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Notes About Reading Drama

Reading drama is different from reading fiction because it is so much sparer. The author tells the reader or actor very little about the characters, usually only in the stage directions which the viewers of a play don't see.

• Both actor and reader,then, have to read the stage directions carefully and to make inferencesfrom what is learned about characters in the dialogue. From what the characterssay, you have to construct an interpretation of who they are.

  Characters

  The first thing youwant to get straight about the play is the characters; plot in drama is largely defined by the interactions between CHARACTERS. So there are two things you need to figure out:

• 1. What happens and hashappened to each character and who they are as a result of these events.

  • We call this finding the"through-line".
  •  A good way to establisha through-line is to think about motivation -- what makes each character tick? What do they want, what motivatestheir actions and words?
  • Actors often think interms of finding the"SPINE" ofa character, the essential quality that holds them together.
• 2. How the characters interact.

  • We call this finding the"cross-lines".
  • This play is about a family,so we have to understand how each of the family members relates to each other.  How does Brick relate to Maggie? How do they both relate to Big Daddy and Big Mama?  How do Big Mama and Big Daddy relate to each other? Same for Gooper and Mae. What is each character's relationship with every other character?

  Drawing of Cat Crosses

   

  FURTHER QUESTIONS

  • What do we find out about the history of each character in the play? What does their past tell us about them now?
  • Pick a character to specialize in. Using that character's past history, construct your sense of that character's spine or motivation. What makes him or her tick? What is their ruling passion? How do they relate to each of the other characters?

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Plot

• Traditionally (since Aristotle) plot in plays has been described in terms of a four-part movement from complication to reversal through recognition to resolution
  • The complication is the beginning of the action, where all the conflicts gets set up, the wires get crossed, the people oppose each other, the lovers get lost from one another etc. What gets complicated in this play?
  • The reversalor "PERIPETIA" is a sudden turn in the action of a play, the moment in a tragedy where the hero falls (like when Adam bites the apple or Macbeth murders the king). Are there any suddenturns in this play?
  • Another kind of crisis can be a crisis of knowing, a sudden illumination, understanding,or recognition (like when Oedipus finally figures out that he isthe murderer he has been searching for). What are the crucial moments of recognition in the play? Who recognizes what? What does this tell us about theTHEMES of the play, the meanings it is exploring, the message it wants to get across?
  • The resolution is the way the play gets resolved in the end. If it's a comedy, the play generally ends with a marriage, a party, a dance. Comedies end with the hero's integration into society. Tragedies are about the hero's isolation from society, so they typically end in death or exile. How does this play end? Is it a comedy or a tragedy?
• What seem to be the most dramatic moments in the play? Where are the crises?

Other ways of getting at the THEME involve paying attention to what the playwright emphasizes.

• What ideas and concerns are repeated, brought up again and again?
• What ideas have the strongest, most vivid imagery and/or figurative language associated with them?
• Whatwould you identify as the most important line in the play?
• How does the title fit in?

Go to Initial Study Questions forCat on a Hot Tin Roof

  Goto Initial Study Questions for Sticks and Bones
Goto Initial Study Questions for Reading Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
 
 

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This page has been accessed  since July 26, 1997.

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Last update: 7/27/97