Structure of dialogs and mode of
delivery in Afro-Asian drama:
The
specifics of theatrical dialogue are governed by the essential features of the
theatrical environment. These are perhaps best explored by considering other
media in which dialogue plays a part, such as film, literature and radio:
·
Film
is probably the most realistic of all creative media insofar as it engulfs
viewers' minds with sights and sounds. Dialogue is not necessarily important,
since film's power to communicate lies largely in the richness of its visual
imagery and non-verbal soundscapes.
- Nor is dialogue necessarily important in
literature. Novelists and storytellers can easily get their message across
through reported speech, or even exclusively through descriptive text.
Where dialogue occurs, it usually depends heavily on the context of
descriptive text, so that the reader may understand who is speaking and
may know enough about the character to be able to create a reasonably
satisfying mental picture of the situation.
- Dialogue is crucial in radio, however. The
absence of the visual dimension may be partly compensated by imaginative,
suggestive use of sound and, to a lesser extent, a narrator. Only the
dialogue can provide any further information needed to complete the visual
picture in listeners' minds. Accordingly, radio dialogue must be cleverly
designed to impart information that fills the gap of the missing visual
dimension.
Of these examples, only radio
dialogue comes close to theatrical dialogue in terms of its nature and
importance.
Theatre
audiences obviously have the benefit of the visual dimension that radio
listeners lack, so that theatre playwrights do not need to put the same visual
slant on their writing as do radio playwrights. Having said that, the visual
power of theatre is not nearly as intense as that of the film. Whereas the film
director can fill the screen with a meaningful flicker of an eyelid, the
theatre director must rely to a far greater extent on the writer and the actors
to ensure that subtle imagery communicates itself all the way to the back of
the upper balcony. Dialogue that might readily be cut from a screenplay, where
the camera says it all, may come into its own in the theatre, where words are a
crucial factor in the process of communication.
In short,
whereas most writers in fields other than theatre can "get by" with
lacklustre dialogue-writing skills, writers for theatre (and radio) simply
cannot.
Variety of character portrayal:
Characterizations
in play encompass four separate processes:
1.
Conception
– this where the character is born out of the playwright’s mind. It is from the
moment where the play is formed as an idea, and then when it is being written
down. The character will depend on the plot, structure, or theme that will
ultimately become drama.
Characters may develop or change radically in the process
of conception, and nothing in this process is really complete or final until
the other three processes are also complete.
2.
Presentation
– the way the character deliver his/her line through the words and actions specified
in the text or script.
The artistic decision about how much to present and when
to present it can have an important effect on how the audience responds to a
character and what sort of character ultimately is realized in the play. But
the full effect of characterization in a play comes out when the play is
fleshed out on the stage with a live-actor playing the part.
3.
Casting
– it is the process of deciding what actors are to play the parts – usually, a
director takes a major step in determining how a character will seem to be to
the audience. Choosing an actor is determined not only of the physical
appearance, voice quality, and stage presence but also more subtle details of
presentation. The acting talent of each individual actor, the quality of intelligence
and understanding of the role that the actor is capable of shall determine how
a character will ultimately seem to an audience.
4.
Acting
– the last step in characterization. It is in the actual production that the
actor makes something distinctive of his or her talents in relation to the
author’s original conception.
Local color or regionalism:
It refers to
any fictional prose or poetry that shows or focuses on the characters,
dialects, customs, topography, and other features that is unique or particular
to a specific region. Sometimes, it requires a setting outside the world of
modern development, a zone of backwardness where locally variant folkways still
prevail. Its characters are ethnologically colorful, personifications of the
different humanity produced in such non-modern cultural settings. Above all,
this fiction features an extensive written simulation of regional vernacular, a
conspicuous effort to catch the nuances of local speech.
The
usual content of a literature showing regionalism:
Setting: The emphasis is frequently on nature
and the limitations it imposes; settings are frequently remote and
inaccessible. The setting is integral to the story and may sometimes become a
character in itself.
Characters: Local color stories tend
to be concerned with the character of the district or region rather than with
the individual: characters may become character types, sometimes quaint or
stereotypical. The characters are marked by their adherence to the old ways, by
dialect, and by particular personality traits central to the region. In women's
local color fiction, the heroines are often unmarried women or young girls.
