Drama: A Guide to the Study of Plays

ISBN-13: 9780820444895 / Angielski / Miękka / 2004 / 142 str.

Styan, John

Opis

This book introduces the elements of drama and the principles behind the reading and study of plays - classical and modern. It makes a special point of seeing drama as intended for acting and performance, and it therefore emphasizes the role of the spectator at a play and the sort of theatre for which drama was written. The performance approach to the study of plays finally clarifies the different kinds of drama (comedy, tragedy, melodrama, and farce) and identifies its forms (realism, stylization, and symbolism). The book draws on specific examples of drama, is rich in helpful charts and diagrams, and contains a comprehensive glossary. Drama will be a useful guide for students and general playgoers alike.

Spis treści

Foreword - Actor and Audience: The Nature of Drama - Look with Thine Ears: The Elements of Speech - Thy Eyes Shall Be Thy Judge: Seeing and Perceiving - Place and Space: The Shape of the Stage - Characters in Search of an Actor: The Player and His Part - Ordering the Action: Story, Structure and Theme - Kinds of Drama: Genre, Mood and Mode - The Forms of Things Unknown: Realism and Beyond - Glossary - For Further Reading - Index.

O autorze

J. L. Styan is the Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor Emeritus of English Literature and Theatre at Northwestern University. He was educated at Cambridge, where he received his M.A., and has published more than a dozen books on drama, including The Elements of Drama, Shakespeare's Stagecraft, Chekhov in Performance, and Modern Drama in Theory and Practice (3 vols.). In 1995, he was awarded the Robert Lewis Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Research.