THE 10 PARTS OF A PLAY AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS - LITERATURE - 2025

The parts of a play are divided between the written play and the staging. In total there are 10 essential elements. The play is a literary format that presents a story through its characters, dialogues and annotations published in print.

These publications are created as the basis for a staging, where a director and a number of actors are in charge of representing the play for the public. Some of the best-known plays are Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Life is a dream, Dollhouse or Oedipus the King.

The origins of the theater go back to Ancient Greece and the first theatrical act in history happened in 534 BC when during a festival, a bard named Thespis recited poetry characterizing different characters. His act went down in history, as he is considered the first actor and one of the fathers of the theater.

Since then, the theater has not stopped evolving and becoming the sophisticated stage performance that we now know. Despite the different innovations contributed to this artistic trend, the theater maintains a series of elements that compose it and make it unique.

What are the different parts of a play?

Despite the great variety of styles and representations of theater throughout history, it has some characteristic elements.

The philosopher Aristotle wrote about the 6 characteristics that make up the theater: script, characters, idea, diction, music and show.

For a long time, the 6 elements were considered the nucleus of the theater, but the constant innovations today give rise to new categories that when combined, create this artistic spectacle.

In the written play

These parts that give structure to the piece are in charge of the playwright –author of the theatrical work– and are the literary essence of the work.

1- Dialogues

It is perhaps the fundamental part of a work, since it is about what the characters say. Either there are exchanges between 2 or more characters (which is known as a colloquy), or it can also be a narration that can only be heard by the audience.

There are in the same way monologues, when it is about a character speaking to the public or another interlocutor but always without an answer; or soliloquies, which are the portion of dialogue where a character talks "to himself".

2- Annotations

Annotations are one of those unique elements of the theater. These characteristics are about the descriptions that the playwright provides to facilitate the representation of the play.

In the dimensions you can describe how the character is physically (his clothes, his features, his body or his mannerisms) or in what way he says the dialogue (if he shouts it, whispers it, if he says it sad or angry); they also serve to describe the scenery and all the visual elements.

3- Structure of the script

In the theater script all the instructions that the actors must follow appear. Source: pixabay.com.

When dealing with the way of telling a story, the script of a play must comply with certain literary characteristics, that is, the division into three parts.

At the beginning the characters are established, their motives and a problem is named; in the unfolding the action of the story escalates until it unleashes a climax; finally, the conclusion represents the solutions and the end of the conflicts.

The theatrical works, unlike other literary formats, are separated by acts, scenes and paintings; the 3 acts are the beginning, development and conclusion.

Scene change occurs when the actors enter or leave the stage and each frame represents changes in the scenery.

4- Characters

In the beginning, the works of Ancient Greece focused on a character - called a protagonist - and the story developed thanks to his actions.

There are other types of characters such as the antagonist –the counterpart– who usually acts in a contrary way to the protagonist.

Archetypal Characters of the Comedy of Art

The cast characters are those secondary characters that are usually archetypes, such as angry, funny or worried. The narrator is also considered a character, although he is usually not visible to the audience.

5- Gender

As in other artistic aspects, the works are usually divided according to their genre. The main ones are tragedy, comedy, melodrama and tragicomedy.

The tragedy is considered a serious subject where the protagonist leads various adversities with action; the comedy is a light and positive story full of exaggeration and inconsistencies.

The melodrama puts the protagonist and the rest of the characters in difficulties out of their possibilities and the tragicomedy, as its name suggests, is a mixture of tragedy and comedy that assimilates situations of daily life.

In the staging

These, for their part, are the parts in charge of the director in charge of staging the play. Sometimes it is the playwright himself who decides to take the lead in the stage performance.

1- Scenography

To set a theatrical work on a stage, the scenography is vital, since it is about the visual elements that decorate the space emulating a specific place or situation.

It is an art dedicated to the creation of objects, decoration and setting so that the public is totally immersed in the work.

2- Costumes

Crucial part of the setting of a work, especially when it is a periodical piece - from another era.

It focuses on the design and creation of the appropriate clothing for each of the actors, since many times the dress is an important characteristic for certain characters.

Cast of a play

3- Lighting technology

Among the elements that Aristotle described is the spectacle, that is, the production that the work has. For a long time, large amounts of candles were used to illuminate the theater, so the use of artificial light is relatively new.

Lighting technology is that technique that creates and manipulates artificial lights for the show, giving emphasis to certain objects or characters.

4- Music and sound

In Aristotle's time all plays had music and actors sometimes sang their lines.

Nowadays, music is sometimes played in the background, but generally the use of sound is only limited to generating sound effects, such as thunder or rain.

5- Dance

Finally, dance, represented in choreographic movement, is present in some works, especially the classical ones.

This element goes hand in hand with the music chosen to enliven the work, although there are times that history does not require this resource.

In the following video you can enjoy a play:

References

1. Adair-Lynch, T. (sf) The basic elements of theater. Theater History. Recovered from homepage.smc.edu
2. Bermúdez, E. (sf) Structure and characteristics of the play. Washington Institute. Recovered from institutowashington.com
3. Public Broadcasting Service (sf) The Origins of Theater. Public Broadcasting Service. Recovered from pbs.org
4. Trumbull, E. (2008) Aristotles's six parts of a tragedy. Northern Virginia Community College. Recovered from novaonline.nvcc.edu
5. Utah State University (2005) Huh? Theater? The Basics !. Open Course Ware. Recovered from ocw.usu.edu.