PART 3 活学活用

针对该部分学习内容的相关练习：

1.Since spectacle brings the fictional world of a play to life in the theatre, then what can you apply to reading drama?

A: In reading a play, we need to be attentive to the various elements that make up the total spectacle: setting, costuming, props, blocking (the arrangement of characters on the stage), movement, gestures, intonation, and pacing (the tempo and coordination of performance).

2.What are the differences between reading a play and seeing a play?

Hint: While reading is an act in the time dimension, seeing a play is an experience of both time and space. While reading drama, we are like directors planning a production and determine the perspective from which it will be staged. While seeing drama, we see the characters, costumed and moving within a specified setting, and to mentally hear the lines and the tones. We might also like to see the characters under lights and imagine every detail of a possible production, such as shades of make-up, loudness of sound effects.

3.What is the rhythm of tension and release, and how does it function in drama?

A sense of the alternation of tension and release exists in a series of entanglements whether the action of the play is rising or it is falling. In fact, a good management of the rhythm of tension and release makes the stage time seem much shorter than it really is. Ideally, the playwright is like a juggler who throws a few balls into the air. When one descends, he throws up another, always leaving as many in the air as he can, so that audience keep asking what will happen to this one and that, until there is a decreasing number of balls in the air. and crisis finally gives way to resolution.

4.How does rising action relate to a climax? What is its function?

Rising action is the section of the plot beginning with the inciting incident and proceeding forward to the crisis onto climax. The action of the play will rise as it set up a situation of increasing intensity and anticipation. These scenes make up the body of the play and usually create a sense of continuous mounting suspense in the audience.