The elements of the theatre are components of this scenic art that, when analysed, help us to understand the meaning of the stories represented by the actors, or allow a story to be told in the first place.

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

What is a play?

The theatre is one of the main performing arts, and has been developing as a form of cultural expression for thousands of years. For this reason, many factors are involved in it that converge in the work that is represented, to interweave stories. 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.

At the beginning, the forms of stage representation that were the seed of the theatre were linked to mystical-religious traditions , and through the symbolic recreation of myths and legends they tried to bring order to reality, applying on this narrative fictions that tried to explain what was happening in the world.

For this reason, no importance was given to the author, the playwright or the person primarily 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 theatre itself, the religious purpose was lost, and the capacity to use elements of the theatre in a creative and varied way, depending on what one wanted to express, increased.

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

Elements of theatre: what are they?

Below is a summary of the main elements of the theatre, with explanations of the role each plays in the performance.

1. Actors

The actors are the professionals in charge of playing 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, they advance the development of the plot, and they also express the emotions that accompany the play through their non-verbal language, using the whole body and the qualities of their voice.

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

2. Scenery

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

3. Hearing

The audience is one of the elements of theatre 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 involved 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 type of performance, in which it is not essential for the audience to understand what is happening.

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

4. Script

The script is the text that describes everything important that happens in the play , paying special attention to the lines of dialogue. It is the element of the play that gives shape to the ideas and themes worked on in the performance, and its author is the playwright.

In addition, the script or text of a play follows a development in which the dramatic load of the work rises from the first minutes to the moments near the end; this structure is divided into the 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 spatial-temporal context, the time and place in which the story takes place, and are separated by “darks” (a general turning off of lights). The acts are units into which the plot is divided, and they appear in all the performing arts in general.

5. Lighting

Although in many plays the lighting is only intended to make it possible to see well what is happening on stage and, at most, to mark the moments of transition 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 hiding certain objects, several of them can be used in a coordinated way to generate a specific feeling through their movement patterns, and they can also fill the stage with different colors, depending on what happens.

The possibilities with this element of the theatre are multiple, since it is possible to play with the movement of the light beam and the colours it projects. In fact, a light source can be one more character in the play, dialoguing with the rest of the characters in spite of not having a voice, by creating the appropriate contexts.

6. Makeup

Make-up is one of the elements of theatre 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 the relief of the actors’ faces can be modified so that they adopt grotesque expressions.

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

Among the technical purposes of the make-up, the most important are to counteract the effects of distance and artificial lighting so that the audience has a clearer and more faithful image of how the characters look. In this way, even in the most distant areas of the stage it is possible to see the expression lines of those who are acting, and the spotlights do not burn the image of the actors’ faces.

On the other hand, the purposes of content reached by using make-up are those that have to do with the type of ideas and symbologies that are intended to be expressed through the appearance of the characters. In this aspect, the theory of colour comes into play , and its way of giving us indirect information about what is happening thanks to the use of colours, which are associated to certain concepts and sensations.

  • You may be interested in: “Color Psychology: Meaning and Curiosities of Colors”

7. Wardrobe

As a constituent element of a play, costumes are very similar to make-up, as they also consist of applying products to the actors so that they express sensations and ideas through their simple presence. Here again, colour palettes are played with to convey concepts immediately, without the need to speak.

However, a characteristic of costumes is that **clothes 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 make-up.

For example, if at some point the protagonist loses his hat, this simple fact can express loss of control, loss of the authority conferred by his membership in a certain institution, submission 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 extra-diegetic, 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 (or voice over, in English) is a series of statements that are issued 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 by giving added information . Often it is a voice recording that is complemented by sound effects.

10. Director

The director of the play is the person in charge of coordinating the rest of the elements of the theatre , both the materials (sets, lighting, etc.) and those referring to the actions that the actors must carry out to play their characters, at all times.

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

Bibliographic 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). Theater Theory. Madrid: Fundamento