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What is One-Act Play? State its chief characteristics.

One-Act Play-One-Act plays were written and staged throughout the 18th and 19th centuries as “The Curtain Raisers” or “The After Pieces”. They were chiefly farcical and served to amuse the audience before the commencement of the actual drama or were staged for their amusement just after it had come to an end. The famous one-act play “Monkey’s Paw” was first staged as a ‘Curtain Raiser’ and it proved to be more entertaining than the main drama. It may be said to mark the beginning of the modern one-act play.

The origin of the one-act play may be traced to the very beginning of drama-in ancient Greece, Cyclops, a play on the forest God, by Euripides, is an early example. It was great Norwegian dramatist Ibsen, who, for the first time, introduced the minute stage-directions into the one-act play. Before him, one act plays were written in poetry, but he made prose the medium of his one-act plays. In short, he made the drama, simple and real, and brought it nearer to everyday life. He made the modern one-act play what it is and his example has been widely followed. George Bernard Shaw andJohn Galsworthy are two of his greatest followers. The one-act play requires no elaborate setting and costumes, and so comes in handy to be staged in amateur dramatic societies and clubs.

Chief Characteristics

1. One-act play is a play that has only one act, but may consist of one or more scenes.

2. One-act plays are usually written in a concise manner.

3. It deals with a single dominant situation, and aims at producing a single effect.

4. It deals with only one theme developed through one situation to one climax in order to produce the maximum of effect.

5. It treats the problems of everyday life as marriage, punishment for crimes, labor conditions, divorce, etc.

6. The one-act play, like the longer drama, should have a beginning, a middle and an end. It may be divided into four stages- The Exposition, The Conflict, The Climax and The Denouement.

(a) The exposition is usually brief, serves as an introduction to the play.

(b) It is through the conflict that the action of the drama develops. It is the very backbone of the one-act play.

(c) Climax is the turning point of the drama. It is an important part of the one-act play and constitutes its moment of supreme interest.

(d) The Denouement is very brief and often overlaps with climax.

7. Action begins right at the start of the play.

8. There are no breaks in the action, that is, it is continuous since its a short play, no intervals.

9. Everything superfluous is to be strictly avoided as the play is short and the action takes place within a short period of time. It introduces elaborate stage directions to minimize the time taken by the action itself.

10. The creation of mood, or atmosphere is indispensable to its success.

11. There are three dramatic unities which are observed in the one-act play. The unities are the unity of time, unity of place and the unity of action.

12. It aims at simplicity of plot; concentration of action and unity of impression. It does not rely on spectacular effects and common dramatic tricks of old.

13. The characters in a one-act play are limited in number. Generally, there are not more than two or three principal characters.

14. There is no full development of character. All the different aspects of a character are not presented. The attention is focused on only one or two salient aspects of character and they are brought out by placing the characters in different situations and circumstances. The author implies the past and intimates the future of a character by presenting a crucial moment in the life of that character.

15. There is an influence of realism. The characters in the modern one-act play are ordinary men and women. It depicts characters that seems to be real and related to everyday life.

16. It must present a question, for which the audience eagerly awaits the answer.

17. Its language is simple and can be followed without any strain. All Superfluity is to be avoided in the dialogue. The dialogue must be purposeful; the best dialogue is that which does several things at one time. Every word is to be carefully chosen and sentences must be compact and condensed. Effort should be made to say, whatever is to be said, in the least possible words. Thus, the language of the dialogue should be simple, brief and easy to understand. Long speeches and arguments and long sentences would be out of place and would lessen the charm and interest of the play.