Since
in drama there is usually no narrator who tells us what is going on in the
story-words (except for narrator figures in the epict theatre and other
mediators, the audience has no gain information directly from what can be seen
and heard on stage. As far as the communication model for literary text is
concerned (see Basic Concepts ch 1.3) it can be adapted for communication in
drama as follows :
In
comparison with narrative text, the plane of narator/narratee is left out,
except for plays which deliberately employ narrative elements. Information can
be conveyed both linguistically in the characters’ speech, for example, or
non-linguistically as in stage props, costumes, the stage set, etc. Questions
that raise in this context are: How much information is given, how is it
conveyed and whose perspective is adopted ?
AMOUNT
AND DETAIL OF INFORMATION
The
question concerning the amount or detail of information given in a play is
particularly important at the beginning of plays where the audience expects to
learn something about the problem or conflict of the story, the main characters
and also the time and place of the scene. In other words, the audience is
informed about the who ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘why’ of the story
at the beginning of plays. This is called exposition. Consider the first act of
Shakespare’s A Mindstemmer Night’s Dream. The audience learns about where the
plays takes place (Athens and a nearby forest) and it is introduced to all the
characters in the plays. Moreover, we realise what the main conflicts are that
will propel the plot (love triangle and uniquited love for Helena, Hermia,
Lysander and Demetrius). Different variations of love immediately become
obvious as the prominent topic in this play. Thus, we are confronted with
Theseus’ and Hippolyta’s mature relationship, young love in Lysander and
Hermia, and love sickness and jealously in Helena. The audience learns about
Theseus’ and Hippolyta’s approaching wedding and the workman’s plan to elope
and Helena’s attempt to thwart their plan. Generally speaking, the audience is
well prepared for what is to follow after watching the first act of A
Mindsummer Night’s Dream The Audience is given answers to most of the
wh-questions and all that remains for viewers to wonder about is how the plot
is going to develop and what the results will be.
Sometimes,
the information we get is not as detailed as that and leaves us with a lot of
questions. Consider the following excerpt from the first scene of Edward
Bond’s Saved.
LEN: This ain’ the bedroom PAM: Bed ain’ made LEN:
Oo’s bothered ? PAM: It’s awful. ‘Ere’s nice LEN: Suit yourself. Yer don’t mind
if I take me shoes off? (He kicks them off) No one’ome? PAM: No. LEN: Live on
yer tod? PAM: No LEN:O. (Pause. He sits back on the couch) Yer all right? Come
over’ere. PAM: In a minit. LEN: Wass yer nome ? PAM: Yer ain’ arf nosey. (Bond,
Saved,1)
The
character conversation strikes one as being rather brief and uninformative. We
are confronted with two characters who hardly seem to know each other but
apparently have agreed on a one-right stand. We can conjecture that the scene
takes place at Pam’s house and later in that scene we are givent a hint that
she must be living with her parents but apart from that, there is not much in
the way of information. We can do not really get to know the characters e.g,
what they do, what they think, and even their names are only abbreviations,
which makes them anonymous. Although we can draw inferences about Len’s and
Pam’s social background from their speech style and vocabulary, their
conversation as much is marked by a lack of real communication. After watching
the first scene, the audience is left with a felling of confusion: Who are
these people? What do they want? What is the story going to be about? One is
left with the impression that this is a very anonymous, unloving environment
and that the characters’ impoverished communication skills somehow reflect a
general emotional, educational and social poverty. This is reinforced by the
barrenness of the living-room presented in the stage directions as follows:
The
living-room. The front and the two side walls make a triangle that slopes to a
door back center. Furniture : table down right, sofa left, TV set left front,
armobair up right center, tho chairs close to the table. Empty.
If
one bears in minds that the empty stage is the first thing the audience sees,
it becomes clear that information is conveyed visually first before the
characters appear and start talking. This is obviously done on purpose to set the
spectator’s minds going.
TRANSMISSION
OF INFORMATION
Although
in drama information is usually conveyed directly to the audience, there are
instances where a mediator comparable to the narrator (see ch 25) of a
narrative text appears on stage. A threatical movement where where this
technique was newly adopted and widely used was the so-called epic theatre,
which goes back to the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and developed as a
reaction againts the realistic theatrical tradition (Kesting 1989; Russo 1998).
