Style

Selecting your style has enormous power. What effect do you want to have on your audience?

A normal view of people in dramatic situations.

A straight and undistorted view of the world. The people, situations, costumes, sets, are presented closely to resemble everyday reality.

Author’s Goal: To Move the Audience Emotionally.

Examples

My Left Foot

A Streetcar Named Desire

Juno

A normal view of people in comedic situations.

A straight and undistorted view of the world. The other qualities are exactly the same as in drama, except for one important difference: the Author’s Goal.

Author’s Goal: To amuse the audience.

Examples

When Harry Met Sally

The Graduate

A normal view of people in dramatic situations, with an emphasis on suspense.

A straight and undistorted view of the world. The other qualities are exactly the same as in drama and comedy, except for – once again – one important difference: the Author’s Goal.

Author’s Goal: To shock, frighten, and involve us in a puzzle to be solved. There are often creaking doors and dark stairways—and always startling twists of plot. Suspense is the main feature; the overall effect is like a rubber-band being stretched to the breaking point.

Examples

Psycho

The Raid

Gravity

No Country for Old Men

Exalted people in tragic situations, in which all the central characters die or are destroyed in the end.

A heightened view of the world. The central character must fall from a height of respect or importance, to absolute destruction. Everyone close to him must be dragged down with him. There must be a sense that unrelenting fate has destroyed them all.

Author’s Goal: To fill the audience with a sense of great sorrow and loss.

Examples

Hamlet

Doctor Faustus

Antigone

Ordinary people in tragic situations, in which all the central characters die or are destroyed in the end.

The view of the world is heightened, but only in a barely perceptible way. Everything appears more normal, but touches of classic tragedy remain. Now the people are no longer exalted characters; the Prince is replaced by a salesman. He appears to be ordinary, but his problems are classic in size; so is his downfall.

Author’s Goal: To fill the audience with a sense of great sorrow and loss.

Examples

Death of a Salesman

Damage

The Iceman Cometh

Real and unreal people in fantastic situations.

A tilted view of the world.  There are people with magic powers; ghosts and mystical characters in bizarre shapes and forms mingle with ordinary people who represent reality.

Author’s Goal: The same as mystery – to shock, frighten, and involve us in a puzzle to be solved – but also to enchant the audience into a dream-like state.

Examples

Peter Pan

Lord of the Rings

Harry Potter

Real and unreal people in fantastic situations; based on science.

A tilted view of the world, as in fantasy.  The real people encounter androids and extraterrestrials. Emphasis is on action, adventure, and special effects, featuring space ships, computers, futuristic weapons, etc.

Author’s Goal: The same as mystery – to shock, frighten, and involve us in a puzzle to be solved – but also to fill the audience with a sense of the infinite wonders of the universe.

Examples

Star Wars

Star Trek

The Avengers

Alien

Heightened people in heightened comedic situations.

The view of the world is beginning to verge on distorted. the people are heightened—exaggerated—in their behavior, life-styles and dress. Physical comedy is broader; there are pratfalls, break-away props, etc.

Author’s Goal: To amuse the audience.

Examples

The Odd Couple

Bridesmaids

Superbad

Seinfeld

Napoleon Dynamite

Heightened people in heightened comedic situations, based on one segment of society.

The view of the world is beginning to verge on distorted. There is a strong suggestion of caricature. The dress, behavior and relationships are still exaggerated, as in farce and black comedy.

Author’s Goal: To poke fun at the habits, customs and peculiarities of one class of people.

Examples

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Big Bang Theory

Heightened people in heightened comedic situations, based on despair.

The view of the world is distorted. All is similar to farce, with one important variation: the jokes are grim and ironic. It is the humor of the prison, the gas chamber, the hospital, the gallows, of injury and death.

Author’s Goal: To amuse the audience.

Examples

M*A*S*H

Funny People

Family Guy

Heightened people in heightened abstract situations.

The view of the world is extremely tilted and distorted. All the normal rules of life and time sequence are suspended. The characters can live in trash cans, on a bridge, or in the desert. They can come from nowhere and depart in an unknown direction. There are qualities of magic; the characters can fall from heights and survive, or even turn into other life forms. The plot can be entirely disjointed, without a normal beginning, middle, and end; therefore, abstract.

Author’s Goal: whereas in other comedy the author has made us feel and laugh, here his main thrust is to make us think.

Examples

Rhinoceros

Barton Fink

Being John Malkovitch

Twin Peaks

Descriptions of the styles are quoted with minor modifications from “Acting without Agony” by Don Richardson.