While our Acting exams offer free choice of text, at some grades candidates are asked to select pieces that contrast in language style, such as colloquial and non-colloquial text. Some teachers may be curious about how we define ‘colloquial’ and ‘non-colloquial’, so in this blog we will explore how Trinity College London defines these terms for the purposes of our graded Acting exams, and share some examples of non-colloquial texts.
Colloquial text
Colloquial does not necessarily mean that the dialogue is informal or uses slang, as some may initially assume, instead by colloquial we mean conversational, naturalistic dialogue, that replicates how people spoke at the time the play was written. This means that a play from another time period that sounds more formal, or uses phrases or words we no longer use, would still be considered colloquial if the dialogue takes a recognisable conversational form. Take, for example, this extract from The Crucible by Arthur Miller:
PARRIS: What does the doctor say, child?
SUSANNA: Dr. Griggs he bid me come and tell you, Reverend sir, that he cannot discover no medicine for it in his books.
PARRIS: Then he must search on.
SUSANNA: Aye, sir, he have been searchin’ his books since he left you, sir, but he bid me tell you, that you might look to unnatural things for the cause of it.
PARRIS: No-no. There be no unnatural causes here. Tell him I have sent for Reverend Hale of Beverly, and Mister Hale will surely confirm that. Let him look to medicine, and put out all thought of unnatural causes here. There be none.
SUSANNA: Aye, sir. He bid me tell you.
The use of language and phrasing here may feel more mannered than modern dialogue, but it mimics real-life conversational patterns, and as such we would classify this as colloquial.
This also means that Shakespeare could be considered colloquial if the extract selected is written in prose and not verse. There are many examples within Shakespeare’s plays where he writes in prose, for example ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is written predominantly in prose, which could be selected as a suitable colloquial text.
Non-colloquial
Non colloquial texts use heightened or stylised language, or a non-conversational style. Shakespeare extracts written in verse might seem the obvious example of a non-colloquial text, but there are many more examples, including contemporary playwrights. For instance, Steven Berkoff’s dialogue is often very stylised and non-naturalistic, or Sarah Kane’s writing in ‘Crave’ is heightened and poetic in style.
Or if your students are keen to explore extracts written in verse there are contemporary examples of this, such as Mike Bartlett’s plays ‘The 47th’ or ‘King Charles III’, which explore very current cultural figures but are written in blank verse.
To support you and your students when selecting non-colloquial pieces, we have included some examples of plays which we would class as non-colloquial or containing non-colloquial scenes, from a range of drama periods. Please note that this list is by no means exhaustive, but provides a good starting point.
Medieval and early modern drama:
Everyman (The Somonyng of Everyman) (anon., 15th century) (rhyming couplets)
Mystery and miracle plays:
The Mysteries, 1985, (revival by the National Theatre) (alliterative and rhyming verse)
Elizabethan drama:
The Woman in the Moon by John Lyly (blank verse comedy written for performance by children)
Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (blank verse tragedy)
Tamburlaine the Great parts I and II by Christopher Marlowe (blank verse tragedy)
Volpone by Ben Jonson (comedy - blank verse scenes)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (Verse in Shakespeare in non-colloquial, prose is colloquial, for example dialogue between Oberon and Titania, or Helena and Hermia, but not Bottom’s Dream)
Jacobean drama:
Macbeth by William Shakespeare (scenes in common verse with the Witches, scenes in blank verse with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, etc; but not the sleepwalking scene)
The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (blank verse scenes)
The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (blank verse scenes)
The Fatal Dowry by Philip Massinger (blank verse scenes)
The Revenger’s Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur and John Middleton (verse scenes)
Restoration drama:
The Way of the World by William Congreve (prologue, epilogue blank verse)
All for Love by John Dryden (heroic couplets and blank verse)
Tartuffe by Molière (Richard Wilbur translation in heroic couplets; Ranjit Bolt translation in rhyming couplets)
Bérénice by Racine (various verse translations including rhyming couplets in hexameters by Neil Bartlett)
European Classics by Racine, Moliere, Corneille, Calderon de le Barca, Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, where translations faithfully mirror the verse form of the original.
Nineteenth century:
Pippa Passes by Robert Browning (rhyming dramatic text)
Salomé by Oscar Wilde (non-naturalistic style)
The Land of Heart’s Desire by W. B. Yeats (verse drama)
Twentieth Century:
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Berthold Brecht (blank verse satire)
Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot (blank verse drama)
The Boy with a Cart by Christopher Fry (blank verse drama)
The Dark Tower by Louis MacNeice (non-naturalistic epic style)
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas (lyrical prose, use of choric voices)
Deirdre of the Sorrows by J. M. Synge (heightened rhythmic prose)
The Man Born to be King by Dorothy L. Sayers (some heightened language)
King Charles III by Mike Bartlett (blank verse drama)
Thebans by Liz Lochead (blank verse)
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