Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

25.2 Reading dramatic texts
Unit 25 Ways of reading drama
Section 6 Media: from text to performance

Reading dramatic texts in their own right involves attending only to those aspects of theatrical performance that are written into the dramatic text itself. In other words, unless they are actually specified in the dramatic text, things like costume, lighting, gestures and so on are theatrical elements added to the dramatic text for the purposes of dramatic performance and are not part of the dramatic text at all. In taking this position, we are in fact echoing one of the earliest and most influential discussions of drama in the history of criticism - that of Aristotle in his On the Art of Poetry (fourth century bce). Aristotle identifies six constituents in the tragic drama of classical Greece: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle and song. However, after discussing the first four constituents, he more or less dismisses the last two as more to do with theatrical production than with drama per se:

Of the remaining elements, the music is the most important of the pleasurable additions to the play. Spectacle, or stage-effect, is an attraction, of course, but it has the least to do with the playwright’s craft or with the art of poetry. For the power of tragedy is independent both of performance and of actors, and besides, the production of spectacular effects is more the province of the property-man than of the playwright.

(1965, p. 41)

In accord with this, we are suggesting in this unit that the power of dramatic texts is independent both of performance and of actors and that most of the theatrical devices and techniques that are employed in a production of a play are ’pleasurable additions’ rather than intrinsic elements of the play itself.

In order to support our claims, we will begin by looking at a passage from Shakespeare’s Othello (c.1602), which Wallis and Shepherd analyse in their attempt to demonstrate that it is essential to think of dramatic texts as scripts for theatrical performance. Othello is set in Venice and Cyprus and focuses on the tragic downfall of Othello, a Moor (a Muslim from North Africa) who has entered military service as a general with the Duke of Venice. For reasons that never become entirely clear, Iago - Othello’s ’Ancient’ (his ensign or standard bearer) - hates Othello and tries to destroy him. Iago convinces Othello that he is a trustworthy ally and then induces him to believe that his wife Desdemona has been unfaithful. When Othello is finally brought to believe that Desdemona has betrayed him by having an affair with Cassio (his honourable lieutenant), he accuses Desdemona of being a whore and then leaves the stage. Desdemona - who the reader/audience knows is innocent - is bewildered and thrown into despair by Othello’s behaviour. At this point, Iago and his wife Emilia (who is Desdemona’s faithful maid) enter the stage. The audience/reader knows that Iago is a villain and has duped Othello, but, while his wife is beginning to suspect him, Desdemona still thinks of Iago as Othello’s loyal servant. Desdemona therefore turns to Iago for help:

O God, Iago,

What shall I do to win my lord again?

Good friend, go to him, for, by this light of heaven,

I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:

If e’er my will did trespass ’gainst his love,

Either in discourse of thought or actual deed, ...

Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much,

And his unkindness may defeat my life

But never taint my love.

        (Othello, IV, ii, 150-63)

Wallis and Shepherd point out that ’Here I kneel’ is an implicit stage direction - in other words, it serves to guide the actor playing the part (Wallis and Shepherd, 1998, p. 10). Indeed, Wallis and Shepherd are correct in saying that, although Shakespeare’s plays include a minimum of explicit stage directions, they do tend to embed implicit stage directions in the characters’ speeches. At the same time, however, ’Here I kneel’ works for the reader as well as for the actor because it allows the reader to imagine Desdemona’s posture and its implications in context. In other words, the sentence works on the page as well as on the stage. The same may be said for the main points that Wallis and Shepherd make about the passage:

if we . . . note that [Desdemona] is kneeling, we start to see that Shakespeare is here constructing a formal picture, an emblem, rather like that in a stained-glass window . . . But the total stage picture is of Iago manipulating Desdemona into her posture of defeat, and revelling in it. Surrounding the emblem of innocence is the emblem of villainy and deception. This double emblem is part of the way in which this scene produces meaning for an audience. Here, then, is clear evidence of the importance of remembering always that the dramatic text is a script for activity on a stage.

(1998, p. 4)

This impressive piece of analysis offers good insight into how Shakespeare’s play is working in this scene. However, while Wallis and Shepherd claim that the passage, and their analysis, is evidence of the need to regard the written text as a prescription for dramatic staging, it is equally possible to say the opposite. In the first place, their analysis is based entirely on the written text itself, rather than on a performance, and is convincing because the reader can see the evidence for it in the written text alone (and does not need to see or even imagine a performance). The scene, then, produces these meanings for a reader as well as for a potential audience. Such a reader can imagine how the scene might look and work on a stage, but the point is that he or she does not have to do so. A reader can just as well imagine that the scene takes place in Cyprus. In other words, the process of reading and interpreting this passage need not be essentially different from reading an equivalent passage in a novel.

25.2.1 Dramatic or situational irony

Surprisingly, Wallis and Shepherd neglect to discuss what might be thought of as a specifically dramatic technique or effect in this passage from Othello - that is, ’dramatic irony’ (see Unit 11). Dramatic irony has been defined as:

a plot device according to which (a) the spectators know more than the protagonist; (b) the character reacts in a way contrary to that which is appropriate or wise; (c) characters or situations are compared or contrasted for ironic effects, such as parody; or (d) there is a marked contrast between what the character understands about his acts and what the play demonstrates about them . . . Tragedy is [especially] rich in all forms of dramatic [irony]. The necessity for a sudden reversal or catastrophe in the fortunes of the hero means that the fourth form of [irony] (form d) is almost inevitable.

(Preminger and Brogan, 1993, p. 635)

Dramatic irony, then, is produced when an audience knows something important that one or more of the characters in a play do not know. If the character did have this knowledge, it would change his or her behaviour and/or attitude towards other characters. In a comedy, this can produce humour at the expense of the uninformed characters. In a tragedy (like Othello) it usually leads to a tragic denouement (the character or characters only find out what they need to know when it is too late). In Othello, dramatic irony is produced because the virtuous characters (Othello and Desdemona) are fooled by Iago into believing that he is also virtuous and doing his best to help them, when the audience knows the opposite to be the case. In the scene we are examining, the audience knows that Iago is the cause of Desdemona’s suffering and therefore sees or experiences dramatic irony when she kneels before him and supplicates him to help her.

Dramatic irony would seem to be an inherently theatrical effect in that it is produced by the difference between what the characters on stage know of their situation and what the audience knows. Yet it is perfectly possible for a reader to experience a similar ironic effect. An attentive reader of the passage (provided that he or she has read the rest of the play up to this point) will recognize or experience the same sense of tragic irony that an audience will. This is because written texts (novels, dramatic texts and so on) employ techniques of ’situational irony’ (see Unit 11) whose conditions are virtually the same as dramatic irony. Indeed, M.H. Abrams defines dramatic irony as an effect produced by narrative as well as drama and as available to readers as well as spectators (1993, p. 99). Thus the ’double emblem’ that Wallis and Shepherd refer to may be seen by an audience or imagined by a reader. In the first case it will produce dramatic irony; in the second case it will produce situational irony. In other words, there is no need for the reader to remember ’that the dramatic text is a script for activity on the stage’. While a dramatic text can be read in that way, it can equally be read on its own terms - with apparently no loss of meaning or effect.