At the centre of Brecht’s poetics is the idea of alienating the audience from
the action presented on stage in order to impede people’s emotional involvement
in and identification with the characters and conflicts of the story
(alienation effect or estrangement effect). Instead, spectator are expected to
gain a critical distance and thus to be able to judge rationally what is
presented to them. Some of the ‘narrative’ elements in this type of theatre are
songs, banners and, most importantly, a narrator who comments on the action. One
must not forget that some of these elements existed before. Thus, ancient Greek
drama traditionally made use of a chorus, i.e, a group of people situated on
stage who throughout the play commented on events and the characters’ actions.
The chorus bids the spectators to use their imagination to help create the
play. Shakespare’s Romeo and Juliet also starts with a prologue spoken by a
chorus (in the Elizabethan theatre the chorus could be represented by only one
actors):
Two
households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From
ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands
unclean, From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star-cross’d
lovers take their life; Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows, Doth with their
death bury their parent’s strife, The fearful passage of their death-mark’d
love, And the continuance of their parent’s rage, Which, but their children’s
end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage, The which
if you with patient ears attent, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to
mend. (Romeo and Juliet, Prologue)
As
far as information is concerned, the main function of this chorus is to
introduce the audience to the subsequent play. We learn something about the
setting, about the characters involved (although we are not given any names yet)
and about the tragic conflict. In actual fact we are already told what the
outcome of the story will be, so the focus right from the start is not on the
question ‘What is going to happen?’ but on ‘How is it going to happen?’
However, the chorus does more than simply provide information. The fact that
the prologue is actually in sonnet from underlines the main topic. If this
tragedy, love, and a tragic atmosphere is created by semantic fields related to
death, fate and fighting (“fatal loins”, “foes”, “star-cross’d”, “death-mark’d”,
“rage”, etc, see isotopy ch 15). At the same time, the audience is invited to
feel sympathetic towards the protagonists (“piteous”, “fearful”), and they
reminded of the fact that what is following is only a play (“two hours’
traffict of our stage”, “our toil”). One can say that information is conveyed
here in a rather condensed from and the way this is done already anticipates
features of the epic theatre, notably the explicit emphasis on acting and
performance.
PERSPECTIVE
Introductory
information and narrative-like commentary need not necessarily be provided by a
figure outside the actual play. In another of Shakespeare’s plays, Richard III,
for example, the main protagonist frequently comments on the events and reveals
his plans in speeches spoken away from another characters (so-called asides,
see ch 3 7 2). At the very beginning of this history play, Richard, the Duke of
Gloucester, informs the audience about the current political situation and what
he has done to change it :
Now
is the winter of our discontent, Since
in drama there is usually no narrator who tells us what is going on in the
story-words (except for narrator figures in the epict theatre and other
mediators, the audience has no gain information directly from what can be seen
and heard on stage. As far as the communication model for literary text is
concerned (see Basic Concepts ch 1.3) it can be adapted for communication in
drama as follows :
In
comparison with narrative text, the plane of narator/narratee is left out,
except for plays which deliberately employ narrative elements. Information can
be conveyed both linguistically in the characters’ speech, for example, or
non-linguistically as in stage props, costumes, the stage set, etc. Questions
that raise in this context are: How much information is given, how is it
conveyed and whose prespective is adopted ?
AMOUNT
AND DETAIL OF INFORMATION
The
question concerning the amount or detail of information given in a play is
particularly important at the beginning of plays where the audience expects to
learn something about the problem or conflict of the story, the main characters
and also the time and place of the scene. In other words, the audience is
informed about the who ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘why’ of the story
at the beginning of plays. This is called exposition. Consider the first act of
Shakespare’s A Mindstemmer Night’s Dream. The audience learns about where the
plays takes place (Athens and a nearby forest) and it is introduced to all the
characters in the plays. Moreover, we realise what the main conflicts are that
will propel the plot (love triangle and uniquited love for Helena, Hermia,
Lysander and Demetrius). Different variations of love immediately become
obvious as the prominent topic in this play. Thus, we are confronted with
Theseus’ and Hippolyta’s mature relationship, young love in Lysander and
Hermia, and love sickness and jealously in Helena. The audience learns about
Theseus’ and Hippolyta’s approaching wedding and the workman’s plan to elope
and Helena’s attempt to thwart their plan. Generally speaking, the audience is
well prepared for what is to follow after watching the first act of A
Mindsummer Night’s Dream The Audience is given answers to most of the
wh-questions and all that remains for viewers to wonder about is how the plot
is going to develop and what the results will be.
