INTRODUCTION
The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defines element as a necessary or typical part of something or the basic principles of something of a subject you have to learn first. In simple terms, therefore, elements of drama refer to the basic principles of drama which you must learn first for you to fully understand and appreciate drama both as a subject and as performance. In this unit and the next three posts, we are going to discuss the elements of drama. We will start with imitation which is the basic and most important element of drama.
3.1 Imitation
In simple terms, imitation means the act of copying somebody or something. It is an act of copying the ways somebody talks and behaves, especially to entertain. In literature, imitation is used to describe a realistic portrayal of life, a reproduction of natural objects and actions.
This type of imitation includes writing in the spirit of the masters using merely their general principles; borrowing special “beauties” in thought and expression from the works of the best poets; or adapting their materials to the writer’s own age.
In drama, as we discussed in Unit 1, imitation is more pronounced in performance. This is understandable because a play is written primarily to be performed. What is being imitated in drama is basically life. Drama tries to present life as realistically as possible on stage. This is why we say that drama mirrors life. Aristotle insists that imitation is part of life. He likens the imitation in drama to the children’s play instinct. If you cast your minds back to your childhood experiences, you will recall that sometimes when you were playing, one child will say let me be the mother while another person becomes the “father”. In most cases, the “mother” collects discarded empty cans and uses them as pots, collects sand and some leaves to cook food. She uses sticks as spoons. When the food is ready, they eat by taking the ‘food’ close to their mouths and throwing them away. In some cases, they try to dress like their parents and some of them try to talk like their parents while those who are the children try to behave the way children are expected to behave. This is imitation. The children are imitating their parents or imitating life as it is lived in the family.
Imitation in drama involves a story. For it to be drama a story must be told through dialogue as the characters interact among themselves and that story must have a beginning, middle and an end. It is different from musical presentations. Musicians in these presentations do not imitate anybody. They may wear costumes and act in weird manners but they are being themselves. Some of them take on other names like Lagbaja, African China, Weird M.C, 2 FACE, P SQUARE, Baba Frayo, Daddy Showkey and many others. In show business, each artist tries to create an image for him or herself, so instead of imitating anybody, they would want to be imitated. However, in the video productions, some musicians try to dramatize the message or the stories of the songs. The people dramatizing these stories are imitating life in the dramatic sense.
Over the ages, the attitude of dramatists on imitation differs from one dramatist to another and from one age to another. Some dramatists advocate the imitation of life exactly as it is lived, others insist on the imitation that is as close as possible to life. In the imitation that is as close as possible to life, the dramatist tries to create his characters to dress and act as close as possible to real life. That explains why we have different styles of imitation both in play-writing and acting skills. They include Emile Zola’s naturalism, Bernard Shaw’s realism, Betolt Bretcht’s epic theatre, Constantine Stanislavsky’s realistic acting,
Gordon Craig’s theatre of cruelty, Gerzy Grotowsky’s poor theatre and many others.
Generally, the most popular form of imitation is the realistic one where the story is a representation of life and the characters are those we could identify in real life. This is why we say that drama mirrors life. This is why in Hamlet, Hamlet advises the Players to Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at first and now, was and is to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature…(Act III Sc ii)
Holding up to nature here means that they should reflect nature in their words and actions. Drama is like a mirror because its mode of imitation is selective and intensive. Most plays do not last more than three hours so the time is very short. Another issue to be considered is the space. The stage is so small that it will be difficult to reproduce all the life experiences of a particular character. Despite the fact that the celluloid can, with the aid of a camera, present three-dimensional pictures, it can never present every thing within the period for the play. This explains why you have expressions like ‘two months later’ to make up for the limitations in terms of time and space.
In his own mode of imitation, Sophocles, in Oedipus Rex, one of the plays you will study for this course, does not present all the incidents on stage. Those actions which he felt could not be imitated to look as realistic as possible are reported and not presented on stage. Some critics argue that some of the reported events are too gruesome to be presented. They are right because one of the Aristotelian postulations on tragedy is that violence should not be presented on stage. That not withstanding, one could also argue that in realistic acting it is almost impossible for Jocasta to hang herself or for Oedipus to gorge out his eyes.
In discussing reported action, we have seen how the second messenger moved from story-telling to commentary, and this brings us to what is referred to as choric commentary in drama. Remember that in drama the story is told through the characters. The playwright does not narrate the story the way the novelist does. In order to make his play realistic it is difficult for him to present some of his views on particular issues which the characters could not imitate realistically. This is because he cannot suspend the action in order to comment or generalize on characters and events or appear suddenly in the play or on stage to provide a point of view on the action. The dramatist’s alternative is the chorus or choric characters that are persons in the play but are relatively detached from the action. They can therefore stand off from it, somewhat like a narrator, to reflect on the significance of events. In Greek drama, the chorus performed this function, and the detachment of the chorus was theatrically manifested by its continuous presence in the orchestra. Thus the chorus literally stood between the audience and the action. In some plays, dramatic functionaries like messengers, servants, clowns and others not directly involved in the action, can carry out the functions of the chorus, and the attitudes they express should be examined for the point of view they provide for the action.
