Lit 2203
February 2020
Lecture No. 4: Modes of drama
It is perhaps impossible to get to a definite descriptor of the concept of “mode”. For some the
concept, and the word “mode”, may any of the following: manner, style, approach, kind, type,
form, genre, category, means, way, method, and the like. In the context of this lecture, we shall
use “mode” to refer to the means by which playwrights and dramatists conceptualise, pattern and
present dramatic performances to their audiences across time and place. In general, we shall note
that popular modes of drama include the following:
1. Tragedy
Tragedic dramas are one of the oldest forms of drama. Tragedy exposes the plight and suffering
of humans to the audience. Tragedians use darker themes such as disaster, pain, ruins of a
dynasty, moral setback, downfall of man, personal loss, emotional betrayals, death, and denials.
Protagonists in tragedies often have a tragic flaw – a characteristic that leads them to their
downfall. There is often a distinction between classical and modern tragedy. Consider the
following table, for instance.
We can categorise tragedies as political tragedy, historical tragedy, revenge tragedy, “head”
tragedy, “heart” tragedy. Recent scholarship recognises African tragedy as a significant mode of
tragedy, different from classical and modern tragedy. Your reading of Wole Soyinka’s Death
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and the King’s Horseman should enlighten you on one mode of African tragedy which is rooted
in the ritual traditions of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Other plays which are conceptualised and
patterned as tragedy are Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
A dramatic tragedy involves the drawing out a feeling of pity from the audience and presenting
an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the characters. The Greek rhetorician and
philosopher Aristotle traced the arc of action tragedies and noted that tragedies told the tale of a
person of high esteem falling from grace as a result of a personality defect, a tragic flaw. The
action in the plot of a tragedy usually takes place in five (5) phases.
Phase 1: Exposition (some scholars prefer “expectation”)
The playwright in the tragedy shows the main character as a person with position, wealth
and authority, but also with at least one deep flaw. This makes obvious the fall from the
heights and helps the audience relate the moral of the tragedy to their own lives, even
when the character happens to be a royal figure. The exposition presents the lead
character as a successful person living a life of privilege. The audience also sees the
initial plot development showing the main character taking a position or accepting a duty
that ultimately leads to the great failure.
Phase 2: Complication or Conflict
This complication allows a trigger to disrupt the lives of the protagonist and those around
him or her. During the Medieval times, tragedy made use of the wheel of fate operated by
“Dame Fortune”, represented in art as a woman standing blindfolded by a wheel of
fortune. The action of tragedy then would trace the fall by the spin of the wheel. The
people at the top of the wheel earned power, fame and fortune simply by arriving at the
top by the wheel's spin. Fortune, however, turned quickly as the wheel moved the same
person to the bottom of the wheel.
Phase 3: Reversal or Crisis
Tragedies show the main character, the tragic hero, experiencing a shocking reversal of
fate as a result of the complication or conflict created by Dame Fortune and her wheel of
fate. The central tragic flaw of the tragic hero comes into play during this stage of tragic
action.
Phase 4: consummation of Catastrophe
The catastrophe stage of the tragedy action results when the tragic hero attempts to deal
with the reversal of fate. For instance, Romeo in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet fails to
receive the message of Juliet's plan to feign death. He arrives to see her lifeless body. The
audience, aware of the plan, observes Romeo killing himself. Juliet awakens to see his
dead body and fatally stabs herself. Crisis compounds with catastrophe as the action rises
to tragic proportions.
Phase 5: Catharsis or Recognition
The recognition or catharsis phase leads to the closure of the tragedy. The playwright
leaves the audience with a lesson as the remaining characters review the tragic hero's fall
from grace (should we say “to grass”?). The lesson which is told onstage reinforces the
tragic nature of the loss and the events leading up to the disaster. For example, the
audience observes as Romeo and Juliet's parents learn that their hatred was not as
important as the lives of their children were, too late.
