Genres Of Plays

When we speak of a play we refer toa specific representation of a literary workbelonging to the genre of dramaturgy, through a series of human andmaterialelementsstaged, that is, through the techniques and knowledge of one of the performing arts:Theatre.

A play isthe result of the combination of two forms of art: literary and scenic, that is,writing and staging.

The plays have been during the history of humanity one of the preferred means of entertainment,educationandmasscommunicationof the differentsocieties, whichused them to keep alive their religious traditions, their mythological imaginary or simply to make thecommunitycome together. Look in a mirror and you can either laugh at yourself, or cry with yourself.

All this oftenaccompanied by music, dances and costumes, since the Theatre consists of the staging, the interpretation at the moment, of stories and anecdotes whose characters are played by actors and actresses.

Origin of the Theatre
The Theatre came down to us after it was incorporated into Christianity.
The Theatre as we know it today wasborn in Ancient Greece (1200 – 146 BC), in which performances withmusicanddancewere carried outin honor of the god Dionysus, known as Dionysian dirithambs.

These types of festivities were common and served as inspiration for the Theatre to grow asan event of religious, symbolic and civic importance., which later focused on the tragic works of its main playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes.

In other latitudes there were similar representations, asin India the festivities in honor of Brahma, but fromAncient Greeceand its heirs by force, theRoman Empire, the Theatre reached us after having been incorporated intoChristianityand having reappeared with strength in theEuropeanRenaissanceand especially in the Spanish Baroque (known as the “Golden Age”).

More in:Greek theatre

Theatre genres
Traditionally, playsare classified into two genres: tragedy and comedy.This classification is the oldest and is part of the feeling that each gender implies: sadness and laughter, that is, they represent thehuman beingin two different ways: as a courageous being fallen from grace, or as a villain and common being of the that it is possible to laugh.

Then other genres appeared that made the classification more complex:tragicomedy (romantic drama), which mixestragedyand comedy;the farce, which is a caricature of the characters and situations;melodrama, which incorporates musical accompaniment to tragedy for each emotional situation;realistic drama, which seeks to imitate reality to move the public and sensitize it socially;vaudeville or variety Theatre, etc.

Elements of a play
With its withdrawal, the curtain marks the beginning of the work or a segment of it.
In general, any theatrical performance has more or less the following elements:

Characters:Played by the actors, they represent each of the participants in the story, whether they are protagonists, antagonists or simply tertiary (circumstantial) characters.It is possible for an actor to play more than one character.
Scenarios:These are the locations where the action occurs, that is, the spaces that will be populated by the characters.They can be represented on stage by decorative elements (cardboard figures,paintings, etc.) or they can simply be imaginary, aroused by the action itself on the empty stage.
Objects:Like the scenarios, they are elements of support to the action, such as swords, pistols, elements that intervene in what happens, but that are not entirely vital and that is why they can be present or imagined.
Curtain: Present in Theatres, it is a strip of cloth or some opaque material that marks with its withdrawal the beginning of the work or a segment of it and with its fall the end of the work or said segment. In the case of the open-air Theatre, there is no curtain, but other resources are used.
Music: It may or may not be present in the performance, either live, recorded or simply with sound effects for certain parts.
Public: Although it is not part of the play, it does form part of the performance, since it involves all the spectators who are present in the Theatre or where the performance takes place and who decide to agree with the play and allow it to unfold and believe in what happens in it as if it were true, until it ends.