Turning in Drama, Essay Example

Drama is about infusing meaning into words. This can be done with intonations, accents, blocking, pacing, breathing, and turning. In essence, dialogue is a “property of drama” (Swan 2). Drama’s purpose is not only to entertain but also to create wall between the stage and the audience and to have the audience stay in suspension of disbelief; in order to do this then, a play’s dialogue must be real and believable. Drama turns affect how a reader comes to understand a speech or the character and thus are vital to a performance and the audience’s engagement of a performance. It is the latter of this crew that this paper will focus. A “turn” can be broken down into the following subcategories: turn-grabs, turn allocation, turn order, and turn size and texture. This paper will denote a passage of analysis and understanding to each of these subcategories. This paper will ultimately focus on how “turn” is managed in drama and how turn-taking “patterns” help in understanding character, drama, and situation in plays.

Turn-Grabs

In order for drama to be real, the conversation must adhere to the same rules that apply to real conversation. Thus, if there’s a pause, or another actor snaps off a line in an untimed manner, the illusion of the drama is shattered. Turn-grabs “occur when one of the participants interposes himself or herself into an interaction uninvited and against the rights of the invited speakers to self-orientate themselves and to promote one’s own interests” (Swan 3). By inserting oneself into a conversation uninvited the characters are creating a real situation as in reality, the same thing happens: people interrupt, disturb the flow of conversation, or in general insert their own ego and importance above other people making it known that their topic is more important than someone else’s topic, “participant A may select participant B, but a participant C may interject his or her own contribution and grabs the turn of the participant” (Swan 3).

The function of the turn grab isn’t just so that the drama is performed as closely to real life as possible, but serves other functions as well such as character development: “Turn-grabs can have different functions, since interposing oneself into an interaction uninvited and against the rights of invited speakers can be either self-orientated, to promote one’s own interests, or other-orientated” (Herman 171). When a character performs a turn-grab, that character has the following traits associated with them: ego, selfishness, impatience, poor listening skills, etc. Thus, a turn-grab serves as clarifying to the audience that this is the character who has this type of personality. It’s a way to point out certain characters to the audience in a natural way.

Turn Allocation

Turn allocation is the process by which people involved in a dialogue stop, participate, and pause. The distribution of dialogue between two people is important as “dialogue is by far the most frequently types of speech in drama” (Swan 2).  Turn allocation has to do with line length, or how man lines each character has before the other character takes a turn speaking. The denotation of turn allocation is important to character make up because it suggests something internal about the character’s inner conflicts, moral reasoning, development, etc. Turn allocation comes in handy when analyzing characters as well because in figuring out how many turns the character takes, or how long their line length, or how many times they’re interrupted or not, the audience can gage certain things about the character’s traits such as passive-aggressive, meek, strong-willed, ego-maniac, etc.

Turn allocation is also important in sequencing: “constructing sequences of utterances across turns, identifying and repairing problems, and employing gaze and movement, how conversation works in different conventional settings, such as interviews, court hearings, telephone conversations” (Swan 2). Swan goes on to say that conversation should be “naturally occurring” or organic in the flow of the conversation for both “formal and informal” (Swan 2). In turn allocation the business of drama is to ensure that conversations on stage “open and close” organically, or as naturally as possible: that the exchange between characters (or in the case of a monologue or apostrophe, with the self) is done with proper pacing, or smoothness between the give and take in dialogue. Also, turn allocation is about “giving or accepting or rejecting an invitation” (Swan 2) thereby marking the dialogue as true to life because its sequences were well allocated.

Turn Order

Turn order is the order in which the characters go in order to deliver their dialogue. Turn order serves to show the “distribution” of dialogue turns to characters and audience members; “One participant among all the interactants [sic] appears to be central to all the interactions and the participant structures in force; all interactants [sic] address him or her, and, thus, acts as the focal point of their speech” (Swan 3).  This turn-grab is known as “holding forth” and happens when a speaker or character speaks out of turn from the normal order of conversation. A conversation is almost like an expository essay in which events or ideas are explained chronologically to another character. When the linear format of a conversation is disrupted, it calls attention to itself. When linear conversation is adhered to a play then regular “Turn order takes up and drops participants, one at a time, in succession” (Swan 3).

