The elements of theater are components of this performing art which, when analyzed, help us 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.
Theater is one of the main performing arts, and has been developing as a form of cultural expression over thousands of years. Therefore, many factors are involved in it that come together 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 made up of acts in which actors embody characters in front of an audience.
In the beginning, The forms of scenic representation that were the seed of theater were linked to mystical-religious traditions and through the symbolic recreation of myths and legends they sought to bring order to reality, applying narrative fictions to this that sought to explain what was happening in the world.
For this reason, no importance was given to the author, the playwright or the main person responsible for the creation of the ritual (their creation was, surely, the product of several generations working for decades). Later, with the appearance of theater itself, the religious purpose was lost, and the ability to use elements of theater in a creative and varied way increased, depending on what one wanted to express.
These elements of theater can be of various types: material, symbolic, human… They all add 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 that each of them plays in the performance.
1. Actors
The 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, they advance the development of the plot, and they also express the emotions that accompany the work through their non-verbal language, using their entire body and hands. qualities of his voice.
Actors in plays work in a different way than those in audiovisual artistic media such as cinema, among other things because of the material characteristics of their work: there are not many attempts, you have to make what you do understandable. by the part of the audience that is furthest away, and you have to deal with the space limitations that are linked to the stage.
The set design is one of the elements of theater that are most integrated into the stage, and in fact, the stage can be understood as part of the set design. It is the set of objects and decorations that are used to represent the space in which the events take place and they can change as you move from one place to another (the replacement of part or all of the objects in the scenery usually occurs in “dark” areas, when the audience cannot see well what is happening).
3. Hearing
The audience is one of the elements of theater that go unnoticed because they are taken for granted, but the truth is that the audience of the play never becomes a totally passive agent; participates in the creation of the work, even if the individual people who make it up are not aware of it.
In fact, the conception of a play is carried out keeping in mind the cultural, social and psychological characteristics of the audience, so that everything that happens can be understood. This is one of the differences between a play and a ritual-religious performance, in which it is not essential that the audience 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 narrative 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 dialogue. It is the element of the play that captures in writing the ideas and themes that are worked on in the performance, and its author is the playwright.
Furthermore, the script or text of a play follows a development in which the dramatic load of the work increases 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 outcome.
On the other hand, each of these parts is divided into acts, which are differentiated by their space-time context, the time and place in which the story takes place, and They are separated by “dark” (a general turning off of lights). Acts are units into which the plot is divided, and they appear in all performing arts in general.
Although in many plays the lighting only has the purpose of making it easy to see what is happening on stage and, at most, marking 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 work.
For example, Spotlights can be articulated to direct the audience’s attention to a specific point on the stage While certain objects are hidden, several of them can be used in a coordinated way to generate a specific sensation through their movement patterns, and they can also fill the stage with different colors, depending on what is happening.
The possibilities with this element of theater are multiple, since 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 work, dialoguing with the rest of the characters despite not having a voice, by creating the appropriate contexts.
6. Makeup
Makeup is one of the elements of theater that is cosmetic in nature, although that 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 the techniques Nowadays, 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 wide variety of purposes, among which we find several technical purposes, and others that are content
The technical purposes of makeup include counteracting 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 furthest areas of the stage it is possible to see the lines of expression of whoever is acting, and the spotlights do not burn the image of the actors’ faces.
On the other hand, the content purposes achieved by using makeup 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. This is where color theory 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.
As a constituent element of a play, costumes are very similar to makeup, since it also consists of applying products to the actors so that they express sensations and ideas through their simple presence, and also in this case it plays with color palettes. to transmit concepts immediately, without having 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 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 his membership in a certain institution, submission to others, etc.
8. Sound
The sound of a play It is composed of music and complementary sound effects that help understand what is happening in the story 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 literally being part of what happens in it.
9. Voice over
The voice over (or voice over, in English) is a series of statements that are emitted by someone who does not belong to what is happening in the act of the play, and who is not visible to the public, normally to provide information that narrates or that accompanies the development of the plot by giving added information Many times it is a voice recording that is complemented by sound effects.
10. Director
The director of the work is the person in charge of coordinating the rest of the elements of the theater both the materials (decorations, lighting, etc.) and those referring to the actions that the actors must perform to interpret their characters, at all times.
On the other hand, the director’s work becomes more noticeable before the work is put into practice in front of the public, than during it; In fact, it is not located on the stage, but outside of it, to have a more general and panoramic view of everything that is happening at the same time.
