Catalonia PAU Dramatic Literature Exam - independent theatre foundations flashcards

30 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Conflict

A tension between incompatible objectives, conditions or values that organizes dramatic action, which may be interpersonal, internal, social or otherwise structured.

Objective

What a character seeks in a particular scene or unit, distinguished from an emotion label and tested against observable action.

Obstacle

A condition, person or competing desire that impedes an objective and helps generate a change in dramatic tactics or action.

Subtext

Meaning or intention suggested beyond the literal words, inferred from situation, pauses, actions and relationships rather than assumed without evidence.

Stage direction

Written information about action, delivery or the represented environment, whose literary and performance functions must be interpreted in context.

Dramatic irony

An information difference in which spectators know something relevant that a character does not, creating effects that need not be comic.

Monologue

An extended speech by one speaker whose addressee and dramatic function depend on the scene rather than on length alone.

Soliloquy

A theatrical convention presenting a character’s inward thought, usually without another character functioning as its ordinary conversational addressee.

Aside

A remark conventionally not heard by specified other characters, used to shape spectator access and the scene’s information relationships.

Peripeteia

A significant reversal within an action, distinguished from recognition even when reversal and new knowledge occur close together.

Anagnorisis

A consequential movement from ignorance toward recognition or knowledge in dramatic analysis, not a universal requirement of every plot.

Catharsis

A contested interpretive concept associated with Aristotle’s account of tragedy and pity and fear, with purification and purgation among its readings.

Dramaturgy

The analysis and shaping of dramatic action, context and performance relationships, undertaken differently across texts and production processes.

Adaptation

A transformation of an existing work for a different context or form, which may preserve central plot relationships while changing other elements.

Blocking

The arrangement of performers’ movement and positions in relation to the action, space and audience, rather than purposeless stage traffic.

Proxemics

The use and interpretation of spatial relationships between people, whose meaning depends on context, conventions and the production’s choices.

Fourth wall

An imagined separation between a represented dramatic world and its spectators, associated with particular performance conventions rather than a literal wall.

Gestus

A socially revealing attitude, action or relationship associated with Brechtian practice, not merely an isolated decorative gesture without context.

Given circumstances

The relevant facts and conditions established for a scene or character, used as evidence in interpretation or acting work.

Cue

A coordinated signal or event for an action or technical change, whose form and sequence are specified within a production.

Diegetic sound

Sound whose source belongs to the represented world, whether visibly present or implied, rather than external musical commentary.

Scenography

The organization of spatial and visual relationships in performance, interacting with action and spectatorship rather than serving only as decoration.

Devised theatre

Work developed through a creative process that may be collaborative and may incorporate existing material, without one universal authorship arrangement.

Documentary theatre

Performance drawing on records or testimony while necessarily selecting and arranging material, which therefore still requires source criticism.

Metatheatre

Theatrical representation that makes acting, staging or the construction of representation an object of reflection within the work.

Esperpento

An aesthetic associated with Valle-Inclán using grotesque deformation and shifts of dignity or register to expose social contradictions.

Jornada

A conventional division of a Spanish Golden Age play, often one of three, whose function should be examined within the particular work.

Gracioso

A comic role in Golden Age traditions whose functions can include commentary and complication, not an automatically irrelevant interruption.

Reception

The situated responses and interpretations of audiences or readers, which vary with historical context, expectations and evidence.

Interpretive claim

A reasoned proposal about how a textual or performance feature creates meaning, supported by evidence and open to qualified alternatives.