Throughout history numerous playwrights have brought about many contributions to the theatrical world. As I have discovered throughout my three semesters of Dramatic Literature, playwrights have different approaches to theatricality. Some of the plays we have read seem like gibberish when being read, but when acted out fly by the seat of their pants with comedy. Other plays were phenomenal to read, but hard to envision on stage. This is partly due to the different approaches in theatrical language.
             In Corrigan's book, The World of the Theatre, he lays the ground work for the use of language in successfully writing a play. Corrigan states in order for a playwright to be successful, they must have four essential qualities of theatrical language present in their work. These four qualities are: character consciousness while developing action, eloquence, use of gestures, and the quality of presences(Corrigan 230). In this paper I will discuss these four qualities of theatrical language, and provide examples of their theatrical success through the works of Arthur Miller and Samuel Beckett.
             The first quality of theatrical language is to reveal the consciousness of the character while concurrently developing the action. Corrigan discusses the importance of maintaining a balance between the development of the plot, and the characters internalization of their personal actions. If a play has too much action, it loses value because there is no meaning behind the characters action. In doing so, the characters become mere puppets of the plot.
             If there is consciousness of the character self and not enough action, the audience becomes bored and loses interest in the play.
             Waiting for Godot is a prime example of the balance between characters' consciousness and action. At first it seemed both action and character consciousness were missing from this play. However, as the play developed, the characters became more...