Modern Dramas engage audiences by bringing the problems of life to the stage.
The play Twelve Angry Men written by Reginald Rose, is a Modern Drama that covers real-life social issues, portraying themes of social class, race, justice, and innocence. The play is based on 12 jurors who are instructed to deliberate a case where an 18-year-old, Hispanic boy from the slums, is accused of stabbing his father. The genre of Modern drama is characterized by its particular subject matter of realism, social consciousness, social issues, and real-life relatable issues. Modern Dramas depict realistic environments and dramatic plots, as well as character development, dialogue, and an intriguing and complex storyline, which was utilized in the play to engage the audience to portray themes of social class, race, justice, and innocence.
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The play Twelve Angry men operates various techniques to engage the audience. Dialogue and character development are utilized in the play to bring in issues of Discrimination, especially on social class and race. The dialogue in the play is suspenseful and intense and is used to voice the controversial, prejudiced opinions of the jurors. Juror 10 epitomizes this,
” Listen to me. They're no good. There's not a one of 'em who's any good.”
the intensity, tone, and controversy of the dialogue engage the audience. The quote implies that minorities are “second class” and Caucasians are “first class”, this quote brings in the issue of racism, a common real-life social matter. In addition, character development was used to engage the audience, and to also convey the themes of class and racial discrimination. Character development in the play shows the change of opinion and bias of the accused. For example, Juror 4 who is an affluent, wealthy man is strongly assured that the accused is guilty, based on prejudice of the accused’s class and race. This is shown in the quote
“It's no secret that slums are breeding grounds for criminals”,
he describes that all people who come from a low socioeconomic background, are criminals and implying them as “second-class citizens”.However, Juror 4 opinion alters slowly throughout the play, he says,
“I’m sorry. I’m convinced. I don’t think I’m wrong often, but I guess I was this once. There is a reasonable doubt.”
The change of thought strongly emphasizes the character development prevalent in this play. In essence, the play utilized character development and dialogue to engage the audience with real-life issues, thus modern dramas do engage the audiences by bringing problems of life to the stage.
Furthermore, the play employs themes of justice and innocence. Justice and innocence are depicted through the intriguing storyline. The themes of justice and innocence were shown towards the end of the play, showing the change of verdict from the jurors from “Guilty’ to “Not Guilty” as a result of Juror 8’s persistence and his tolerant mindset, as he tries his best to change the minds of this other 11 jurors, this is emphasized when Juror 8 explains,
“It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth.”
The juror’s mindset emphasizes justice and innocence, explaining that the importance of truth, and the accused should not be judged based on preconceived biases. Moreover, the theme of innocence is prevalent throughout the play, the lack of strong evidence that proved the boy's actions were apparent but the jurors were “blinded” by their prejudice, Juror 8’s quote emphasizes this,
“You want this boy to die because you want it, not because of the facts”.
This implies the boy's innocence and lack of strong evidence, as well as the juror's prejudice. In essence, although the conception of justice and innocence is a complex and difficult concept to grasp, the play manages to convey these themes of social issues effectively and engage the audience through its intriguing storyline.
In conclusion, the play effectively conveys its themes of innocence, justice, and discrimination. An intriguing storyline, dialogue, and character development were utilized to communicate the real-life problem themes to engage the audience. Therefore, Modern Dramas engages audiences by bringing the problems of life to the stage, and Twelve Angry Men, does this effectively.
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