Sometimes,
the information we get is not as detailed as that and leaves us with a lot of
questionts. Consider the following excerpt from the first scene of Edward
Bond’s Saved.
LEN: This ain’ the bedroom PAM: Bed ain’ made LEN:
Oo’s bothered ? PAM: It’s awful. ‘Ere’s nice LEN: Suit yourself. Yer don’t mind
if I take me shoes off? (He kicks them off) No one’ome? PAM: No. LEN: Live on
yer tod? PAM: No LEN:O. (Pause. He sits back on the couch) Yer all right? Come
over’ere. PAM: In a minit. LEN: Wass yer nome ? PAM: Yer ain’ arf nosey. (Bond,
Saved,1)
The
character conversation strikes one as being rather brief and uninformative. We
are confronted with two characters who hardly seem to know each other but
apparently have agreed on a one-right stand. We can conjecture that the scene
takes place at Pam’s house and later in that scene we are givent a hint that
she must be living with her parents but apart from that, there is not much in
the way of information. We can do not really get to know the characters e.g,
what they do, what they think, and even their names are only abbreviations,
which makes them anonymous. Although we can draw inferences about Len’s and
Pam’s social background from their speech style and vocabulary, their
conversation as much is marked by a lack of real communication. After watching
the first scene, the audience is left with a felling of confusion: Who are
these people? What do they want? What is the story going to be about? One is
left with the impression that this is a very anonymous, unloving environment
and that the characters’ impoverished communication skills somehow reflect a
general emotional, educational and social poverty. This is reinforced by the
barrenness of the living-room presented in the stage directions as follows:
The
living-room. The front and the two side walls make a triangle that solpes to a
door back centre. Furniture : table down right, sofa left, TV set left front,
armobair up right centre, tho chairs close to the table. Empty.
If
one bears in minds that the empty stage is the first thing the audience sees,
it becomes clear that information is coveyed visually first before the
characters appear and start talking. This is obviously done on purpose to set the
spectator’s minds going.
TRANSMISSION
OF INFORMATION
Although
in drama information is usually conveyed directly to the audience, there are
instances where a mediator comparable to the narrator (see ch 25) of a
narrative text appears on stage. A threatical movement where where this
technique was newly adopted and widely used was the so-called epic theatre,
which goes back to the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and developed as a
reaction againts the realistic theatrical tradition (Kesting 1989; Russo 1998).
At the centre of Brecht’s poetics is the idea of alienating the audience from
the action presented on stage in order to impede people’s emotional involvement
in and identification with the characters and conflicts of the story
(alienation effect or estrangement effect). Instead, spectator are expected to
gain a critical distance and thus to be able to judge rationally what is
presented to them. Some of the ‘narrative’ elements in this type of theatre are
songs, banners and, most importanly, a narrator who comments on the action. One
must not forget that some of these elements existed before. Thus, ancient Greek
drama traditionally made use of a chorus, i.e, a group of people situated on
stage who throughout the play commented on events and the characters’ actions.
The chorus bids the spectators to use their imagination to help create the
play. Shakespare’s Romeo and Juliet also starts with a prologue spoken by a
chorus (in the Elizabethan theatre the chorus could be represented by only one
actors):
Two
households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From
ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands
unclean, From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star-cross’d
lovers take their life; Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows, Doth with their
death bury their parent’s strife, The fearful passage of their death-mark’d
love, And the continuance of their parent’s rage, Which, but their children’s
end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage, The wich
if you with patient ears attent, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to
mend. (Romeo and Juliet, Prologue)
As
far as information is concerned, the main function of this chorus is to
introduce the audience to the subsequent play. We learn something about the
setting, about the characters involved (although we are not given any names yet)
and about the tragic conflict. In actual fact we are already told what the
outcome of the story will be, so the focus right from the start is not on the
question ‘What is going to happen?’ but on ‘How is it going to happen?’
