Preview

Identify, discuss and analyse the key features and characteristics of at least 3 different examples of script writing.

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1304 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Identify, discuss and analyse the key features and characteristics of at least 3 different examples of script writing.
Identify, discuss and analyse the key features and characteristics of at least 3 different examples of script writing.

In this essay I will be taking different plays and analysing their features and characteristics within them. I will be analysing ‘Beautiful Burnout’ performed by Frantic Assembly, ‘Lysistrata, or Loose Strife’ by David Stuttard, and ‘Twelfth Night, Or What You Will’ by William Shakespeare. Within these plays I will be looking at the style of writing it is, (eg – formal, informal, old English), the genre (eg – comedy, tragedy) and the themes.
In the play ‘Beautiful Burnout’ is written in verses, like a poem. It doesn’t follow a pattern and doesn’t rhyme like a poem, but reads like a poem would. The way the setting at the beginning of each scene is described is also in the same way as the actual lines. The language is fairly informal as it includes Scottish words written phonetically such as “nae mare nae less” meaning “no more no less”, which helps the actors/actresses pronounce the words in a Scottish accent effectively. It also uses colloquial language to Glasgow (Scotland in general) the place where the play is set such as “lassies” and “aye” to make the setting and the characters both realistic when compared to each other. In comparison to this, ‘Lysistrata, Or Loose Strife’ is not written in verses. This play includes monologues that are made into lines depending on when the actor/actress would pause. In ‘Lysistrata, Or Loose Strife’, the language is mainly informal, similarly to ‘Beautiful Burnout’, but for the purpose to make the play humorous. The way sex throughout the play is portrayed is informal such as in the beginning scene where everything Lucy is saying is being turned into innuendos by Nikki to make the audience laugh, such as “They’re Greeks, everything they do, they do late. And everything takes so long – starting, finishing, coming, g…” “Sometimes I wish my husband was a bit more like that!” and “is it something big?”

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    A short play is usually filled with a theatrical energy of diverse anthologies. The time allotted may be only ten or fifteen minutes, so it must be able to capture and engage the audience with some dramatic tension, exciting action, or witty humor. Just as in a short story, a great deal of the explanation and background is left for the reader or viewer to discover on their own. Because all the details are not explicitly stated, each viewer interprets the action in their own way and each experience is unique from someone else viewing the same play. Conflict is the main aspect that drives any work of literature, and plays usually consist of some form of conflict. In “Playwriting 101: The Rooftop Lesson,” Rich Orloff explores these common elements of plays and creates an original by “gathering all clichés into one story and satirizing them” (Orloff as cited by Meyer, 2009, p. 1352).…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the play, King Richard III by Sir William Shakespeare, the protagonist Richard, Duke of Gloucester is a man of many skills. However, good looks are not one of them. His high position of power in the royal family as a duke, as well as the brother of King Edward supplements for his lack of grace. Richard’s acting skills, combined with his finely tuned persuasive abilities are his greatest gifts. Richard III has many characteristics that would make a strong hero, but he uses these strengths along with his position in the royal family to manipulate and undermine those around him to get what he wants, thus resulting in him being a satanic hero.…

    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Even though the four plays were written in four different eras, there are quite a few phenomena they have in common. Written in the 16th century, A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare is the oldest among the four dramas. Goldsmith wrote She Stoops to Conquer in 1773, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest was published in 1895, while Mrs Warren's Profession by Bernard Shaw was written in 1893. It is obvious that each era imposed a particular world view on the writer, therefore a brief historical outlook when talking about the plays is more than essential. On the other hand, it is also true that the subject matters these playwrights deal with are universal topics which are bound to happen any time and any place, with no reference to historical and social barriers. There is no doubt that the attitude of most human beings do not differ from each other when it comes to feelings such as love, hate, anger, jealousy, happiness. And these are the characteristics that make these comedies popular and imperishable.…

    • 2552 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Twelfth Night

    • 2017 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Shakespeare’s plays were written to be performed to an audience from different social classes and of varying levels of intellect. Hence his plays contain down-to-earth characters that appeal to the working classes, side-by-side with complexities of plot, which would satisfy the appetites of the aristocrats among the audience. However, his contemporary status is different, and Shakespeare’s plays have become a symbol of culture and education, being widely used as a subject for academic study and literary criticism. A close analysis of Twelfth Night, which is considered to be a reference to the twelfth night of the Christmas celebration, shows how Shakespeare is able to manipulate the form, structure, and language of a play in order to contribute to the meaning of it, which in the case of Twelfth Night is that of deception. Also, Shakespeare uses Twelfth Night to examine the patterns of love and courtship through the twisting of gender roles.…

    • 2017 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In dramatic construction there must be variation of pace and rhythm, monotony of any kind being certain to induce boredom. Comparing at least two plays you have studied in the light of this statement, show how variations of pace and rhythm have been used to attract of heighten the interest of the audience.…

    • 2293 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout numerous theatre productions and writings, music acts as the portrayal of a performances atmosphere and/or condition. The melodic compositions that enhance a production often attract an audience’s attention as well as connect fabricated characters to genuine people. While the character’s emotions depicted throughout a performance attain an audience’s response, the musical score written during the process of a play receives a greater acknowledgment. Viewing Twelfth Night from a analytical musical perspective, Shakespeare underscores how the expression of various genres of music reveals the inner feelings of characters and foreshadows the progress of the characters. William Shakespeare organized his style of writing through a series of periods; the first of four periods was written prior to 1595.…

