The English Department Website

 

Links between Plays

Read these introductions on shared themes: 

Relationships by Amelia Education by Zhenia  
Identity by Amelia Women by Zhenia  
Language by Amelia    

Read these extracts from essays on dramatic technique:

balance between action and speech link between setting and plot  
     
     

 1) Themes

  1. Home, Travel  & Exile
  2. Language & Communication
  3. Power
  4. Social Change
  5. Freedom
  6. Love & Sex
  7. Men & Women
  8. Marriage
  9. Family - esp fathers & siblings
  10. Pathos, Comedy & Tragedy
  11. Violence
  12. Escape through drink
  13. Appearance & Reality
  14. Concealment & Revelation
  15. Institutions

 

2) Key Dramatic devices

  1. Structure –

Settled group à new arrival à Revelation tensions à climax & change

Mirroring beginning & end

Time & chronology (dramatic unities)

Order of arrival & departure

  1. Character via clothes, speech, actions, appearance, relationships, contrasts
  2. Transformation central character - illusionà reality
  3. Conflict & Contrast
  4. Realism/Hyper Realism/Social Realism
  5. Microcosmic & macrocosmic - internal conflict & broader social themes
  6. Sound & music
  7. Lighting
  8. Offstage action
  9. Resolution/Open-endedness at close
  10. Range of language
  11. Irony & Dramatic Irony
  12. Symbolism
  13. Minor Characters
  14. Set & Locations

Locating in time & place

Variety

Symbolic role

Social significance

Props