10 Examples of Dramatic Text

A dramatic text It is a writing whose elaboration aims to be represented in a play. It differs from others types of texts whose conception is intended to be read and not interpreted. For example: Romeo and Julietby William Shakespeare.

This type of text presents the conflicts of the characters that are staged through the use of dialogues, through which the actions are carried out in front of an audience. They can be written in prose or in verse, and space functions as their structuring principle. Next to the narrative Yet the lyric, the dramatic text constitutes one of the three literary genres quintessential classics.

Dramatic texts usually contain two levels:

• main text. It is composed of dialogues, monologues and asides. The dialogues between the characters are the main medium in which the action takes place. The monologues They are a solitary speech made by a character to reflect and express his feelings. The asides are brief comments made by the characters, which are not addressed to any of their interlocutors, but to themselves and, therefore, to the audience. Above all, they express moods and body attitudes.
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• secondary text. It is made up of a series of annotations, explanations and indications related to the staging of the reported actions. This type of dimensions It's called didascalia. There are general and particular dimensions. The first indicate the place of action, the time, the scenery, the external appearance of the characters (clothing, physical appearance), the movements of the characters, sound effects and lightning. They appear in italics and without parentheses. The latter can indicate intonation, gesture, movement and mimicry that the character must perform and are interspersed in the dialogue. They appear in italics and between parenthesis.

• See also: Drama

Characteristics of the dramatic text

• Structure. I'ts divided into Introduction, knot and outcome, like most of the Narrative texts. They have a strong relationship with the dialectic, while the conflicts within the dramatic texts progress in the exchange of questions and answers until reaching a solution.
• emitters. It encompasses three different types of issuers: the playwright author, the actors and the director.
• codes. It does not contain a narrator or descriptions, but the facts are represented by attitudes, gestures, dialogues and monologues that the characters maintain. In a dramatic text, the verbal code (the word), the non-verbal (scenography, makeup, lights, sound) and the paraverbal (intonation, pauses, emphasis) coexist.
• dialogues. It has a different style of dialogue from the narrative, because the name of each character is always written before the parliament. The dialogues must be synthetic, direct and in situation; they must show the character of the character as well as advance the dramatic action.
• Characters. Presents the names of the characters at the beginning of the scene, which are generally in order of appearance. At this point, more information is usually given, such as age, social rank, relationship to other characters, etc.
• parties. It is divided into acts, pictures, scenes; unlike narrative texts that are usually divided into chapters.
• Aim. Its purpose is the representation of its contents in front of the public.

types of dramatic text

There are three subgenres of dramatic text par excellence: drama, tragedy, and comedy.

• drama or tragicomedy. It consists of the combination of elements of tragedy and comedy, therefore it is a hybrid dramatic text that recovers the great dramatic themes, but presented in a lighter way, realistic and in a fun way.
• Tragedy. They present characters with deep conflicts related to the great themes of humanity, such as the love, honor, death, revenge. It seeks to generate a cathartic effect on the recipient, by exposing events with disastrous endings.
• Comedy. It is centered on funny everyday stories, whose conflicts are presented with humor, exaggeration and even ridicule. The public easily identifies with the characters of a comedy and the ending is always positive for everyone.
  

dramatic text examples

1. fragment of King Oedipus (429 BC C.), of Sophocles.

CHORUS.- I don't think he's referring to anyone else, except the one you were trying to see before making him come from the field. But here is Jocasta who could say it better.
OEDIPUS.- Woman, do you know the one we wanted to introduce himself a little while ago? Is he the one he refers to?
YOCASTA.- And what about what he said about a random person? Don't pay any attention, you don't want to uselessly remember what he said.
OEDIPUS.- It would be impossible for me not to discover my origin with such indications.
JOCASTA.- No, by the gods! If something worries you about your own life, don't investigate it. It is enough that I am distressed.
OEDIPUS.- Calm down, because even if I turn out to be a slave, the son of a slave mother for three generations, you will not appear ignoble.
YOCASTA.- Nevertheless, obey me, I beg you. Do not do it.
OEDIPUS.- I couldn't obey you if I didn't find out clearly.
YOCASTA.- Knowing well what is best for you, I speak.
OEDIPUS.- Well, the best thing for me has been bothering me for a long time.
JOCASTA.- Oh wretch! May you never find out who you are!
OEDIPUS Will someone bring the shepherd here for me? Let this one take pleasure in her mighty lineage.
YOCASTA.- Ah, ah, unfortunate, for that is the only thing I can call you and nothing else ever from now on!