It is important to remember that the tragic hero develops in a pattern similar to the
development of a tragedy:
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a) The tragic hero must first of all possess a Hamartia, the Tragic flaw which usually
manifests as Hubris or excessive pride.
b) Then he or she experiences a Peripeteia, a reversal of fate.
c) The Peripeteia phase leads him or her into an Anagoris, an important discovery.
d) Then comes the Nemesis, which is the fortune that the protagonist cannot avoid.
He or she must “pay for the sin of pride earlier committed”.
e) All this leads to his or her Catharsis, the tragic hero’s downfall and feelings of
pity and fear being purged from the audience. It is this final stage of the tragic
hero that seals the lessons that the audience should learn from the play.
2. Comedy
Comedy is a form of entertainment meant to be humorous, whether in literature, television, film,
or stand-up. The goal of most examples of comedy is to induce laughter in the audience. The
word comedy comes from the Greek word κωμῳδία (kōmōidía), which originally meant a play
with a happy ending. Etymologically, the word was formed as a compound of κώμη (kṓmē),
meaning “village,” and ᾠδή (ōidḗ), which meant “singing.” Thus, even before it referred to the
popular type of play, comedy was simple a village revel. Over time the word slowly began to
take on the humorous connotation that we know it as now.
Comedies are usually light-hearted in tone and provide normally a happy conclusion. Hence,
composers of comedy use picturesque circumstances, unusual characters and witty remarks.
Composing a comedic drama requires high level of intellect and perceptive faculties, because
provoking laughter is not as easy as it may seem to many of us. Thus, comedy is inherently a
serious business in drama. There are many different forms of comedy, such as low comedy, high
comedy, slapstick, farce, satire, parody, stand-up comedy, tragi-comedy, romantic comedy, black
comedy, innuendo, pun, comedy of manners, comedy of ideas, burlesque, and lampoon. In this
course, we shall do a close study of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata as an example of classical comedy,
R. B. Sheridan’s The School for Scandal as an example of comedy of manners and Efua T.
Sutherland’s The Marriage of Anansewa as an example of African comedy.
3. Melodrama
The term “melodrama” ordinarily means over-emotional or sensational. In drama, the meaning
of “melodrama” is similar to this ordinary usage. Melodrama is, generally speaking, an extreme
form close to tragedy. As a drama form, melodrama was very popular in the 19 th century. The
earliest forms of melodrama tended to exploit the emotions of the unsophisticated audience.
This exploitation was realised through presenting scenes of horror, pathos and last minute
rescues.
Essential characteristics of melodrama include scenes of horror, pathos and last minute rescues;
sensationalism and sentimentalism; musical accompaniment(s); a pattern of action similar to
that of tragedy; emphasis of action more than motivation (e.g. reversals); emphasis on type or
stock characters rather than individuals; events which thrill the audience (cf modern film); a
tendency towards “black and white” view of morality; a process of will triumphing over
adversity; poetic justice (virtue rewarded, vice or evil punished) and characters and situations
that are eminently human.
Melodrama presents serious action through established theatrical devices to move the audience.
Melodrama may or may not end happily. Characters and themes in melodrama are less exalted
than those in in tragedy but are not necessarily frivolous. Further, melodrama usually depicts the
good and evil aspects of the characters involved. Just like the farce, the characters are of single
dimension and simple, or may be stereotyped. Examples of melodrama include Bernard Shaw’s
The Devils Disciple, Ngugi wa Thiong’o & Micere Githae Mugo’s The Trial of Dedan Kimathi,
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
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4. Fantasy
Fantasy is a form of literary genre in which the plot cannot occur in the real world. Its plot
usually involves witchcraft or magic, taking place on an undiscovered planet of an unknown
world. Its overall theme and setting involve a combination of technology, architecture, and
language, which sometimes resemble European medieval ages. The most interesting thing about
fantasies is that their plot involves witches, sorcerers, mythical and animal creatures talking and
behaving like humans, and other things that never happen in real life. Fantasy is similar to the
modern folktale in whose narration magical elements and vague settings feature. Fantasy dramas,
as in ordinary fantasy tales, can be categorised as (you are advised to search for examples in each
category!):
a) Animal Fantasy
This is a fantasy about animals, behaving like human beings, speaking, experiencing
emotions, and having the ability to reason but retaining their various animal
characteristics too.