However, the chorus does more than simply provide information. The fact that
the prologue is actually in sonnet from underlines the main topic. If this
tragedy, love, and a tragic atmosphere is created by semantic fields related to
death, fate and fighting (“fatal loins”, “foes”, “star-cross’d”, “death-mark’d”,
“rage”, etc, see isotopy ch 15). At the same time, the audience is invited to
feel sympathetic towards the protagonists (“piteous”, “fearful”), and they
reminded of the fact that what is following is only a play (“two hours’
traffict of our stage”, “our toil”). One can say that information is conveyed
here in a rather condensed from and the way this is done already anticipates
features of the epic theatre, notably the explicit emphasis on acting and
performance.
PRESPECTIVE
Introductory
information and narrative-like commentary need not necessarily be provided by a
figure outside the actual play. In another of Shakespeare’s plays, Richard III,
for example, the main protagonist frequently comments on the events and reveals
his plans in speeches spoken away from another characters (so-called asides,
see ch 3 7 2). At the very beginning of this history play, Richard, the Duke of
Gloucester, informs the audience about the current political situation and what
he has done to change it :
Now
is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by this son of York; And
all the coulds that lour’d upon our Huse, In deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our brusied arms hung up for
monuments, Our stern alarums change’d merry meetings, Our deadful marches to
delightful measures. Grim-viseg’d War hath smooth’d his wrinkled front: And
now, instead of mounting barbed steeds, To fright the souls of fearful
adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber, To the lascivious pleasing
of a lute. [...] Plot have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken propecies,
libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate, the
one against the other: And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle,
false, and treacherous, This day should clerance closely be mew’d up, About a
prophecy, which says that ‘G’ Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be-Dive,
thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes. (Richard III, I, 1:1-41)
Richard
tells the audience about his dissatisfication with the current sovereign and he
takes the audience into confidence as far as his plot against his brother
Clarence is concerned. Throughout the play, Richard always comment on what
happend or what his next plan is, which also means that most of the play is
presented from Richard’s prespective. This is another important aspect to bear
in mind when discussing the mediation of information: Whose prespective is
adopted? Are there characters in the play
whose views are expressed more clearly and more frequently than others? And
finally, what function does this have? These questions are reminiscent of the
discussion of focalisation in narrative texts (ch 2 5 2) In Richard II, for
example, the undeniably vicious character of Richard is slightly modified by
the fact that we get this figure so well. We learn that Richard is also
tormented by his ugliness and we may thus be inclined to take that as an excuse
for his viciousness. At the same time, we indirectly also become
‘partner-in-crime’, since we always know what will happen next, while other
character left in dark. Thus, whether we want it or not, we are taking sides
with Richard to some extent, and the fact that he is such a brilliant orator
might even give us a gloating pleasure in his cunning deeds and plots.
DRAMATIC
IRONY
The
way information is conveyed to the audience and also how much information can
have a number of effect on the viewers and they are thus important questions to
ask in drama analysis. The discrepancy between the audience’s and characters’
knowledge of certain information can, for example, lead to dramatic irony.
Thus, duplicities or puns can be understood by the audience because they posses
the necessary background knowledge of events while the characters are ignorant
and therefore lack sufficient insight. Narrators in narrative texts often use
inory in their comment or characters, foe example, and they can do that because
they, like the audience of a play, are outside the story-world and thus posses
knowledge which characters may not have.
In
the play The Revenger’s by Cyril Tourneur, one of Shakespare’s contemporaries,
irony is created because the audience knows about Vindice’s plans of revenge
against the Duke, who poisoned Vindice’s introduction of the putative young
lady is highly ironic for the viewers since they know what is hidden beneath
the disguise :
A
country lady, a little bashful at first, As most of them are; but after the
first kiss, My lord, the worst is past with them; you Grace, Knows now what you
have to do; Sh’as somewhat a grave look with her, but – (The Revenger’s
Tragedy, III, 3 : 133-137)
The
pun on ‘grave’ (referring both to the excavation to receive a corpse and the
quality of being or looking serious) is very funny indeed, especially since the
Duke himself does not have the least suspicion that anything is wrong here The
irony is pushed event further by the appearance of the Duke’s wife and Spurio,
his bastard son, who are secret lovers and who made an appointment at the same
place. They appear on the stage while the Duke is still in the process of dying
and thus fully aware of their presence, and they discuss possible ways of
killing the Duke, albeit in a playful manner, not nowing that the Duke is dying
at the very moment. The irony becomes particularly poignant for the audience
when Spurio and the Duchesss talk about poisioning and stabbing the Duke, which
is exactly what happened to the Duke just a minute before they appeared on
stage. Thus the audience’s surplus of knowledge makes the scene incredibility
ironic and potentially funny.
