poetry, Prose, and Drama. To him, drama is:

A dramatic art
A visual art
An auditory art
A physically produced art
A continuous art
A spectator art

This entails that, drama is a dramatic and theatrical art, an illusion of reality brought about by the fact that real humans perform the action of the story live with audio and visual impact on the consciousness of the viewers.

Aristotle in his Poetics has defined the tragic dramatic art as an imitation of human action. This means that drama is one of the ways man has attempted, or has been attempting to make meaning out of his world. Thus, drama is a "dramatic art. That is, it generally has emotional impact or force" (282) on the reader and the audience.

Drama thus "imitates human actions and impersonates human beings." (18) To impersonate is to behave like who you are not. You wear the character and behavior of who you are not. You take up the mannerisms of others; you give life on the stage to a character in a script that hitherto was a text.

THE ORIGIN OF DRAMA
The word drama originated from the Greek word "dran" which means to do or to act. It encompasses all written plays irrespective of form or genre. Drama, it must be said, is as old as man. Aristotle classified drama as a kind of poetry. Since we say that poetry is as old as man and drama is initially a type of poetry, then drama is as old as man. However, Aristotle in his Poetics has traced the origin of drama and from classical documents; it is obvious that drama in Western tradition originated from Athens in Greece through the writings of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus.

Prior to the scripting of drama, drama was connected with the cult of Dionysus. During the festival of Dionysus, competitive dramatic performances were staged. These dramatic performances were related to the traditional Greek culture and their ancient mythologies documented by Homer and other antic writers.

While in England, the Romans introduced the amphitheatre which was a stage that could be moved to any destination they desired. The amphitheatre served as a stage on which plays usually of Roman tradition were acted. Although this dramatic tradition influenced the English dramatic tradition but left little traces. English drama began through the activities of jesters, clowns and minstrels. These set of actors were persecuted by the Church in England but this did not last long. It was the Church in England which eventually helped the development of drama in England through the acting of scenes in the Bible like the birth of Jesus Christ and other events in the Bible. This genre of drama was popularly referred to to as the "religious plays" and it was through this that drama developed in England especially when playwrights like John Skeleton, Henry Medwall, William Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe began to write. Their success in helping the growth of drama was mainly because they wrote plays which dealt with secular themes.

Africans had their own form of drama before the English dramatic tradition came. Africans were used to acting important folklore and other moral stories at the village square before villagers. Then drama was mixed with some form of ritual, dancing and music. English dramatic tradition only influenced African drama in introducing its form. African plays which hitherto existed in oral form became scripted like European plays.

SUMMARY
Drama is best realized when acted on stage, the stage is very important before a play can be fully realized. A play should therefore be acted before an audience with actors in costumes. Lighting effects in modern times can be used to create the desired time of the day. Conversation or dialogue is the most important language device used in drama, actions of the characters/casts are also very important. Sometimes the language in drama may be written in verse style like poems (Macbeth) or in prose form.

THE TYPES OF DRAMA
Drama as mentioned earlier is the imitation of human action. There are two major types of drama and these are:

Tragedy
Comedy

However, there are other sub-types which include:
Tragic-comedy
Burlesque
Farce
Melodrama
Dance-drama
Satire
Ballet
Masque etc.

TRAGEDY
We must begin by acknowledging the contribution of Aristotle in schematizing of drama.  In Poetics¸ he speculates on the possible origin of the forms of drama and even on the provenance of the word. To him, drama is the name "given to such poems as representing action" (7). He further maintain that: " the Dorians claim the invention of both Tragedy and Comedy" (7).  He observes that, comedy and tragedy have the same origin in the following words:

Tragedy as also comedy was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the authors of Dithyrambs the other with those of the phallic songs. […] Tragedy advanced by slow degrees, each new elements that showed itself was in turn developed having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped. (9)

Aristotle is telling us that both tragedy and comedy came from the same humble beginning but tragedy developed gradually until it assumed the form it is now. He identified Aeschylus as the "first to introduced a second actor; he diminished the importance of the chorus and assigned the leading part to the dialogue" (9) while Sophocles is said to have "raised the number of actors to three, and added scene-painting." (9) Later on, the "short plot was discarded for one of greater compass and the grotesque diction of the earlier satiric form for the stately manner of tragedy. (9)

Tragedy dramatizes, therefore, the fall or death of a noble man as a result of a weakness in character, but who wins our sympathy because of his other impressive qualities. Tragedy captures the saddest aspect of life. The story often ends with the death of the hero or heroine or the downfall of the protagonist from the social pinnacle.

COMEDY
This is a form of drama which attempts to ridicule and condemn the evils in the society and at the same time commend the virtues in the society by the use of comic or funny scenes so that emotional tension does not develop.  Most comedies deal with prevalent moral and social problems in the society. Through the use of different comic devices, comedy condemns the evils in society by making jest of them. In this way the audience will be drawn into laughter even when they see some of their actions being condemned. However, the aim of comedy is not just for amusement, but to pass across an important message which can correct the society through amusing scenes, spectacles, and actions.

FARCE
This is an extreme form of comedy. While it has all the properties of comedy, it is primarily meant to create laughter and amuse people. Unlike comedy, it does not seek to pass across any message; its primarily aim is to amuse.

TRAGI-COMEDY
This is a blend of tragedy and comedy. Although it originated in ancient Greece, it was really developed by Ben Johnson, a contemporary of William Shakespeare. Tragic-comedy is a play which begins as a tragedy with intense suffering and end as a comedy or it may start as a comedy and end as a tragedy. However, the effect of tragedy or comedy is not strongly felt because of the intermittent use of comic scenes and the use of irony, sarcasm and hyperbole.

ELEMENTS OF DRAMA
Elements are the constituent parts that make up a whole. Elements of drama are the combined effects that give a dramatic work of art its particular quality. The effective use of the elements of playmaking helps in creating beauty and passes across the intended message.  The elements of drama therefore, include the following:

Plot
Setting
Character/characterization
Theme
Language
Action
Dialogue
Stage

PLOT
The plot is the arrangement of events in a dramatic work of art. Traditionally, the plot has a beginning, middle and an end. The plot begins with an exposition; the conflict develops to a climax, leading to a denouement then the conclusion. We have three different types of plot structure and these include:

Chronological or sequential plot structure
Media res plot structure
From the end to the beginning

The modern dramatist employs a plethora of plot structures to create a complex organic whole. Thus, some plot structures avoid the cause and effect relationship but use disjointed plotting which always makes the work complex to an impatient reader.

SETTING
This refers to the time, location and social condition in which the action of a dramatic work takes place. The following are the elements of setting.

The general environment of the characters, such as the religious, mental, moral, social, and emotional conditions through which the characters move.

The geographical location, topography and scenery
The time or period in which the action takes place (for example, the historical epoch, season of the year, time of the day).
A literary work could be set in Suntai, Takum, Bali, Jalingo, Wukari etc. this is the geographical locale, however, the historical setting has to do with the period in history where a work of art takes place or is set. The history of Africa is segmented into three phases: precolonial, colonial, and the postcolonial epochs. African drama captures the history and evolution of Africa from the pre to postcolonial epochs.

CHARACTER/CHARACTERIZATION
Characters are the persons whose speeches and actions pass across the author's intended message. However, the creation of persons and the roles given each to perform is characterization. In other words, characterization is the drawing of characters through the use of devices like giving imaginary people special attributes to make  them appear real to the reader. We have four methods of characterization and these are

What the writer says about the character.
What the character says about himself.
What other characters say about a character.
The actions and inactions of the character.

There are however, four types of character:

Round or dynamic character: this is one who develops or changes as the story of a work of literary art. The character develops from good to worse or worse to good. There is a change in physical status, in appearance, and in nature.

Flat or static character: a flat or static character is one who does not develop or change as the story of the work develops or unfolds. The character does not change by the events and sociohistorical upheavals in the narrative.

Major and minor characters: A major character is a character who takes active and important part from the beginning of the narrative to its end. All the actions of the story are built around the activities of the major character. The death of the major character affects greatly the plot structure. A minor character is one who does not play any major or decisive part in the narrative. He or she may not feature from the beginning of the story and his death may not affect the plot structure.

Protagonists and antagonists: the protagonist is the chief character in a play. He may also be referred to as the central character.

The antagonist opposes the protagonist and seeks his destruction. The antagonist always is destructive to the society and humanity but the protagonist always appears as a liberator who unchains the society from the hands of the oppressors.

THEME
The theme of a play is its central or governing idea or ideas. It is the idea which runs through the work, and around which all other aspects of the work are organized. It is also the meaning or point of the story, what the story adds up to. These are diverse ways of saying the same thing. In other words, the theme of any literary work is the message or messages that the writer intends to pass across to his readers. Every other element i.e. conflict, setting, character, plot, language, narrative devices etc are joined together by the theme as every style used by the writer is to help him enhance the power and quality of the message or theme.

Early African literature dealt with themes of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, disillusionment, culture conflict which are direct consequences of the contact between Africa and European colonialists. The postcolonial African literature captures the themes of corruption, societal decay, and bad governance, neocolonialism, political disillusionment and the need for revolution to change the decayed social system. In the 21st century, the world is grappling with insecurity and fundamentalism and terrorism, to this end, it becomes expedient for the play of the 21st century to focus itself on this social malady and proffer panacea.

LANGUAGE
All literature exists in the form of language: either as spoken utterance or in writing. Language is, therefore, the most important element of drama, since it is language which gives existence to all the other elements. The language of a play exists in two dimensions: the narrative or authorial voice, which is the language in which the author or a fictional narrator presents the narrative and the dialogue, in which the fictional characters express themselves. A study of the language of a literary work is first of all a study of style. However, we shall look at diction as an aspect of language in dramatic fiction.

Diction is another aspect of style. It is the writer's choice of words of words and manner of employing them. The writer may use simple words or compound, complex words. He may use common English words or archaic words. He may even coin his own words, or combine existing words into new compounds. The choice of words is greatly influenced by such considerations as the subject and setting of the dramatic work, the characters who are involved in the incident being presented, the type of audience to whom the work is primarily addressed, and the intentions of the playwright.
Since dramatic diction operates mainly through dialogue, it constitutes the means through which the play's plot is advanced and dramatic character is delineated. The character's language is appropriate to his situation, education and profession.

ACTION
Action has to do with gestures and the spectacles created by certain stages devices and the movement of the actors on stage. Action, therefore, is something seen, not necessarily something spectacular. Drama itself is defined as the imitation of human action or nature. By action, this means that, drama captures man in relation to society and history. Tragic drama captures actions that are of great magnitude; issues of life and death. Actors represent these aspects of life by imitation and gestures.

DIALOGUE
Dialogue is simply a conversation between two or more persons. It is the main device in drama apart from a few lines of stage descriptions. Dialogue helps the playwright to reveal the mind and thoughts of the characters. Drama also uses Soliloquy. Soliloquy is the speech of a character on stage meant for the ears of the audience. In literature, it is more appropriately defined as thinking aloud. Since there is no way of reflecting the thoughts of a character, Soliloquy is used when a character is thinking. Aside is used in dialogue this is when the speech is made when the character moves aside, away from other characters to deliver his lines.

STAGE
This is a raised elevation upon which a play is staged. In traditional Africa, the village square was used in staging traditional performances. However, theatre is a special place where theatrical performances are staged. In England, The Romans built amphitheatre, a form of a mobile theatre and dramatic works with secular themes were performed.

DRAMATIC DEVICES/TECHNIQUES
In the construction of dramatic works, the playmaker uses a plethora of devices to achieve certain effects. The devices used in constructing Tragedy differ to a lesser extent from that used in Comic making. In Comedy devices such as irony, sarcasm, mockery, understatement, and hyperbole are often used to achieve comic effects. Dramatists in general make use of the some of the elements of drama for effect. However, acts and scene, resolution and conflict, denouement and climax, flashback etc constitute some of the aspect of dramatic techniques

ACTS AND SCENE
Classical drama is divided into acts and scenes. Act is bigger than scene. It is a collection of episodes (scenes) which are interconnected to make a semi-organic whole. A dramatic work is thus a collection of many acts. However, scene is an episode which interact with other episodes forming part of an act. William Shakespeare's works such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew are all plays constructed using the act and scene devices.

 In modern times, with the rise of epic theatre and other revolutionary theatres, the classical acts and scenes technique have been discarded for "movements" and other forms of dramatic construction.

EXPOSITION
In exposition, the playwright provides the necessary background to the action of the play. He tries to capture the interest of the reader and his audience by providing enough expository material that will aid the comprehension of subsequent events. He shows who the characters are, their relationships, and their motivations. Playwrights use such devices as narrators, confidants, soliloquies, asides, and prologues as effective expository devices.

