The entertainment that people choose
The plays or theatrical works are since the most ancient times one of the favorite entertainments of the people. People since ancient times have liked to appreciate plays because with them they can laugh, cry, get emotional and even identify if they touch on issues that have to do with reality itself.
Narration expressed in the compositional mode of dialogue
A theatrical work is a literary genre that is made up of conversations between the characters, that is, it is a narrative expressed in the compositional mode of dialogue, although we can also find some in the key of a monologue, in which it is a solo character who dominates and commands the scene, known as one-man. Like any other narrative, it has a plot or argument which is developed in three stages or parts: exposition, middle and end. Most of the plays are made up of three acts and the completion of each of them will be indicated by the fall of the curtain or by the change of scenery.Composition of theatrical works
In turn, each act is divided into scenes, which will be marked each time a new character enters it.
So, a play is structured in two moments, act and scene.
Act and scene
The act is the one that will mark the change of environment. In written plays it will manifest itself through the description of the set and in the representation, as we mentioned above, from the movement of the curtain or the change of scenery. On the other hand, the scene will be marked by the entrance and exit of the characters, while in the written plays it begins with the description of the movements and gestures of the intervening characters.
In a play, no one recounts or tells the story of the relationships between the narrator's space / time and the narrative's space / time, that is, in a theatrical work, only the present of each one of them is shown, presented and discussed. characters.
The theater, the temple of the genre
The representation of a play always takes place in a limited physical space, known as a stage and that will be arranged in a theater, which is that place destined to contemplate the representation of the theatrical pieces.
History of theater and the great influence of Greek theater on the genre
The historical origins of the theater go back to those most primitive times of man and are more precisely related to the first activities that this developed, hunting and agricultural gathering, which often lead to dramatic ceremonies through which worship was rendered to the gods and the different spiritual principles of the community in question were manifested.
But it will be in Ancient Greece where the plays will originate with the meaning and structure that we recognize them today. The plays were so popular in the Greece of these times that their creators became true representatives of the genre, such is the case of the comedian Aristophanes. The originality of the works of this author is that they alternate the dialogues with the songs performed by a choir.
For his part, Euripides was one of the great exponents of Greek tragedy. His works take away the role of the choir and impose a series of characteristic elements of tragedies such as the humanization of the characters, the plot complexity, a realistic imprint and a new way of treating mythology.
The theater, today, turned into a show and great commercial business
Today, theater continues to be part of people's leisure time and entertainment. The novelty is that it clearly evolved since its inception, new genres were incorporated, avant-garde staging was imposed, among other resources, and of course, this has made the genre grow and grow in artistic matters and become a source of work for many actors and other workers linked to gender. There are even places in the world where the theater is an additional attraction to visit a city, such is the case of Broadway, in New York, cradle of the most outstanding and spectacular musical theater works.