In
contrast to this, lack of vital information can lead to confusion but it also
contribute to a sense of suspense. As long as the audience is not fully
informed about characters, their motives, previous actions, etc. The questions
‘How did all these happen?’, What is going on here?’ and ‘What’s going to
happen next or in the end?’ becomes crucial.
SO
WHAT?
Many
plays employ the strategy of leaving the audience in the dark and it is easy to
understand why they do it: They try to keep people interested in the play as
long as possible. Detective plays typically use this device but other examples
of analytic drama can also be found. Peter Shaffer’s play Equus, for instance,
only reveals in a piecemeal fashion all the events that led up to Alan’s
blinding of the horses. The play tells the story of the teenager Alan, who
blinds six horses and subsequently undergoes psychotherapy. While the viewers
know right from the start ‘what’ happend, they do not have a clue as to ‘how’
or ‘why’ it happened. This information is, like in a puzzle, gradually pieced
together through conversation between Alan and the psychiartist Dysart, Alan’s
memories and his acting out of these memories during his therapy. Thus the
audience is invited to speculate on possible motifes and reasons, and the play
becomes hoghly psychological not only on the level of the story-world but also
on the level of the audience’s reception of the play.
Lack
of necessary information can also lead to surprices for the audience, and this
is often used in comedies to resolve confusions and mixed-up identities. In
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest, for example, the final scene
reveals Jhon (Jack) Worrthing’s true identity. The revelation, however, is
further delayed by the fact that Jack mistakenly assumes that Miss Prism must
be his mother:
JACK
[Rushing over to Miss Prism] Is this the handbag, Mis Prism? Examine it
carefully before you speak. The happiess of more than one life depends on your
answer. MISS PRISM [Calmly] It seems to be mine [ ... ] I am delightedf to have
it so unexpectedly restored to me. It has been a great inconvenince being
without it all these years. JACK [In a phathetic voice] Miss Prism, more is
restored to you than this handbag. I was the baby you placed in it. MISS PRISM
[Amazed] You? JACK [Embracing her] Yes .. mother! MISS PRISM [Recoiling in
indigant astonisment] Mr Worting! I am unmarried JACK Unmarried I do not deny
that is a serious blow But after all, who has the right to cast a stone against
who has suffered? [ .... ] Mother, I forgive you [Tries to embarace her again
MISS PRISM [Still more indignant] Mr Worthing, there is some error [Painting to
Lady Bracknell] There is lady can tell you who you really are. [ ... ] (The
Important of Being Earnest, III)
The
audience knowledge of all the circumstances equals that of Jack. From earlier
conversations in the play the spectators know that he has raised as an orphan
by a rich gentelment after he had been found in a handbag in a cloakroom of
Victoria Station. Thus, as soon as Miss Pirsm relates how she loss her handbag
and, with it, a baby, the audience infers just like Jack this baby must have
been him. Since no further hint his given that Miss Prism is not Jack’s mother,
Jack’s somewhat hasty conclusion that she must be seem pausible. What makes
this scene particularly funny is the way the characters act and react on their
ignorance or knowledge. Jack, wrongly assuming he finally found his mother,
becomes very affectionate and tries to embarace Miss Prism. She, by contrast,
reacts in a manner surprising To the audience and to the Jack: She is indignant
and recoils from him. Her explanation that she is unmarried increases suspense
as this still does not reveal the final truth about Jack’s origin but brings in
another aspect highly topical at the time: morality, which Jack comments on
accordingly. Finally, the puzzle is solved when Miss Prism point towards Lady
Bracknell, who then tells Jack that he is in fact the son of her sister and
thus his friend’s, Algernon’s and it is really funny since Jack had all along
pretened to have an imaginary brother.
The
comedy is given even further when Jack finds out that his real name is Ernest.
Coincidentally, this is also the name he had used as an alias when he spent
time in London, and his fiancee had
declared categorically that she could marry only someone with the name of Ernest.
Thus, everything falls into a Jack and his problem of not being able to marry
Gwendolen is resolved. The fact that the truth about Jack’s ral identity is
hidden both from Jack and the audience for so long creates confusions right
until the and therefore contributes to numerous misconceptions and comical
encounters. Information flow thus becomes an important device for propelling
and complicating the plot, and it creates suspense and surprise in the viewer. glorious summer by this son of York; And
all the coulds that lour’d upon our Huse, In deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our brusied arms hung up for
monuments, Our stern alarums change’d merry meetings, Our deadful marches to
delightful measures. Grim-viseg’d War hath smooth’d his wrinkled front: And
now, instead of mounting barbed steeds, To fright the souls of fearful
adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber, To the lascivious pleasing
of a lute. [...] Plot have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken propecies,
libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate, the
one against the other: And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle,
false, and treacherous, This day should clearance closely be mew’d up, About a
prophecy, which says that ‘G’ Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be-Dive,
thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes. (Richard III, I, 1:1-41)
Richard
tells the audience about his dissatisfication with the current sovereign and he
takes the audience into confidence as far as his plot against his brother
Clarence is concerned. Throughout the play, Richard always comment on what
happend or what his next plan is, wich also means that most of the play is
presented from Richard’s prespective. This is another importan aspect to bear
in mind when disscussing the mediation of information: Whose prespective is
adoped? Are there characters in the play
whose views are expressed more clearly and more frequently than others? And
finally, what function does this have? These questions are reminiscent of the
discussion of focalisation in narrative texts (ch 2 5 2) In Richard II, for
example, the undeniably vicious character of Richard is slightly modified by
the fact that we get this figure so well. We learn that Richard is also
tormented by his ugliness and we may thus be inclined to take that as an excuse
for his viciousness. At the same time, we indirectly also become
‘partner-in-crime’, since we always know what will happen next, while other
character left in dark. Thus, whether we want it or not, we are taking sides
with Richard to some extent, and the fact that he is such a brilliant orator
might even give us a gloating pleasure in his cunning deeds and plots.
DRAMATIC
IRONY
The
way information is conveyed to the audience and also how much information can
have a number of effect on the viewers and they are thus important questions to
aks in drama analysis. The discrepancy between the audience’s and characters’
knowledge of certain information can, for example, lead to dramatic irony.
Thus, duplicities or puns can be understood by the audience because they posses
the neceessary background knowledge of events while the characters are ignorant
and therefore lack sufficient insight. Narrators in narrative texts often use
inory in their comment or characters, foe example, and they can do that because
they, like the audience of a play, are outside the story-world and thus posses
knowledge which characters may not have.
In
the play The Revenger’s by Cyril Tourneur, one of Shakespare’s contemporaries,
irony is created because the audience knows about Vindice’s plans of revenge
against the Duke, who poisoned Vindice’s introduction of the putative young
lady is highly ironic for the viewers since they know what is hidden beneath
the disguise :
A
country lady, a little bashful at first, As most of them are; but after the
first kiss, My lord, the worst is past with them; you Grace, Knows now what you
have to do; Sh’as somewhat a grave look with her, but – (The Revenger’s
Tragedy, III, 3 : 133-137)
The
pun on ‘grave’ (referring both to the excavation to receive a corpse and the
quality of being or looking serious) is very funny indeed, especially since the
Duke himself does not have the least suspicion that anything is wrong here The
irony is phused event further by the appearance of the Duke’s wife and Spurio,
his bastard son, who are secret lovers and who made an appointment at the same
place. They appear on the stage while the Duke is still in the process of dying
and thus fully aware of their presence, and they discuss possible ways of
killing the Duke, albeit in a playful manner, not nowing that the Duke is dying
at the very moment. The irony becomes particularly poignant for the audience
when Spurio and the Duchesss talk about poisioning and stabbing the Duke, which
is exactly what happened to the Duke just a minute before they appeared on
stage. Thus the audience’s surplus of knowledge makes the scene incredibility
ironic and potentially funny.
