Title: Elements of Drama: Conflict | The Drama Teacher
Headings: Elements of Drama: Conflict
Elements of Drama: Conflict
Content: Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a fine example. Literary and theatrical conventions of the day enabled the audience easy access to a character’s thoughts. It is no accident literature’s most famous soliloquy “To be, or not to be…” comes from this very play. External conflict can be between two or more characters and can be non-verbal (psychological), verbal or physical. But some of the theatre’s greatest plays see characters either at odds with their environment or experiencing conflict with the world in which they live. These plays that present us with characters in conflict with society and/or nature often show us conflict on a grander scale than simply characters conflicting against each other. Yet on its simplest level, external conflict is usually represented by a character whose objectives in the plot are impeded by the actions of another (opposing) character. This type of conflict clearly illustrates the needs and desires of different characters in a play, and without it the drama would be listless. Often (but not always) these characters are the play’s protagonist and antagonist. Conflict in a theatrical performance often differs from tension in that it is normally a more permanent part of the structure of the play, as opposed to a brief moment of suspense that is more transient.