Using conventions to devise drama for performance
This section is about using conventions to devise drama for performance.
Introduction
As well as using scripted works, many teachers of drama devise their own work for performance by their classes. The advantages of working in this way are that:
- content can be chosen to suit the students’ educational needs and personal interests
- roles suited to the range of students in the class can be created
- the performance is appropriate to the school and its community.
Starting points
Possible starting points for a devised drama include:
- stories gathered from the class
- stories researched by the class, for example, those told by grandparents
- local history
- myths and legends, both indigenous and from overseas
- myths and legends based on a theme, for example, creation stories
- fairy tales, folk tales, fables
- strong social themes, for example, bullying or immigration
- paintings and other art works
- poetry
- scenes, characters, or lines of dialogue from existing scripts
- “What if?” questions, for example, “What if the sun ceased to shine?”
Reading in role
Reading in role (image 1, poster 3) allows a character to give information about himself or herself to the audience, which he or she may not otherwise reveal. For example, the character may disclose personal thoughts and feelings by reading from a diary.
This convention can also be used to introduce information about the broader situation, which the character cannot directly know. By reading a letter from a brother away at war, a student playing a relative can feed background historical information into the drama. The creation of diary entries and letters through writing in role is a useful way for students to deepen their belief in the drama.
Monologue
Monologue (image 3, poster 3) is an extended speech by one character. Monologues are often delivered by a character alone on stage. If other characters are present, they do not speak. A monologue may be an entire scene, or a part of a scene, within a larger drama. A monologue may also be a dramatic piece devised for a single performer.
Monologue can be described as either exterior or interior. In an exterior monologue, a character speaks to another person or persons (who may not be onstage) or to the audience. Addressing monologues directly to the audience can establish an intimate relationship between audience and actor. An interior monologue represents a character speaking to himself or herself. The aside is a form of short interior monologue. It is a performance convention that interior monologues or asides cannot be heard by other characters present on the stage.
Monologues generally reveal the character’s motives, thoughts, and feelings. The style of an interior monologue may be deliberately chaotic, mirroring the jumble of thoughts flowing through the character’s mind.
Freeze frame
Image 1, poster 3
Freeze frame (image 7, poster 3) is a convention in which an actor or the members of a group use their bodies to form a still image, group sculpture, or tableau to capture an idea, theme, or moment in time from a drama. Performers use space and their bodies and facial expressions to:
- capture the essence of the moment
- embody and show their character’s thoughts and feelings
- suggest relationships between the characters.
Freeze frame can be used to contrast different versions of the action, for example, the actual as opposed to an idealised version, a dream version, or a nightmare version of the action.
In image 7, poster 3, the actor freezes at the end of a monologue, before the lights fade. Freeze frame allows the audience to think about what has been presented, before the next phase of the action begins or the performance ends.
Chorus
A chorus (image 9, poster 3) is a group of actors who usually speak and/or move in unison. Chorus was first used in early Greek tragedies, in which a group of up to fifty men would sing, dance, and chant to tell the story. Greek dramatists experimented with the size and function of the chorus, using it to:
- narrate the history of events
- comment on the action
- change the tension and pace of the action
- voice the conscience of characters in the drama.
In Greek drama, the chorus was sometimes used as a character in its own right.
The convention of chorus is used across a wide range of forms and styles. Image 9 (poster 3) shows a group of students using chorus in the context of a Shakespearean play. On poster 2, image 1, the student performers have experimented with using a chorus to reflect the tensions and emotions of Othello leading up to Desdemona’s death. Use of chorus can also been seen in the musical The Little Shop of Horrors and in Woody Allen’s film Mighty Aphrodite.
A useful source of information on chorus in Greek theatre can be found at Conventions of the Greek Tragic Theatre.
Speaking thoughts aloud
This convention allows the character to say what is in their head and can be used to reveal subtext, that is, the character’s inner thoughts as opposed to what they say to other characters in a public setting.
During the devising process, one way of facilitating speaking thoughts aloud is the convention of thought tapping. The teacher taps the shoulder of students in a freeze frame to allow them to speak their individual thoughts. These improvised thoughts can then be shaped and prepared for delivery in a performance, for example, in conjunction with a freeze frame or as a soliloquy.
A soliloquy is a speech (a kind of monologue) in which a character speaks his or her inner thoughts aloud on stage. During a soliloquy, the character is usually alone onstage and may directly address the audience. Shakespeare makes frequent use of this convention, for example, when Hamlet considers how he should act after his father’s murder.
In image 11 (poster 3), we see Lady Macbeth wandering both literally in the night and in the darkness clouding her mind. Her madness allows her to voice her guilt and we, like her watching woman-servant and the doctor, are the audience to her inner torment.