In
contrast to this, lack of vital information can lead to confusion but it also
contribute to a sense of suspense. As long as the audience is not fully
imformed about characters, their motives, previous actions, etc. The questions
‘How did all these happen?’, What is going on here?’ and ‘What’s going to
happen next or in the end?’ becomes crucial.
SO
WHAT?
Many
plays employ the strategy of leaving the audience in the dark and it is easy to
understand why they do it: They try to keep people interested in the play as
long as possible. Detective plays typically use this device but other examples
of analytic drama can also be found. Peter Shaffer’s play Equus, for instance,
only reveals in a piecemeal fashion all the events that led up to Alan’s
blinding of the horses. The play tells the story of the teenager Alan, who
blinds six horses and subsequently undergoes psychotherapy. While the viewers
know right from the start ‘what’ happend, they do not have a clue as to ‘how’
or ‘why’ it happened. This information is, like in a puzzle, gradually pieced
together through converstion between Alan and the psychiartist Dysart, Alan’s
memories and his acting out of these memories during his therapy. Thus the
audience is invited to speculate on possible motifes and reasons, and the play
becomes hoghly psychological not only on the level of the story-world but also
on the level of the audience’s reception of the play.
Lack
of necessary information can also lead to surprices for the audience, and this
is often used in comedies to resolve confusions and mixed-up identities. In
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest, for example, the final scene
reveals Jhon (Jack) Worrthing’s true identity. The revelation, however, is
further delayed by the fact that Jack mistakenly assumes that Miss Prism must
be his mother:
JACK
[Rushing over to Miss Prism] Is this the handbag, Mis Prism? Examine it
carefully before you speak. The happiess of more than one life depends on your
answer. MISS PRISM [Calmly] It seems to be mine [ ... ] I am delightedf to have
it so unexpectedly restored to me. It has been a great inconvenince being
without it all these years. JACK [In a phathetic voice] Miss Prism, more is
restored to you than this handbag. I was the baby you placed in it. MISS PRISM
[Amazed] You? JACK [Embracing her] Yes .. mother! MISS PRISM [Recoiling in
indigant astonisment] Mr Worting! I am unmarried JACK Unmarried I do not deny
that is a serious blow But after all, who has the right to cast a stone against
who has suffered? [ .... ] Mother, I forgive you [Tries to embarace her again
MISS PRISM [Still more indignant] Mr Worthing, there is some error [Painting to
Lady Bracknell] There is lady can tell you who you really are. [ ... ] (The
Important of Being Earnest, III)
The
audience knowledge of all the circumstances equals that of Jack. From earlier
conversations in the play the spectators know that he has raised as an orphan
by a rich gentelment after he had been found in a handbag in a cloakroom of
Victoria Station. Thus, as soon as Miss Pirsm relates how she loss her handbag
and, with it, a baby, the audience infers just like Jack this baby must have
been him. Since no further hint his given that Miss Prism is not Jack’s mother,
Jack’s somewhat hasty conclusion that she must be seem pausible. What makes
this scene particularly funny is the way the characters act and react on their
ignorance or knowledge. Jack, wrongly assuming he finally found his mother,
becomes very affectionate and tries to embarace Miss Prism. She, by contrast,
reacts in a manner surprising To the audience and to the Jack: She is indignant
and recoils from him. Her explanation that she is unmarried increases suspense
as this still does not reveal the final truth about Jack’s origin but brings in
another aspect highly topical at the time: morality, which Jack comments on
accordingly. Finally, the puzzle is solved when Miss Prism point towards Lady
Bracknell, who then tells Jack that he is in fact the son of her sister and
thus his friend’s, Algernon’s and it is really funny since Jack had all along
pretened to have an imaginary brother.
The
comedy is given even further when Jack finds out that his real name is Ernest.
Coincidentally, this is also the name he had used as an alias when he spent
time in London, and his fiancee had
declared categorically that she could marry only someone with the name of Ernest.
Thus, everything falls into a Jack and his problem of not being able to marry
Gwendolen is resolved. The fact that the truth about Jack’s ral identity is
hidden both from Jack and the audience for so long creates confusions right
until the and therefore contributes to numerous misconceptions and comical
encounters. Information flow thus becomes an important device for propelling
and complicating the plot, and it creates suspense and surprise in the viewer.