(Jocasta, visibly shaken, enters the palace.)

1. Scene V of Hamlets (1603), by William Shakespeare.

HAMLET alone.

HAMLET. Oh! If this too solid mass of flesh could soften and liquidate, dissolved in showers of tears! Or the Almighty will not turn the cannon against the murderer of himself! Oh! God! Oh! My God! How tired of everything, I consider the pleasures of the world annoying, insipid and vain! Nothing, I want nothing from it, it is an uncultivated and rude field, which only abounds in rude and bitter fruits. That this has come to pass two months after he died! No, not that much, not two months yet. That excellent King, who was compared to him, as to a Satyr, Hyperion; so loving my mother, that not even the celestial airs allowed to reach her face daring. Oh! Sky and earth! Why do I keep my memory? She, who showed him as loving as if her desires had grown in her possession. And yet, in a month... Ah! I don't want to think about this. Fragility! You have a woman's name! In the short space of a month and even before breaking the shoes with which, similar to Niobe, bathed in tears, she accompanied the body of my sad father... Yes, she, herself. Heavens! A wild beast, incapable of reason and speech, she would have shown more enduring grief. Finally, she has married my uncle, my father's brother; but no more like him than I am like Hercules. In a month… her eyes still red from perfidious weeping, she was married. oh! Criminal haste! Going to occupy an incestuous bed with such diligence! Neither this is good, nor can it produce well. But tear yourself to pieces, my heart, for my tongue must be repressed.

1. Fragment of table II of Blood Wedding (1931), by Federico Garcia Lorca.
   

(They enter the child. Enter LEONARDO.)

LEONARDO.- And the child?
WOMAN.- He fell asleep.
LEONARDO.- Yesterday was not good. She cried at night.
WOMAN.- (Happy.) Today she is like a dahlia. And you? Did you go to the farrier's house?
LEONARDO.- That's where I come from. Will you believe? I have been putting new shoes on the horse for more than two months and they always fall off. Apparently he tears them off with stones.
WOMAN.- And don't you use it a lot?
LEONARDO.- No. I hardly use it.
WOMAN.- Yesterday the neighbors told me that they had seen you at the edge of the plains.
LEONARDO.- Who said it?
WOMAN.- The women who gather the capers. By the way, I was surprised. It was you?
LEONARDO.- No. What was I going to do there, in that dry land?
WOMAN.- That's what I said. But the horse was bursting with sweat.
LEONARDO.- Did you see it?
WOMAN.- No. My mother.
LEONARDO.- Is she with the child?
WOMAN.- Yes. (…)
LEONARDO.- (Rising.) I'm going to see him.
WOMAN.- Be careful, he's asleep.
MOTHER-IN-LAW.- (Going out.) But who gives those races to the horse? He is down, stretched out, his eyes wide, as if he came from the end of the world.
LEONARDO.- (Sourly.) Me.
MOTHER-IN-LAW.- Excuse me; yours is.
WOMAN.- (Shy.) She was with the wheat measurers.
MOTHER-IN-LAW.- For me, may she burst. (She sits.) 

(Pause.)

1. fragment of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) by Edward Albee.

