Dramaturgy

An Anatomy of Dramatic Forms

Michael Evans

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9780429819612
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

How are plays constructed? Taking this essential question and looking at a broad range of Western plays, from Greek tragedies through Ibsen, we can discern a remarkably stable set of dramaturgical principles.

Some dramatists adhere to traditional principles to create meaning, while others delight in bending or breaking these conventions, seeking new ways to express meaning. In this book, Michael Evans discusses what he calls "standard dramaturgy" – a set of seven principles upon which most plays, from ancient Greek dramas to modern works, are based. He teases out seven traits found in most plays written before 1900 – and many popular plays and films since then. The book then looks at these key traits and how the playwrights of the Modernist era deliberately subvert them to create new methods of meaning. Examining each of these traits with well-chosen examples from dramatic literature, the book highlights these traits and illustrates how dramaturgs can understand instances of meaning within plays.

Part of the Routledge Focus on Dramaturgy series, this book will interest scholars and students of dramaturgy, directing, and theatre studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Conflict and action
• 3. Plot
• 4. Structures of the plot
• 5. Characters
• 6. Dialogue
• 7. Genre
• 8. Dramatic and postdramatic alternatives
• Bibliography
• Index