In Baker's Dramatic Technique (1919), Chapters III-IV, what is the difference between subject, story and plot, and can a play have no story?
Baker (1919, stage plays) treats the three words as stages: a play begins from a subject (any starting point), becomes story (the brief retelling of what the play is about, with no order, suspense or climax), and becomes plot when the dramatist moulds, proportions and emphasizes that story for the emotional response he wants in the theatre (E10, E3, E5). Whatever the start, 'he must end in story' (E2); but story may be very slight, and Baker disputes the reading (reported from Archer) that a play such as Chains has 'no story' (E11, E13). This is one 1919 teacher's working vocabulary, not a general definition.
Baker (1919, stage plays) treats the three words as stages: a play begins from a subject (any starting point), becomes story (the brief retelling of what the play is about, with no order, suspense or climax), and becomes plot when the dramatist moulds, proportions and emphasizes that story for the emotional response he wants in the theatre (E10, E3, E5). Whatever the start, 'he must end in story' (E2); but story may be very slight, and Baker disputes the reading (reported from Archer) that a play such as Chains has 'no story' (E11, E13). This is one 1919 teacher's working vocabulary, not a general definition.
Curator qualifications: Story is the brief retelling; plot is story moulded for the theatre (L2352-2377). No separate definition of 'subject'.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
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- [sourced_fact] Baker (1919, stage plays) treats the three words as stages: a play begins from a subject (any starting point), becomes story (the brief retelling of what the play is about, with no order, suspense or climax), and becomes plot when the dramatist moulds, proportions and emphasizes that story for the emotional response he wants in the theatre (E10, E3, E5). Whatever the start, 'he must end in story' (E2); but story may be very slight, and Baker disputes the reading (reported from Archer) that a play such as Chains has 'no story' (E11, E13). This is one 1919 teacher's working vocabulary, not a general definition. · locator: candidate evidence excerpts source
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