Think about the experiences you've had with dramatic texts, including seeing live performances or film adaptations. How does the era in which a play was written affect your ability to enjoy it or understand it? How is it different to read or see a play written more than two millennia ago (such as tragedies and comedies from ancient Greece) compared to a few centuries ago (for example, Shakespeare or others from the Renaissance) or one produced in the last 100 years?

Drama is a specific literary genre that includes dialogue and a performance as part of his compositional body. This kind of text could be presented in verse or prose and it is usually thought to be performed in scenery. Also a drama, as other narrations, use to have an introduction, a conflictive moment and finally an end. The person who writes drama is called playwright or dramatist.

Through times, it has been many different types of dramatic compositions, among them we can find, for example:

• Tragedy: in this kind of dramas is common to perform dark themes as death or protagonists’ pain.

• Comedy: In this kind of dramas the themes that are performed are presented in a kindly way that allows people to enjoy them.

• Epic: In this kind of dramas the situation is presented through a poem.

These three examples are analysed by Aristotle in his book: the poetic (IV Century B.C), where he reflex about the aesthetic features of each kind of composition. The part about comedy is missed, so we only have his notes about tragedy and epic dramatizations.

Like other human being expressions, the way that the authors think a dramatic play obeys to the contextual situation; that is: how is the cultural environment thinking and, in general, living. That is why it could be harder for an actual reader (or spectator) to understand the terms, actions and beliefs of a really old play; nevertheless, we can learn many things about the past only by consulting literature (which includes dramatic texts). Of course we can feel us closer than younger representations and this is because we share more stuff with those people who lived in the times when the piece was made, but although it does affect how I understand and enjoy determinate play, I’m convinced of we can research and learn about historic process and changes to enjoy every kind of theatrical expressions.

• How does the era in which a play was written affect your ability to enjoy it or understand it?

Specifically, when we talk about how does the era affect our ability as spectators to enjoy or understand a play, we have to consider the fact that all the plays that have been made until now had some historical, social and ideological signs that we can find if we analyze them carefully. At this respect, there are many things that we cannot understand, between this kind of stuff we can find: popular lexicon, references to places, people or events that possibly marked the society and etcetera. Nevertheless, we can enjoy and understand them from the distance if we consider that they, over time, become a testimony of how life was at that moment. This means that yes, it changes the spectators' ability and way to enjoy a theatric piece, but the written era doesn’t impede the possibility of enjoying or understand it.

• How is it different to read or see a play written more than two millennia ago (such as tragedies and comedies from ancient Greece) compared to a few centuries ago (for example, Shakespeare or others from the Renaissance) or one produced in the last 100 years?

The differences are sometimes obvious, for example when we think in language (the kind of words and speech’s structures used), costumes or places, but it exists other aspects from societies that we cannot identify as easy as the other ones; at this respect there is the ideology (which is the way of thinking that a specific society has) who in fact influences many other human being areas: for example what is considered as good or bad, what is thinking as a mysterious or divine entities, what is seen as a relevant and important theme, etcetera. Thus, the way as we feel identified with the more recent plays (for example the Shakespeare’s ones) cannot be compared with that pieces that have millennials of age because we have change cultural and physically, hindering us the ability of feel and put ourselves in the other scenery.  

KEY WORDS: Drama, culture situation, time