The 10 most important elements of theater

This art is composed of elements of theater that shape stage performances.

The elements of the theater are components of this performing art that, when analyzed, help us to understand the meaning of the stories represented by the actors, or allow a narrated story to exist in the first place.

In this article we will see what these elements of theater are, how they are involved in the narratives, and what characterizes them.

What is a play?

The theater is one of the main performing arts, and has been developing as a form of cultural expression over thousands of years. For that reason, in him there are involved many factors that converge in the work that is represented, to interweave histories. A play is the result of this combination of elements, and consists of the representation of a story formed by acts in which actors embody characters in front of an audience.

In the beginning, the forms of scenic representation that were the seed of the theater were linked to mystic-religious traditions, and through the symbolic recreation of a story formed by acts in which actors embody characters in front of an audience.and through the symbolic recreation of myths and legends they tried to bring order to reality, applying on it narrative fictions that tried to explain what was happening in the world.

Therefore, no importance was given to the author, playwright or main responsible for the creation of the ritual (the creation of these was, surely, the product of several generations working for decades). Later, with the appearance of the theater proper, the religious purpose was lost, and the ability to use theatrical elements in a creative and varied way, depending on what was to be expressed, increased.

These elements of the theater can be of various types: material, symbolic, human.... All of them bring new layers of meaning as they appear on stage..

Elements of theater: what are they?

Below you will find a summary of the main elements of theater, with explanations about the role played by each of them in the performance.

1. Actors

Actors are the professionals in charge of interpreting the characters, embodying their personality, their motivations and the concepts they symbolize.. The actions of the actors define what happens in the fictional world in which the story takes place, advance the development of the plot, and also express the emotions that accompany the play through their non-verbal language, using their whole body and the qualities of their voice.

Actors in plays work in a different way from those in audiovisual artistic media such as cinema, among other things because of the material characteristics of their work: there are not many attempts, they have to make what they do understandable to the part of the audience that is farther away, and they have to deal with the limitations of space that are linked to the stage.

2. Scenography

The scenography is one of the elements of the theater that are most integrated into the stage, and in fact, the stage can be understood as part of the scenography. It is the set of objects and scenery used to represent the space in which the acts take place, and can change as one goes from one place to another.They can change as one goes from one place to another (the substitution of part or all of the objects of the scenography usually takes place in the "dark", when the audience cannot see well what is happening).

3. Audience

The audience is one of the elements of the theater that goes unnoticed because it is taken for granted, but the truth is that the audience of the play never becomes a totally passive agent; it participates in the creation of the play, even if the individual people who make it up are not aware of it.

In fact, the conception of a play is carried out with the cultural, social and psychological characteristics of the audience in mind, so that everything that happens can be understood. This is one of the differences between a play and a ritual-religious representation, in which it is not essential that the audience understands what is happening.

On the other hand, there are also cases in which the actors interact with the audience verbally or physically, in order to develop the narrative together in a way that the audience can understand.to develop the narration together in a more or less improvised way.

4. Script

The script is the text in which everything important that happens in the play is described, paying special attention to the lines of the play.paying special attention to the lines of dialogue. It is the element of the play that expresses in writing the ideas and themes that are worked on in the representation, and its author is the playwright.

In addition, the script or text of a play follows a development in which the dramatic charge of the work is ascending from the first minutes to the moments near the end; this structure is divided into phases known as approach, knot (with point of no return) and denouement.

On the other hand, each of these parts is in turn divided into acts, which are differentiated by their spatio-temporal context, the time and place in which the story takes place, and are separated by "darks" (a general (a general turning off of lights). Acts are units into which the plot is divided, and appear in all the performing arts in general.

5. Lighting

Although in many plays the purpose of lighting is only to show what is happening on stage and, at most, to mark the transition moments from one scene to another (by turning off the lights), there are many possibilities to use it in a way that gives meaning to the play.

For example, spotlights can be articulated to direct the audience's attention to a certain point on the stage, while certain objects are hidden. while hiding certain objects, several of them can be used in a coordinated way to generate a particular feeling through their movement patterns, and they can also fill the stage with different colors, depending on what is going on.

The possibilities with this element of the theater are multiple, as you can play with the movement of the light beam and the colors it projects. In fact, a spotlight can be another character in the play, dialoguing with the rest of the characters even though it has no voice, by creating the appropriate contexts.

6. Makeup

Makeup is one of the elements of the theater that is cosmetic in nature, although this does not mean that its main objective is to beautify the characters: in fact, in many cases the effect it produces is the opposite, since with current techniques it is possible to modify the relief of the actors' faces so that they adopt grotesque expressions.

In fact, offering the audience attractive characters does not necessarily have to be one of the priorities of the play. Makeup is used for a wide variety of purposes, among which we find several technical purposes, and others that are of content.

Among the technical purposes of makeup are to counteract the effects of distance and artificial lighting so that the audience has a clearer and more faithful image of what the characters look like. In this way, even being in the farthest areas of the stage, it is possible to see the lines of expression of the actor, and the spotlights do not burn the image of the actors' faces.

On the other hand, the purposes of content that are reached by using makeup are those that have to do with the type of ideas and symbolism that are intended to be expressed through the appearance of the characters. This is where the theory of color comes into play.and its way of giving us indirect information about what is happening thanks to the use of colors, which are associated with certain concepts and sensations.

7. Costumes

As a constituent element of a play, costumes are very similar to make-up, since they also consist of applying products to the actors so that they express sensations and ideas through their simple presence, and also in this case they play with color palettes to transmit concepts immediately, without the need to speak.

However, a characteristic of costumes is that **clothing can be changed or removed quickly, even as part of the narrative course **that is included in the story, something that does not happen with makeup.

For example, if at a given moment the protagonist loses his hat, this simple fact can express loss of control, loss of authority conferred by belonging to a certain institution, subjugation to others, etc.

8. Sound

The sound of a play is composed of music and complementary sound effects that help to understand what is happening in the story.. The music can be diegetic or extradiegetic, that is, it can be part of the story and be heard by the characters, or it can accompany the story, without being part of what happens in it in a literal way.

9. Voice over

The voice over is a series of utterances that are emitted by someone who does not belong to what is happening in the act of the play, and who is not in view of the audience, usually to give information that narrates or accompanies the development of the plot giving added information.. Many times it is a voice recording that is complemented with sound effects.

10. Director

The director of the play is person in charge of coordinating the rest of the elements of the theater.The work of the director, both in terms of materials (sets, lighting, etc.) and in terms of the actions that the actors must perform to play their characters at all times, is more noticeable before the play is performed in front of the audience than during it.

On the other hand, the director's work is more noticeable before the play is performed in front of the audience than during it; in fact, he does not stand on the stage, but off it, in order to have a more general and panoramic view of everything that is happening at the same time.

Bibliographical references:

• Counsell, C. (1996). Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre. New York: Routledge.
• Pavis, P. (1998). Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Kuritz, P. (1988). The Making of Theatre History. Englewood Cliffs, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
• Trancón, S. (2006). Teoría del Teatro. Madrid: Fundamento