Jorge: That opportunity presents itself once a month, Marta. I am used to it. Once a month Marta appears, the misunderstood one, the sweet girl, the little girl who blooms again under a caress and I have believed it more times than I want to remember, why not; I want to think that I am an idiot. But now I don't believe you… I just don't believe you. Now there is no longer any possibility that we can have a minute of happiness… the two of us together.
Marta (aggressive): Maybe you're right, dear. Between you and me there is no possibility of anything... because you are nothing! WOW! Spring sprung tonight at Dad's party! (With intense contempt, but also with bitterness). I was sitting there... looking at you... then I looked at the men around you... younger... men who will become something. I looked at you and suddenly I discovered that you no longer existed. At that moment the spring broke! (Finally broke! And now I'm going to shout it from the four winds, I'm going to howl it, and I don't care what you do. And I'm going to cause a scandal like you've never seen.
Jorge (very calm): I love that game. Start and you will see how I kill the point.
Marta (hopefully): Is it a challenge, Jorge?
Jorge: It's a challenge, Marta.
Marta: You're going to lose, dear.
Jorge: Be careful, Marta... I'm going to tear you apart.
Marta: You're not man enough for that…you lack guts.
Jorge: War to the death?
Martha: To death.

(There is a silence. They both look relieved and elated.)

1. Fragment of episode 1 of Calderon (1973), by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

ROSAURA: Those curtains on the windows! What wonderful things! Such curtains can only be dreamed of!
I am foreign to them: their price
It is not in my memories –nor in my customs- 
It's not even remotely within my means!
And this rug, this floor!
All this does not belong to me, because I do not know 
neither wealth nor what is attached to it.
STAR: -Rosaura, try to help me now: in your reason
something has broken, and, alas, it begins to
break in mine too. This duo of ours is absurd.
Try to concentrate... What have you dreamed tonight?
ROSAURA: I haven't dreamed anything, because THIS is a dream.
ESTRELLA: But since I know it's not a dream,
for I am your sister, and I have lived
your reality with me, it is necessary that you try at least,
suppose, by hypothesis that it is not a dream.
Let's simulate a game.
ROSAURA: What game?
STAR: Let's pretend you don't really recognize this bed,
in which you woke up this morning,
nor me, your sister, nor this house, called in the family,
Jokingly, Winter Palace, and everything else…
ROSAURA: -And then?
STAR: Pretend then pretend you don't know anything
of the world where you woke up this morning and live;
and I will pretend to have to explain to you how things are...
ROSAURA: -And all this for what purpose?
STAR: Because no one will ever come to your rescue (…)!

1. Fragment of the first act of Jettatore! (1904), by Gregory de Laferrere.
   

act first

Elegant room. A table in the center with magazines and newspapers. A fireplace or a piano on the forum on the left. A sofa above the forum on the right. lit chandelier

Yo

CARLOS. -Come on, Lucia... once and for all. Yes or no?
LUCY. -It's just that I can't make up my mind, Carlos. And if I am known?
CARLOS. –Don't be silly… What can you be trusted with? Everything is a matter of a moment.
LUCY. "If they found us out!"
CARLOS. –But don't think about that!… It's not possible. I assure you that they will not discover us. Why always imagine the worst? I have everything ready. Enrique will be waiting on the corner...
LUCY. –I don't feel like it, Carlos… I'm scared…
CARLOS. "Well, what I see is that you don't care about me at all.
LUCY. -Don't say that. You know that's not true.
CARLOS. “However, there is the proof.
LUCY. –If I can't love anyone other than you. As if you didn't know! (…)
CARLOS. "Come on, Lucia, don't be a girl. You are looking for excuses to deceive yourself. It seems incredible, woman! (Footsteps are felt.)
LUCY. "Here comes mom. She (She runs off to the left.)

1. Scene IV of Doll's House (1879), by Henrik Ibsen.

scene IV 

ELENA (Entering): Excuse me, ma'am... There's a gentleman who wants to speak to the lawyer...
NORA: You mean the director of the bank.
ELENA: Yes, ma'am, to the director; but, since the doctor is in there..., I didn't know...
KROGSTAD (Introducing himself): It's me, ma'am. (Helena exits. Cristina shudders, is disturbed, and turns to the window.)
NORA (advancing towards him, confused and in a low voice): You? What's going on? What do you have to say to my husband?
KROGSTAD: I wish to speak to you about matters relating to the Bank. I have a job there and I have heard that her husband is going to be our boss...
NORA: It's true.
KROGSTAD: Business matters, ma'am, nothing more than that.
NORA: Then take the trouble to go into the office. (She greets him nonchalantly, closing the hall door, and then goes to the fireplace.)

