Chapter 2 - What Is a Play?

In Aristotle's Poetics, the "tragic flaw" of the protagonist. Scholars differ as to whether Aristotle was referring primarily to a character's ignorance of certain facts or to a character's moral defect.

Hamartia

________________ is a highly theatrical presentation of a simple confrontation between good and evil, rather than a complex exposition of universal struggles. A) Farce B) Melodrama C) Pastiche D) Musical drama

B) Melodrama

___________ is NOT one of Aristotle's components of a tragedy. A) Theme B) Stage C) Music D) Spectacle

B) Stage

___________________ are the agreements between audience and actor wherein the spectators willingly suspend belief and accept the play as new or temporary "reality." A) Traditions B) Theatrical conventions C) Dramatic protocols D) Aristotelian elements

B) Theatrical conventions

Drama frames and focuses action around A) important people. B) a particular conflict that lends the action meaning and significance. C) interesting situations. D) a series of funny circumstances.

B) a particular conflict that lends the action meaning and significance

The primary demands of plot are A) shock and resolution. B) logic and suspense. C) good and evil. D) action and reaction.

B) logic and suspense.

The fundamental demand of a play's characters is that they A) supports the plot. B) make the audience care. C) is realistic. D) are similar to people the audience knows.

B) make the audience care.

As opposed to tragedies, comedies typically focus on ______ people. A) flawed B) ordinary C) powerful D) evil

B) ordinary

Which of the following is NOT generally an ingredient of comedy? A) Interpersonal conflicts B) Topical issues C) Fate, suffering, and death D) Verbal and sexual playfulness

C) Fate, suffering, and death

Historically speaking, a full-length play lasts A) less than one hour. B) between one and two hours. C) between two and three hours. D) between three and four hours.

C) between two and three hours.

The that genre utilizes authentic evidence as its basis for portraying recent historical events is A) historical. B) melodrama. C) documentary. D) farce.

C) documentary.

Some critics say that Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman challenges the traditional definition of tragedy because A) it ends in death. B) its protagonist is human. C) the struggle is against human, not superhuman antagonists. D) its setting is urban.

C) the struggle is against human, not superhuman antagonists.

A serious play with a theme of universal human import, which describes a struggle against insurmountable odds usually ending in death or downfall is classified as a A) comedy. B) drama. C) tragedy. D) serio-theatre.

C) tragedy.

In Aristotle's Poetics, the "purging" or "cleansing" of terror and pity, which the audience develops during the climax of a tragedy.

Catharsis

A "person" in a play, as performed by an actor. (for example: Hamlet, Oedipus, Juliet, and Willy Loman are a few) They may or may not be based on real people.

Character

The point of highest tension in a play, when the conflicts of the play are at their fullest expression.

Climax

Popularly, a funny play; classically, a play that ends happily; metaphorically, a play with some humor that celebrates the eternal ironies of human existence.

Comedy

A theatrical custom that the audience accepts without thinking, such as "when the curtain comes down, the play is over." Each period and culture develops its own which playwrights may either accept or violate.

Convention

In medieval England, a series of mystery plays that, performed in sequence, relate the story of religion, from the Creation of the universe to Adam and Eve to the Crucifixion to Doomsday.

Cycle plays

Even though many forms have proliferated in theatre's history, _______________ continue to dominate the modern theatre. A) "Postmodern" dramatic structures B) Documentary dramas C) Ironic farces D) Aristotelian dramatic forms

D) Aristotelian dramatic forms

The father of dramatic analysis is A) Sophocles. B) Plato. C) Socrates. D) Aristotle.

D) Aristotle.

What are the three genres that Shakespeare's "Folio" of works contains? A) Tragedy, tragicomedy, romance B) Tragedy, comedy, anti-theatre C) History, melodrama, documentary D) History, comedy, tragedy

D) History, comedy, tragedy

A play is all of the following EXCEPT A) a presentation with characters that can serve as role models. B) an animated piece of life. C) a meaningful representation of human struggles. D) a genre of poetic text.

D) a genre of poetic text.

The resolution of a tragedy, which elicits pity and fear in the audience and results in a purging of those aroused emotions, is called A) falling action. B) relief. C) déjà vu. D) catharsis.

D) catharsis.

The goal of tragedy is to __________ us. A) sadden B) delight C) burden D) ennoble

D) ennoble

The final scene or scenes in a play devoted to tying up the loose ends after the climax (although the word originally meant "the untying").

Denouement

One of the six important features of a drama, according to Aristotle, who meant by the term the intelligence and appropriateness of the play's speeches. Today, this term refers primarily to the actor's need for articulate speech and clear pronunciation.

Diction

In play construction, the conveyance, through dialogue, of story events that have occurred before the play begins.

Exposition

True or False A good play must have a single unifying theme.

False

True or False Comedies and tragedies enjoy the same scholarly reputation and stay similarly relevant after their initial production.

False

True or False Comedy, as a genre, is only a relatively recent development.

False

True or False Farce typically asks serious questions about the human condition.

False

True or False Plays are the same thing as theatrical events.

False

True or False The only way to thoroughly understand a play is to dissect it in the classroom.

False

True or False Tragedy is designed to sadden the audience.

False

True or False Tragedy is generally sentimental and pathetic.

False

Highly comic, lighthearted, gleefully contrived drama, usually involving stock situations (such as mistaken identity or discovered lovers' trysts), punctuated with broad physical stunts and pratfalls.

Farce

French for "kind"; a term used in dramatic theory to signify a distinctive class or category of play, such as tragedy, comedy, farce, and so on.

Genre

Originally a term for musical theatre, by the nineteenth century this became the designation of a suspenseful, plot-oriented drama featuring all-good heroes, all-bad villains, simplistic dialogue, soaring moral conclusions, and bravura acting.

Melodrama

An allegorical medieval play form, in which the characters represent abstractions (Good Deeds, Death, and so on) and the overall impact of the play is moral instruction. The most famous of these plays in English is the anonymous Everyman (fifteenth century).

Morality play

The events of the play, expressed as a series of linked dramatic actions; more generally, and in common terms, the story of the play. This is the most important aspect of play construction, according to Aristotle.

Plot

From the Greek for "goat song"; originally meant a serious play. It was refined by Greek playwrights (Thespis, sixth century B.C., being the first) and subsequently the philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) into the most celebrated of dramatic genres: a play that treats, at the most uncompromising level, human suffering. The reason for the name is unclear; a goat may have been the prize, and/or the chorus may have worn goatskins.

Tragedy

A play that begins as a tragedy but includes comic elements and ends happily. This was a popular genre in the eighteenth century but is rarely employed, at least under that name, in the modern theatre.

Tragicomedy

True or False A plot is the structure of actions.

True

True or False Genre is the category of a play.

True

True or False The diction of a play refers to the character of its literary forms.

True

A scene or staged event in a play not specifically tied to the plot; in medieval England, a short moral play, usually comic, that could be presented at a court banquet amid other activities.

Interlude

The four identifiable structural elements in almost every play are A) exposition, conflict, climax, and denouement. B) opening, intensification, articulation, and resolution. C) beginning, middle, extension, and conclusion. D) thesis, sub-thesis, post-thesis, and antithesis.

A) exposition, conflict, climax, and denouement.

In a tragedy, the protagonist recognizes a fundamental error or sin, known as A) hamartia. B) evil. C) harambis. D) faithlessness.

A) hamartia.

The central character in a drama is called the A) protagonist. B) leading man. C) antagonist. D) hero.

A) protagonist.

One form that bridges two of the major genres is called A) tragicomedy. B) dark comedy. C) serio-comedy. D) comic pathos.

A) tragicomedy.