We are not saying here that all the choric commentaries are representative of issues which the playwright could not express through the characters in the play. However, the presence of the chorus in a play does not mean that its opinions are always to be trusted. Sometimes it can be as wrongheaded as any of the involved characters. Certainly this is the case in Oedipus Rex when the chorus repudiates Teiresias’ prophecies, insisting that his “evil words are lies.” At other times, the chorus is completely reliable, as in its concluding remarks about the frailty of the human condition. Choric commentary then provides a point of view, but not necessarily an authoritative one nor one to be associated with the dramatist. In each case, the commentary has to be examined as closely as any other material in the play. In the first instance we have cited, Sophocles is using the chorus to project what we might call public opinion which would naturally be sympathetic to Oedipus because most people would be legitimately shocked by the accusations and prophecies of Teiresias. In the second case, the chorus is being used to express the wisdom drawn from the experience of Oedipus.
You will understand the concept of imitation in drama more if you have gone to watch a stage play, especially when the actors and actresses are the people you know very well. Imagine a situation where a play is to be presented in theatre you are familiar with and you are going to the theatre with one of the actors or actresses. As you get to the gate, you pay, obtain your ticket, enter the auditorium and sit down, ready to watch the play while your friend goes backstage to get ready for the performance. Assuming your friend is John or Jane, when he/she appears on stage, he/she assumes another identity apart from his/her own. Let us use one of the plays we are going to study in this course; Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel. The play opens and you see John or Jane as he/she appears on stage as Lakunle or Sidi. He/She ceases, momentarily to be that your friend because you have willingly suspended your disbelief. You remember what willing suspension of disbelief or make believe means. John or Jane makes you believe that he/she is Lakunle/Sidi. They try their best to convince the audience that they are really the characters they represent. They achieve this by speaking and acting like the characters they represent. This is called role-playing or acting.
In films and home videos you watch occasionally, you see actors and actress like Liz Benson, Pete Edochie, Shan George, Sam Loco Efe and many others play different roles in different movies. Liz Benson could play the role of a wicked young step-mother in one film and in another one she plays the role of a loving wife and mother. Generally we call it acting. In acting she pretends to be what she is not. She tries as much as possible to convince the audience that she is that character she is imitating
Imitation in drama does not claim to present a literal copy of reality. This is because the truth of drama does not depend on reproducing the world exactly as it is. When we say that drama is true to life we mean that it is being false to our conventional notions of reality. This means that some plays present stories that we find difficult to believe or a particular actor acts in a manner that is unbelievable. Sometimes we ask ourselves if it is possible for a man to be so wicked, insensitive and selfish that he would kill his own mother for ritual for the acquisition of material wealth. In most cases we still feel that maybe a person in a particular circumstance could be forced or persuaded to behave like that. If you look at the story of Oedipus for instance, you will believe that the story is highly improbable yet it creates a world that we recognize as being in some sense like our own. This depends on the perspective of the dramatist, the aspect of life he wants to focus his mirror. He may choose to focus on the beautiful, or on the ugly, the ideal/ harmonious or the chaotic. He may for instance focus on bad leadership. He therefore presents an insensitive despot as a leader who uses his position to emasculate all oppositions and oppress the masses. He may or may not succeed depending on the message of the play. In most cases, nemesis catches up with such characters.
In mirroring the society, each dramatist decides on a particular perspective. When a play presents an idealized vision of the world as a place where everything is beautiful and orderly, we call it romance. On the other hand, when a play focuses on the ugly and chaotic as it presents a debased view of life we refer to it as satire. Satire and romance present extreme and sometimes, unrealistic conditions of life. Imitation in tragedy and comedy is very close to life as we live it as they emphasize the dominant patterns of experience that characters go through in life. In most comedies, the major characters begin in a state of opposition against one another or what they stand for. As the play progresses they get to understand one another better so that by the end of the play they get into harmonious relationships and the play ends on a happy note. The opposite is found in tragedy where the play presents a harmonious life for the hero at the beginning. As the play progresses, his world disintegrates and ends in catastrophe.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The basic concept of drama is imitation. This is why we say that drama is an imitation of life. In dramatic imitation, we should not expect an exact reproduction of life because drama is limited by time and space. Besides it is very difficult even in real life for any imitation of human action to be exactly like the original.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we have tried to explain the concept of imitation in drama and why it is the most important aspect of drama. We have also illustrated how imitation occurs in drama, the extent to which a dramatist can imitate and his limitations. You understand now what we mean when we say that drama mirrors the society.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
“Imitation in drama is limited by time and space”. Discuss.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Brocket, Oscar G. (1980). The Essential Theatre. New York: Holt Reinhart and Winston.
Scholes, R. and C. H. Klaus (1971). Elements of Drama. New York: Oxford University Press.
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