    • 1292 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dramatic Techniques

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Things to look out for in plays. Context You will need to write about techniques used in plays during your KS4 course. You will be expected to be able to look closely at how the playwright creates tension and characters through different techniques You can use this homework to help you develop your skills when writing about any play but not all plays will use the same techniques. Objective To identify dramatic techniques in plays. What you need to do. 1. Read the help sheet ‘Dramatic Techniques’. You must read this first. 2. Either choose Task A (easier) or Task B (more challenging) or Task C (difficult). Task A Print off a copy of Play A. You need to identify the different dramatic techniques used in this. They have been highlighted for you. You just need to say what they are by labelling this sheet. Task B Print off a copy of Task B. You need to identify the different dramatic techniques by labelling the play. You need to say why you think the playwright has used the technique. In other words what does it tell us or how does it help to build the atmosphere. Task C Read Task C. You need to read the play extract and write a commentary/essay on how the playwright has used different techniques and why. In other words you are writing an analysis: how have the techniques been used to add drama or to help us understand character?…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    metatheatre

    • 573 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Only certain plays tell us at once that the happenings and characters in them are of the playwright's invention, and that insofar as they were discovered . . . they were found by the playwright's imagining rather than by his observing the world. Such plays have truth in them, not because they convince us of real occurrences or existing persons, but because they show the reality of the dramatic imagination, instanced by the playwright's and also by that of his characters. Of such plays, it may be said: "The play's the thing." Plays of this type, it seems to me, belong to a special genre and deserve a distinctive name . . . .…

    • 573 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Dangerous Corner

    • 878 Words
    • 2 Pages

    From the stylistic point of view, a play is a stylized dialogue, stylized because of the effect of natural speech: a lot of elliptical structures, interruptions, and it is the peculiarity of the drama works. One more feature is the language used: it is a harmonic mixture of bookish and colloquial style.…

    • 878 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An international board of leading scholars and cultural historians maintains the quality of each annual volume, so Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England can be relied upon as a useful source for all students of early English drama for directors, teachers, and actors, as well as for specialists in college and university study. Readers who wish to deepen their understanding of this drama will find in each volume wide-ranging discussions of topics such as music, politics, aesthetics, philosophy, painting, and the questions of material culture, as these matters apply to the interpretation of drama as cultural production.…

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Stylistic Analysis

    • 6049 Words
    • 25 Pages

    Van Peer, W. (1980) 'The Stylistic Theory of Foregrounding: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation. ' Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Lancaster University.…

    • 6049 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cae Top Tips

    • 52800 Words
    • 212 Pages

    31 Sample paper – test 2 33 Assessment 34 Cambridge ESOL Common Scale for Writing 35 Sample scripts and mark schemes – tests 1 and 2 51 55 56 60 61 73 74 77 81 82 Sample paper – test 1 Answer keys – test 1 Sample paper – test 2 Answer keys – test 2 Candidate answer sheet Answer keys – test 1 Sample paper – test 2…

    • 52800 Words
    • 212 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Raymond Williams has recently insisted that “a play can both be literature and theatre, not the one at the expense of the other, but each because of the other. And of course the ordinary honest and intelligent play goers have always sensed that the good play was both to reconcile literature and theatre is not to compromise and lose something from each, but rather to understand what dramatic dialogue is and do”.…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The University Wits

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The plays of University wits had several features in common. There was a fondness for heroic themes, which needed heroic treatment: great fullness and variety, splendid descriptions, long speeches, the handling of violent incidents and emotions. These qualities, excellent when held in restraint, only too often led to loudness and disorder. The style was also ‘heroic’. The main aim was to achieve strong and sounding lines, magnificent epithets, and powerful declamation. This sometimes led even to nonsense, but in the best examples, such as in Marlowe, the result is quite impressive. The best medium for such expression was blank verse, which was sufficiently elastic to bear the strong pressure of these expansive methods. The themes were usually tragic in nature. The general lack of real humour in the early dramas is one of its most prominent…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    THE ELIZABETHAN drama, undoubtedly, followed a natural law of development. It culminated in tragedy in the first decade of the seventeenth century, because men and women reveal themselves most fully and finally in the furnace of affliction; and, therefore, the dramatist who desires to express the truth of human nature arrives, sooner or later, at tragedy as his most penetrating and powerful method. After the height has been reached a necessary rest and suspension of effort ensue, and of such a nature was the Jacobean and Caroline age of the drama. But a second cause was at work to increase this exhaustion and to hasten the decadence of an art that had lost its freshness. The tension of feeling as to things political and religious, which led, at last, to the civil war, was unfavourable to all artistic effort, but was especially hurtful to the drama. It took possession of the minds of all but the most frivolous. Theatre-goers ceased to be drawn from all ranks, as they were in Elizabeth’s days and began to form a special class composed of careless courtiers and the dregs of the town populace. Such a class required only lesser dramatists to supply its wants; and, as we approach the date of the closing of the theatres (1642), the greater lights go out one by one till only a crowd of little men are left, writing a drama which has neither form nor spirit remaining in it.…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays