Example #1 The Heiress (By Henry James)

Melodrama:

The Heiress is based on Henry James novel the Washington Square. Directed for stage
performance by William Wyler, this play shows an ungraceful and homely daughter of a
domineering and rich doctor. She falls in love with a young man, Morris Townsend, and wishes
to elope with him, but he leaves her in the lurch. The author creates melodrama towards the
end, when Catherine teaches a lesson to Morris, and leaves him instead.

Example #2

HAMLET: O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon gainst self-slaughter! O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on t! ah fie! Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

(Hamlet by William Shakespeare)

William Shakespeare is one of the most noted dramatists in all of history. He is known to have
written thirty-three plays, divided into the categories of comedy, tragedy, and history. All of
these are examples of drama in the original sense in that they each present a story onstage to
the audience in real time. Shakespeares tragedy of Hamlet is one of his most enduring
narratives for the stage, characterized by deep psychological insight and
memorable soliloquy and monologue examples, such as the one above.

Example #3

TOM: But the wonderfullest trick of all was the coffin trick. We nailed him into a coffin and
he got out of the coffin without removing one nail. . . . There is a trick that would come in
handy for meget me out of this two-by-four situation! . . . You know it dont take much
intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out
of one without removing one nail?

(The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams)

Tennessee Williams played with many conventions of the form of drama, one of the main ones
being the idea of the fourth wall. Drama is usually presented as being separate from the
audience, and the characters are unable to interact directly with the audience. In Williamss
play The Glass Menagerie, the main character Tom breaks down this fourth wall to directly
address the audience throughout the scenes, especially at the beginning and end. In this excerpt,
Tom remembers something from his childhood and addresses both the audience and Laura,
who is absent from the scene. Williams made an even more collaborative experience of drama
than what came before him.

Example #4

THE PLAYER: The whole thing was a disaster! he did nothing but cry all the time right
out of character just stood there and cried [] Audiences know what to expect, and that is
all they are prepared to believe in.

(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard)

Tom Stoppard was another 20th century playwright who wrote examples of drama that pushed
at the boundaries of what drama could be. There are many meta moments in his absurdist
drama Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, such as when an actor named only The
Player talks about his attempt to kill someone onstage for the entertainment of the audience.
He laments the fact that audiences already know what to expectwhich is to say, that no one
will actually be hurt or killed onstageand that they will not believe anything else. Though
Stoppard was not advocating killing someone onstage, he includes this anecdote to make his
audiences question their assumptions about drama.

Example #5

ABIGAIL: I want to open myself! . . . I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus!
I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw
Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with
the Devil!
(The Crucible by Arthur Miller)
Arthur Miller wrote many famous dramas, such as his historical tragedy of The Crucible, which
focuses on the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote this drama at the time of the Red Scare in the
United States, during which many famous people were being blacklisted for having
connections to Communism. Miller wrote the drama of The Crucible to make audiences realize
the horrors that can occur when people start to buy into mass hysteria. The above excerpt is the
moment in which the young girl Abigail confesses to witchcraft and begins a craze of
denouncing other townspeople as witches.