1. Presentation of a story through the dialogues of its protagonists, produced with the intention of serving as entertainment and/or reflection before the people present, through its staging by artists in a performance hall, that is, a theater .
Grammatical category: noun fem.
in syllables: o-bra + de + te-a-tro.
Play
The entertainment that people choose
The plays or theatrical works are from the most remote times one of the favorite entertainment of the people. Since ancient times, people 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 play 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 form of a monologue, in which it is a solo character who dominates and commands the scene, known as one-person.
Composition of plays
Like any other narrative, it has a plot or argument which develops in three times or parts: exposition, middle and denouement. Most of the plays are composed 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.
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 one that will mark the change of environment. In written plays it will be manifested through the description of the set and in the representation, as we mentioned above, from the movement of the curtain or by the change of scenery. For its part, the scene will be marked by the entry and exit of the characters, while in written plays it begins with the description of the movements and gestures of the characters involved.
In a play, nobody relates or tells the story of the relationships between the space/time of the narrator and the space/time of what is narrated, that is, in a play, only the present of each one of them is shown, presented, and talked about. characters.
The theater, the temple of the genre
The representation of a play is always produced in a limited physical space, known as a stage and which will be arranged in a theater, which is the place intended to contemplate the representation of 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 he 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 originate with the meaning and structure that we recognize today. The plays were so popular in Greece at the time that their creators became true representatives of the genre, such is the case of the comedian Aristophanes. The originality of this author’s works is that in them dialogues alternate with 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 will 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 a great commercial business
At present, the theater continues to be part of people’s leisure time and form of entertainment. The novelty is that it clearly evolved from its beginnings, new genres were incorporated, avant-garde stagings were imposed, among other resources, and of course, this has made the genre grow and grow in artistic terms and become a source of work for many actors and other workers linked to the genre. 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, home to the most outstanding and spectacular musical plays.
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