Context

Contexts refer to the circumstances surrounding a play and its interpretation for an audience.

Two broad aspects of contexts to consider when beginning dramaturgy are:

the world of the play
the world at the time the play was written

Seven specific areas of context to include in your dramaturgy are:

time
place
culture
influences on the playwright
the language of the script
circumstances associated with the play
possibilities for interpreting a script

Understanding the contexts of a play helps you make appropriate and justifable decisions about work in your production roles.

When documenting dramaturgy into contexts, you can create text-based resources, such as mindmaps or tables, as well as visual collages to create an overall picture of the world of the play.

TIME

Time refers to the era in which the play was set/written. All plays are set in a particular period of time, however sometimes the time period is not easily recognisable or referred to as 'ambiguous'. The more information you can gather about the time period, the more interesting, creative and authentic your work in production roles will be.

PLACE

Place refers to the geographical and/or environmental location of where the play is set. Playwright’s intentionally set their plays in particular locations to reflect intended meaning and to support the time in which the play is set. Place is also important in helping establish the characters’ status, motivation and characteristics.

Sometimes the place in which the play is set is ambiguous. Why would a playwright or director make this decision? A play may also be set in one or many locations. Think about the effect this has on the intended meaning.

INLFUENCES ON THE PLAYWRIGHT

Research into the playwright's life gives us an understanding of what influenced them to explore particular themes or issues in their play.

A good example of this is Oscar Wilde's, The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde was a gay man living in the Victorian era, a time when homosexuality was illegal. Influenced by Wilde's experiences of this he wrote The Importance of Being Earnest, a satire mocking the hypocrisy of Victorian social mores at the time.

CULTURE

Cultural contexts refer to the beliefs, attitudes, customs and practices of a society and those people within it. Within any society there are dominant-cultures as well as sub-cultures, which are characterised by who is part of these cultures and what they do. This includes place or rank in a society (such as being working class, middle class, upper class) and/or status within it.

The cultural contexts of a character can include their nationality, ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality, age, politics, religion, values, beliefs and attitudes.

LANGUAGE OF THE SCRIPT

The language of the script is how it's written (e.g. in prose or verse), whether it's a translation, and/or particular words or phrases that tie the play to particular time or place. For example, in the short excerpt on the right (from the play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht), there are many clues that imply a particular context, intended meaning, and style.

A playwright will make decisions about the style/type of language to be spoken or physically created by the characters. The language used by a character in a play can reveal much about their background. Characteristics of language can help to depict a character's: status; upbringing; ethnicity; place in society; education; emotional state, and so on.

VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL LANGUAGE

Language can be written or spoken, verbal (such as spoken words, vocal sounds) or non-verbal (such as physical gestures, facial expressions and body language). Through the characters within a script, language adds meaning to the creation, development and performance of it. In your script interpretation work you should aim to include both verbal and non-verbal language.

Watch how the actors in this modern interpretation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream use non-verbal language to add comedy to the traditional Shakespearean prose. Non-verbal communication, through use of gesture, becomes important when trying to convey the meaning of an Elizabethan text to a modern day audience.

Frantic Assembly, based in the UK, are a renowned physical theatre company, where the non-verbal language is just as important as the words said.

Physical Theatre compilation :)

CIRCUMSTANCES ASSOCIATED WITH THE PLAY

This can include any additional information you feel is relevant to the play, including the company's history, innovative practices, reception by audiences at the time, impact and influences on the theatre world and where it 'sits' in the playwright's body of work.

POSSIBILITIES FOR INTERPRETING THE SCRIPT

This includes both practical and creative possibilities available to you to interpret the script. In the 2020 Theatre Studies exam, context included information such as, 'A theatrical representation of an action movie', 'a comedy based on a thriller' and 'character transformations used in the original production'. So think about THEATRICAL STYLES and CONVENTIONS evident in the script and how you might work with or against them.

You will also need to consider budget and resources and work within those parameters.

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