COMPLICATION
After the expository information, the playwright introduces elements of complication in the plot. This is done by introducing new forces that apparently complicate the straight-forward issues and eventually change the direction of the action of the play.

CLIMAX
The climax of a play is the point when the tension reaches its strongest point, a situation where the maximum disturbance of the equilibrium of the play is affected. Though a play may contain many climaxes, the major one constitutes the point of the greatest tension. A good playwright patterns his play through a series of mounting tensions which eventually culminates in a major climax. The German Critic, Gustav Freytag give us an interpretation of dramatic climax in terms of pyramids with five steps:

Introduction
Rising action
Climax
Falling action
Catastrophe/denouement

DENOUEMENT
This is the final resolution of the play. It unveils the knot formed by the complications, and usually occurs after the climax. The denouement marks the credible ending of the developments in the play. It restores order and completes the actions of a dramatic literature. The denouement usually involves a reversal of the hero's fortune.

Some modern plays do not provide a clear-cut denouement. Rather, they leave the resolution of the play dangling in ambiguity, sometimes leaving the audience to make their own conclusions from the final action of the plays.

FLASHBACK
There are situations that happened in the past which do not constitute the introductory part of the story. Playwrights make use of flashback, a dramatic device used in showing us through dramatic actions scenes and events that have happened earlier in time. Flashback is usually used to provide more information which can help the plot of the story to move forward.

SUSPENSE
This is a device in which a playwright uses in introducing important events and thereafter withholds vital information about how and why the events happened. In this way, the curiosity of the reader/audience is aroused so that they are indirectly compelled to read or watch the play to the end.  However, the playwright gradually gives more information about the events until the end of the story.

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN RADIO DRAMA AND TELEVISION DRAMA
A drama as defined earlier imitates human action. It is necessary to understand that "action" here does not mean mere physical action or movement, but a totality of the feelings, thoughts, and deeds, precisely the physical motivations that define man as a total being. It involves both action and motivation – what man does and why he makes such an action.

Drama utilizes auditory and visual devices. That is, a play can be staged before live audience; they see the actions of the characters on stage and hear the dialogues of the characters. A drama, thus, harmonizes action (movements) and speech (dialogue) into an organic whole.

RADIO DRAMA
This is also known as "audio play," "audio drama," "radio play," or "radio theatre. It is an audio performance, broadcast on radio, or published on audio media such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story. It is auditory in the physical dimension but equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension.

Radio drama achieved widespread popularity within a decade of its initial development in the 1920s. By the 1940s, it was a leading international popular entertainment. With the advent of television in the 1950s,however, radio drama lost some of its popularity, and in some countries has never regained large audience.

Radio play traces its roots back to the 1880s. in 1881, French engineer Clement Ader had filed a patent for improvements of telephone equipment in theaters. However, English-language radio drama seems to have started in the United States. The BBC has helped in popularizing radio drama and it still airs radio drama on Radio 3, Radio 4, and Radio 4 Extra.

TELEVISION DRAMA
This is also known as "dramatic programming," "television drama," "television drama series," "teledrama." It is a television programme content that is scripted and normally fictional along the lines of traditional drama. We must not confuse television drama with home videos. Home videos are professional films meant for wider audience. However, television drama is a programme aired on television stations. Some television dramas are aired live.

Television drama adopts visual elements which have been perfected by professional movie industries such as Hollywood, Bollywood, and Nollywood. However, in television dramas, auditory devices such as sound-tracks, music and speech are used not as embellishment but integral aspect of the process of teledramatic production and consumption. Action on television without dialogue will definitely pass across no message.

In this light, the similarity between radio drama and television drama is that both are dramatic performances and have all the elements of drama. On the other hand, while radio drama employs auditory devices such as (dialogue, monologues and soliloquies, sounds, jingles, repetition, auditory imageries) to pass across the intended messages, television drama employs (action, physical objects, visual imageries, etc.) to pass across the intended messages.

CONCLUSION
This course is aimed at enriching the students with the knowledge of dramatic literature. Drama is an art form that has a long history and tradition. We shall, however, concern ourselves with the description of drama, types of drama, terms used in dramatic studies and criticism and above all dichotomize the nexus between radio drama and television drama.


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