b) Toy Fantasy
In toy fantasy stories, narrators bring their beloved toys to life, and transform them into
animated beings that can live, talk, think, breathe, love, and behave like human beings.
c) Magical Fantasy
In a magical fantasy, you see a character having magical powers, or a strange
magical object becomes the subject of the drama.
d) Alternative Worlds & Enchanted Journeys
In these fantasies, you see a leading character undertaking a journey to an alternative
world, or a fantasy world. Though realistic dramas also employ journeys, you would only
see magical things happen in fantasy journeys.
e) Quest or Heroic Fantasy
In these fantasies we find adventures with a search, a quest. This quest can be a pursuit
for a higher purpose, like justice and love, or for getting a reward like hidden treasure, or
a magical power. The conflict of heroic fantasies usually focuses on struggle between
evil and good. The protagonist struggles with internal weakness and temptations,
f) Mystery and Supernatural Fantasy
One of the most common forms of supernatural fantasy is known as a “ghost story”
which is dramatised. Ghosts could be either helpful protectors, or fearsome adversaries.
However, in a mystery, the solution is always a supernatural one, or through supernatural
assistance such as witchcraft.
Usually, fantasy is more appealing to children as fairies, angels, superheroes, et cetera,
are embedded in the plot. Use of magic, pseudo-science, horror, and uncanny themes
through various kinds of technical devices create a perfect world of fantasy. This modern
version of drama incorporates a great deal of special effects. It is close to what scholars
refer to as science fiction (Sci-Fi)
5. Musical Drama
Musical drama is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting
and dance together. The story, plot and emotional content of a musical drama, such as humour,
pathos, love or anger are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects,
all as an integrated whole. In musical drama, the dramatist does not only present the action
through acting and dialogue, but through dance as well as music. Often the story in a musical
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drama may be comedic. But it may also involve serious subjects. Musical drama, in its
composition and operation, is close to the opera. An example of a Ugandan Musical is “Wounds
of Africa” by Alex Mukulu (available on YouTube at the time of writing this paragraph).
6. Farce
In ordinary usage, the term “farce” refers to something ridiculous or nonsensically comic. In the
context of drama, farce is an extreme form of comedy. It is the kind of drama which is
characterised with a lot of knock-abouts. Its history is traced to Greek plays, whereby everybody
on stage used to run around. Farce is largely light entertainment which relies largely on visual
humour, situation and relatively unsophisticated characters. The basic purpose of farce is to
provoke laughter, that laughter of the most uproarious and uncomplicated sort. Action is the
main feature of farce as a dramatic form.
Major features of farce include a concentration on situation over plot, character types over
character development, energetic and ludicrous physical action and absurdity in both character
and situation. It is this absurdity that normally captures the audience’s interest. In farce,
characters are meant to serve as plot functionaries whereby the audience usually views them with
detachment
Farce and Comedy
Sometimes farce appears like ordinary comedy. However similar the two may appear, there is a
distinction between them. Comedy may be energetic but it will offer serious food for thought.
Comedy tends to have some intellectual content. Farce on the other hand, tends to lack such
content. But not all farcical plays are frivolous. Some farces have really didactic qualities in
them. Examples of plays that are both farcical and didactic are Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, The
Nikolai Gogol’s Government Inspector and Anton Chekhov’s The Proposal. Generally, a farce is
a nonsensical genre of drama, which often overacts or engages slapstick humor. It uses highly
improbable situations, stereotyped characters, extravagant exaggeration, and sometimes violent
overexcitement.
