Abstract: The purpose of the proposed article is to consider the key trends occurring with the categories of the hero and character of the dramatic text in the third global period of historical poetics – the era of poetic modality (in its non–classical period), since it is at this stage of the literary process that the most attention is paid to the subjective sphere of the work. The author of the work, among other things, notes: transformations of images of actors caused by both actual social realities and crises of their identity; changes in terms of communicative interaction and speech of heroes and characters; transformation of dramatic conflict from external (event) to internal (personal), etc.   The key methods used in the work include comparative typological analysis, descriptive and hermeneutic. The novelty of this scientific research lies in the systematization of existing ideas concerning this issue, as well as in the breadth of the material concerned (from European and domestic dramaturgy of the turn of the XIX and XX centuries, plays of symbolists and absurdists to the domestic "new drama" of the XX – XXI centuries). A special contribution to the development of the poetics of dramaturgy is the theoretical justification and practical application of the term "image-silhouette" proposed by the author (by analogy with the concepts of "image-type", "image-character" and "image-personality" proposed in the concept of historical poetics by S. N. Broitman) demonstrated in the article.