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The story must reflect positive morality or, as Aristotle warned, when storytelling goes bad, the result is decadence. As stories become more extravagant and violent, and all the areas of storytelling - acting, stage settings or environments, music, sound effects and dialogue - become more riotous and tumultuous, the world of the stage and screen become grotesque and out of context. When a culture experiences unmanageable difficulties it is time to return to the classical comedic theme, that of good triumphing over evil (McKee 15).
The play is the thing, it is said; and an inspired drama may bring one individual's explanation of that thing called life to an intrigued mind. The playwright must know himself first. Self-knowledge, plus deep reflection on reactions to life and diversity are hung on a structure, the basic 5-part structure derived from the Greeks, natural and user-friendly guidelines from Greek playwrights centuries ago, and used by Shakespeare himself (Burkert 88).
It takes the whole mind of the playwright to create a fascinating story that brings the audience to grasp the meaning as they search for reason in life's strange twists of fate. It also takes "desire, forces of antagonism, turning points, spine, progression, crisis, climax and stories seen from the inside out" (McKee 16). One is not escaping reality when one views a drama; one is searching for reality, for...
University of California Press, 1956.
Burkert, W. Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 7 (1966): 87-121.
Englert, Walter. Ancient Greek Theater. Reed Library. Retrieved May 18, 2007 at http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110tech/Theater.html.
McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, NY: Harper. 1997.
McManus, Barbara. Tools for Analyzing Prose Fiction. 1998. http://www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/tools.html.
Shakespeare, William, the Comedy of Errors. (Levin, Harry, ed) New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2002.
Worrall, David. Theatric Revolution: Drama, Censorship and Romantic Period Subcultures 1773-1832. London: Oxford University Press. 2006.
McKee's students have written, directed, or produced Air Force One, the Deer Hunter, E.R., a Fish Called Wanda, Forrest Gump, NYPD Blue, and Sleepless in Seattle.
Fate is another Greek word meaning the three personifications of destiny in Greco-Roman stories and myths. The three Fates were Clotho, the spinner; Lachesis, the measurer of the thread of life; and Atropos, the cutter of the thread of life.
Works Cited
Bradbrook, Murel Clara, the Growth and Structure of Elizabethan Comedy. University of California Press, 1956.
Burkert, W. Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 7 (1966): 87-121.
Englert, Walter. Ancient Greek Theater. Reed Library. Retrieved May 18, 2007 at http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110tech/Theater.html.
McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, NY: Harper. 1997.
McManus, Barbara. Tools for Analyzing Prose Fiction. 1998. http://www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/tools.html.
Audiences can ponder the issue of fate when presented with Oedipus, afterlife when thinking of Antigone, and motherhood and marriage when confronted with Medea. Further, modern plays often offer this type of ending as well. For instance, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie allows audience members to consider the theme of love and romance, superimposed with family. At the end of the story, audience members must contemplate whether Tom should
Tragedy & Comedy One popular method of distinguishing between a comedy and a tragedy has always been by virtue of whether a play or film has a happy or tragic ending. Today, however, it is largely considered that a tragedy can be comic in parts, and need not necessarily result in an unhappy ending or death (Thorndike, p.2-3) Similarly, although comedies are widely defined as humorous entertainment, evoking a great deal
REFERENCES Brown, G. Movie Time: A Chronology of Hollywod. New York: McMillan, 1995. Byrge, D. The Screwball Comedy Films. New York: McFarland, 1991. "Censored Films and Television." January 2000. University of Virginia. September 2010 . Dale, A. Comedy is a Man in Trouble. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Ebert, R. "Some Like It Hot." 9 January 2000. Roger Ebert.com. 12 September 2010 . Engleking, A. "A Barbed But Generous Comedy of Manners." 17 June 2010.
For instance, Constance's supervisor, Professor Claude Knight, frequently plagiarizes her carefully researched and written work. Later, after stealing from her, Knight runs off with a more attractive graduate student, very unlike the Shakespearean heroes Constance is so enamored of, such as Romeo. But because of the heightened absurdity of the pun-ridden scholarship of Constance, and the ugly nature of Knight, the audience does not necessarily see these events as
Then comedy disappeared when the Roman Empire collapsed. Nonetheless, the moulds for its future development had been cast. Greek comedies were rediscovered during the Renaissance, the point of origin of comedy as we know it today. Furthermore, the Renaissance brought two major developments to the comedy: the commedia dell'arte, and plot developments and defined archetypal characters (Storey: 407). "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is what theoreticians may call a classical
Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Classic tragedies possess tragic heroes and cataclysmic endings. Otherwise strong and potentially great leaders fall prey to human character flaws such as hubris. In a true tragedy, the protagonist does not emerge victorious, but rather, typically brings about their own and others' downfalls. Tragic heroes squander their personal power and usually learn from their mistakes, but moments too late. Classical tragedies rarely have more than a