The turn order is also important to the construction of the play because it sheds light on the characters for instance, “a speaker who is consistently interrupted and unable to gain the floor may be seen as less powerful than other speakers” (Swan 3). Thus, turn order allows the audience to see a character change because at the beginning of the drama they would allow themselves to be spoken over while at the end of the drama, after they’ve learned a lesson and their character has changed, this occurrence no longer happens thereby signifying their change.

In turn-order, there is a pacing involved between characters’ dialogues and the event the drama is putting the characters through. In certain situations turn-grabs can happen at a slow pace because the event or action calls for it, or for a quick pace that even involves interrupting each other because the action needs to be quick and the dialogue emphasizes this urgency. Turn-grabs are key to character development as they can be clues to the audience as to personality, action, events; “Consistent turn-lapses on the part of a targeted other who is addressed by a speaker can signal indifference, boredom, hostility, the desire to be left in peace, opting out, etc. and import negative tones into the interaction, even in silence” (Herman 173).

Turn Size and Texture

Turn size refers to the “size of the turn of the participants, and it is specifically confined to the participant whose turns are occasionally longer throughout the interaction” (Swan 3). If a character’s turn size is more significant than other characters then this clues the audience into the character being of main importance to the drama. Such is the case in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” in which the play’s monologues are chiefly given by the main character, Hamlet. Turn size also “refers to the multi-clause turns which such a dominant participant uses to develop or to intensify some personal points to be delivered to his interactants [sic]. This turn can include many questions, rather than one, or question and comment, and so on. One of the participants’ speech style, or maybe all of them, is mostly composed of answers to the prevailing character who controls the interaction’s topic and others’ turns orientate to him” (Swan 3). These questions can also take the form of an apostrophe such as Hamlet speaking to his dead father. Intensity is the clue to turn texture, as anger is a great signifier.The turn texture may also take the form of one clause in which brevity emphasizes a character’s directness or a character’s silence.

Conclusion

The management of “turn” in drama helps in the analysis and overall understanding of patterns in character, drama, and situation. Without fully knowing a character’s background because exposition takes too long and is boring for an audience to sit through, character development or background can be inferred through drama turns. When a character speaks too much, doesn’t wait for their turn to speak, or gives punchy and angry dialogue then the audience can guess that that character has a background in which he was bullied by a parent, was offered impatience instead of love and understanding in his home life or from other people who were close to him, and in general has an inflated ego that’s easily bruised and leads to acts of self-destruction. On the other hand, if a character gives concise, and paced dialogue, and they deliver one word answers then the audience can guess that their brevity is because of their keenness for efficiency, they keep their emotions stoic instead of bottled up and explosive which leads the audience to believe they’re calm but that there may be a wealth of emotions below the surface. Drama turn is essential to the play because without it, the audience’s understanding of character would show a lack of foresight and analysis thereby making the play less enjoyable and less cerebral. In the analysis of drama although the play is the thing, plot doesn’t afford itself to a deeper level of understanding of humanity; character, however, does. It is in character that an audience relates to the play and finds deeper meaning, or a reflection of self in the character’s own trials and tribulations. Dramatic “turn” emphasis the character’s development through their lives, through their trials and depression, and great joy. It is with turn that the play is believable, and when a play is believable it is then accessible and has more of an impact on an audience. Without this impact the audience leaves the theatre less self-aware and therefore less able to connect with the characters on stage, with emotions happening in their own lives, with life in general, for art after all is merely an imitation to the things we already should know but are not always aware.

Works Cited

Culpeper, Jonathan, Mick Short, and Peter Verdonk (eds). Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context. London, Routledge, 1998. Print.

Herman, V. Turn Management in Drama. J. Culpepper, M. Short and P. Verdonk (eds).

Exploring the Language of Drama, London, Routledge, 1998. Print.

Swan, Joan. “Text and Performance.” AOU. 2013. 1-5. Print.