In drama what does style mean

Each puppet is about one meter tall and is manipulated by up to three people, with each person responsible for a different part of the puppet. Their efforts make the puppets appear alive despite the fact that the puppeteers are visible on the stage. Bunraku plays are accompanied by the music of traditional Japanese instruments. Tragedy was born during this period; the Greek Sophocles is one playwright of the period.

In ancient Greece, comedies dealt almost exclusively with contemporary figures and problems. Low comedy is physical rather than intellectual comedy; high comedy is more sophisticated, emphasizing verbal wit more than physical action. Also, a signal from the stage manager to the cast, stage crew, props manager, or lighting technician that a predetermined action—an entrance, sound effect, change in the set or lighting—is required.

Drama is further divided into tragedy, comedy, farce, and melodrama, and these genres, in turn, can be subdivided. The students, sitting quietly with eyes closed, allow pictures to form in their minds. These images may be motivated by bits of narration, music, sounds, smells, etc.

In a dramatic production, the director, and perhaps others, will decide how to interpret the play for the audience. There are several forms of irony. Verbal irony is when a writer or speaker says one thing and means something else often the opposite of what is said.

When the audience perceives something that a character does not know, that is dramatic irony. Situational irony can be described as a discrepancy between expected results and the actual results. But does classifying comedy and tragedy as genres refer to works of this nature in written form or in practice, or both? Or is cabaret a genre and not a style? I used to explain genre to students in terms of movies in video rental stores. Every movie gets categorised by its type into one section in the shop.

Now that these stores barely exist anymore, today I refer to all the genres of music listed on a students iPod. Hip hop and pop are different types of music, just like comedy of manners and jukebox musical are different types of theatre. When I explain the difference between genre and style to students of drama, I often use the analogy of Marxism and Communism though probably an oversimplification.

In a way, one is the theory and the other is this theory in practice. So genre should refer to a dramatic work as it is written literary and style should refer to the manner in which a work is performed.

These definitions may help:. Genre : kind, category or sort, esp of literary or artistic work. Style : the manner in which something is expressed or performed, considered as separate from its intrinsic content, meaning etc. According to the above definition of style, we can separate the manner in which a work is performed from its content, or in the case of a theatrical work, the way it is written.

We can separate the essential qualities or features of a written play attributes of its genre from the manner in which it is performed style. Of course, few things in life are perfect. So can we refer to comedy and tragedy as both genres and styles? The nature of theatre is rich and colourful. The genre of a play refers to the type of story being told and is decided by the playwright. The style of a play is how the work is presented on stage. For example, a play in the tragedy genre features a serious plot with a sad ending, whereas a comedy features a light-hearted plot with a happy ending.