Drama Terms for

A Doll’s House

Act

• Act- One of the main divisions of a play or opera

Character

• Characters- a person, or anything presented as a person in a literary work

Drama

• Drama- a story acted out, usually on a stage, by actors and actresses who take the parts of specific characters

Dialogue

• Dialogue- a conversation between characters

Stage Directions

• Stage Directions- a playwright’s descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (and actors) with information about the dialogue, setting and action of a play

ExampleMARCIA’s room, evening. MARCIA is wearing a cool, sparkly jacket and practicing a dance routine to ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna, in front of her mirror.

MARCIA (sings): ‘Underneath my um-be-rella, Ella, ella, ella...’

BEN enters, carrying a magic wand.

BEN: What’s that noise, it sounds like cats screeching?

MARCIA: Out! No annoying brothers allowed.

Foil• Foil- a character in a play who

sets off the main character or other characters by comparison

Genre

• Genre- a category of artistic pieces that share a similar theme

(examples include “horror,” “romance,” etc.)

Situational Irony

• Irony of Situation- result of an action is the reverse of what the actor and audience expected

Verbal IronyWords have more than

one meaning;or

words spoken contradicta character

Dramatic Irony

• Dramatic Irony- the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not know

Example

Scene

• Scene- divisions of action within acts

Set

• Set- the scenery and staging of a dramatic production

Example: The Set From A Doll’s House

Tragedy

• Tragedy- in general , a literary work in which the central character meets a disastrous downfall as a result of his/her own tragic flaw

Tragic Flaw

• Tragic Flaw- a character weakness that brings about the downfall of a tragic hero