Narrator: The narrator is typically an educated
observer from the world beyond who learns something from the characters while
preserving a sometimes sympathetic, sometimes ironic distance from them. The
narrator serves as mediator between the rural folk of the tale and the urban
audience to whom the tale is directed.
Plots: It has been said that "nothing
happens" in local color stories by women authors, and often very little
does happen. Stories may include lots of storytelling and revolve around the
community and its rituals.
Themes: Many local color stories share an
antipathy to change and a certain degree of nostalgia for an always-past golden
age. A celebration of community and acceptance in the face of adversity
characterizes women's local color fiction. Thematic tension or conflict between
urban ways and old-fashioned rural values is often symbolized by the intrusion
of an outsider or interloper who seeks something from the community.
Phrases and Clauses:
Phrases and
clauses are group of related words that serve as the building blocks of
sentences on a larger scale than parts of speech. A clause contains both a
subject and a verb whereas a phrase does not.
Understanding
phrases and clauses and knowing how to organize them help writers create varied
sentences and avoid problems such as run-on sentences, fragments, and
punctuation errors.
Grammar:
Phrases and Clauses:
Phrases and
clauses are group of related words that serve as the building blocks of
sentences on a larger scale than parts of speech. A clause contains both a
subject and a verb whereas a phrase does not.
Understanding
phrases and clauses and knowing how to organize them help writers create varied
sentences and avoid problems such as run-on sentences, fragments, and
punctuation errors.
HOW
CAN WE IDENTIFY PHRASES AND CLAUSES?
A phrase, which
generally consists of multiple parts of speech, behaves as a unit like a single
part of speech. In the following examples,
note how phrases take on the roles of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs. (Phrases that begin with a
preposition—called “prepositional phrases”—can
fulfill various functions, particularly as adjective phrases, adverb phrases, or part of noun phrases.)
• Noun phrases name a
person, place, thing, or idea.
Buying a home can be a
stressful ordeal.
My elegant Aunt
Ida adores that mangy one-eyed mutt of hers.
• Verb phrases express
action or state of being.
We may have
been mistaken about the car’s reliability.
The Sampson
twins will be traveling in Belize all next month.
• Adjective phrases
describe nouns.
The
bird, a beautiful yellow grosbeak, is chirping gleefully.
The
tree on your left is a popular haven for such species.
• Adverb phrases describe
verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or even whole sentences.
Because
of the recent rainfall,
our vegetable garden is thriving.
I
wish all people could live with music in their hearts.
·
Prepositional
phrases consist of a preposition and a noun or pronoun that serves as the
object of the preposition.
In
the canteen At the school
From the governor Around
the corner Under the table
·
Infinitive
phrases consist of an infinitive (to + base form of the verb) and any
associated modifiers
To
raise funds To win the
elections
Clauses fit
into two main categories: independent and dependent.
An independent
clause may stand alone as a complete sentence because it contains a subject and
a verb and forms a complete idea. A
sentence made of one independent clause is called a “simple sentence.” A sentence made of two or more independent
clauses is called a “compound sentence.”
Note that these distinctions rely on the particular combination of
subject (underlined) and verb (double-underlined) rather than the length of the
sentence.
[Uncle Jay’s
two Siamese kittens kept me awake all
night long with their constant mewing and wrestling.]
[I sing,] and [she dances.]
• A dependent
clause contains a subject and a verb but does not form a complete idea.
[When Laney
scratched off the final number on the
lottery ticket]
Do you feel the
suspense? A dependent clause needs an
independent clause to finish the thought and become a complete sentence. This type of sentence is called a “complex
sentence.” A sentence with at least one
dependent clause and at least two independent clauses is called a
“compound-complex sentence.”
[When Laney
scratched off the final number on the
lottery ticket,] she remembered the
reason for her nickname, Luckless Laney.
The movie [that I
saw last weekend] wasn’t nearly as good as the popcorn.
Mr. Wu will not visit
tomorrow [unless he can get his car
repaired this afternoon].
