Reading Drama for N(A)-Level Literature in English (SEAB 2022) quiz quiz

Explaining how the playwright creates meaning and effect on the audience through specific choices

A retelling of the plot of the play

Naming as many dramatic techniques as you can

Writing about the playwright's life

Because only the dialogue matters in drama

Because meaning is carried by movement, set, props, lighting, sound and silence as well as speech

Because plays should never be read silently

Because performance details are not part of the text

The stage directions printed below the line

A translation of the line into simpler English

The meaning beneath the words, what a character really feels but does not say directly

The number of words in the line

Count how many lines the character has

Paraphrase what the line says

Say only that the character is speaking

Quote it briefly and explain what it reveals about the speaker, the relationship and any subtext

When two characters argue

When a character makes a joke on stage

When the lighting changes suddenly

When the audience knows something that a character does not

Because we watch a character walk into danger or misunderstand a situation we can see clearly, which makes us anxious and involved

Because it confuses the audience

Because it always makes the play funnier

Because it hides information from the audience

A printing error in the script

The list of characters at the start

The struggle, between characters or within a character, that drives the action forward

The interval between acts

It builds from an opening that sets it up, through rising tension, to a climax, then a resolution

It appears only at the very end

It stays exactly the same from start to finish

It has no link to structure

The opening scene

The point of highest tension where the central conflict comes to a head

The list of stage directions

The moment the curtain rises

They are optional and add nothing to meaning

They describe movement, set, lighting, sound and silence, which create meaning in performance

They are only instructions for the printer

They replace the dialogue

It always means an actor forgot their line

It has no effect on the audience

It can load a moment with tension, guilt or unspoken feeling and make the audience wait

It only matters in comedy

Only through the title

Only in the final scene

Through the cast list

Through character, conflict, dialogue and staging working together

Add the name of the theatre where the play first opened

Explain the effect, for example that the pause loads the silence with guilt and makes the audience feel the strain of the moment

Delete the comment entirely

Replace it with a summary of the whole play

It helps you memorise the whole play word for word

It is only useful for comedies

It surfaces the staging, movement and tension that a page-only reading misses, so you can write about effect on the audience

It replaces the need for quotations