1. Fragment of the first act of The importance of being called Ernesto (1895) by Oscar Wilde.

GRESFORD.- (Going to the sofa and kneeling on it.) Well; And what do you find in it in particular? Are all the aunts going to be big? There are also small ones... You figure that all the aunts have to be like yours. It's stupid! Come on, kindly give me back my cigarette case! (Chasing ARCHIBALDO across the room.) 
ARCHIBALDO.- Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle here? "I remember little Cecilia, with all her love, to her dear uncle Juan de ella." I understand that there is nothing that prevents an aunt from being small; but for an aunt, no matter how big she is, to call her own nephew her uncle is unintelligible to me. Also, your name is not Juan, but Ernesto.
GRESFORD. No, sir; my name is not Ernesto; My name is Juan.
ARCHIBALDO.- You have always told me your name was Ernesto. I have introduced you to everyone as Ernesto. You respond to the name of Ernesto. It is completely absurd that you deny calling yourself Ernesto. In your cards he is he. (Removing one from his wallet.) "ERNESTO GRESFORD, Albany, 4." I'll keep it as proof that your name is Ernesto, if you ever try to deny it to me, or Susana, or whoever he is. (She puts the card in her pocket.) 
GRESFORD. – Well, whatever; My name is Ernesto in London and Juan in the countryside; and that cigarette case was given to me in the countryside. Are you already satisfied?

1. fragment of act without words (1956) by Samuel Beckett.

CHARACTER:
A man. Habitual gesture: he folds and unfolds the handkerchief.

SCENE:
Desert. Dazzling lighting.

ACTION:
Thrown stumbling from the right frame, the man stumbles, falls, gets up immediately, cleans himself, thinks.
Whistle signal right frame.
Think, exit to the right.
Immediately he is thrown back on stage, and he stumbles, falls, gets up immediately, cleans himself, thinks.
Whistle blow left frame.
Think, exit to the left.
Immediately he is thrown back on stage, and he stumbles, falls, gets up immediately, cleans himself, thinks.
Whistle blow left frame.
He thinks, goes to the left frame, stops before reaching it, throws himself back, stumbles, falls, gets up immediately, cleans himself, thinks.
A little tree comes down from the wings, settles. Just a branch three meters above the ground and at the tip a thin bunch of palms that cast a slight shadow.
Keep thinking. Whistle blow up.
She turns, sees the tree, thinks, goes to the tree, sits in the shade, looks at her hands.
A pair of tailor's scissors come down from the wings, they stop in front of the tree a meter from the ground.
She continues to look at her hands.
Whistle blow up. (…)

1. Fragment of the fourth scene of A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) by Tennessee Williams.

BLANCHE (goes to the back of the chair and then approaches Stella): -What you're talking about is brutal desire... simply... I wish... the name of that rattling tram that noisily runs through the neighborhood, through one of the narrow streets and then through another...
STELLA: Haven't you ever traveled in it?
BLANCHE: -That tram brought me here... Where I'm superfluous and where I'm ashamed to be.
STELLA (taking a step to the left): So... don't you think your air of superiority is a little off?
BLANCHE (following her and stopping her, forcing her to turn): -I'm not nor do I feel superior, Stella. Believe me. There's no such thing! This only happens. I see things like this. With a man like Stanley, you can go out... once... twice... three times when you have the devil in your body. But... Live with him! Have a child with him!
STELLA: -I told you I love it.
BLANCHE (taking a step to the right): Then I tremble for you! Simply… I tremble for you!
STELLA (goes to the armchair, sits down and puts the bottle with the nail polish within reach on the furniture): -I can't help you tremble if you insist on trembling! (Pause. The whistle and roar of an approaching train is heard.)

Interactive exercise to practice

Follow with:

• dramatic poems
• short plays
• Synopsis of Hamlet
• Narrative text

References

• Roman Calvo, N. (2003). To read a dramatic text. From the text to the staging. Mexico D.F., Editorial Pax Mexico.
• "dramatic text" in Wikipedia.
• "dramatic text" in EcuRed.