The 9 Main Theater Elements

The Theater elements Principal are the actors, the text or script, the audience, costume, makeup, scenery, lighting, sound and director.

He" theater "Can be conceptualized in two ways. The first is the literary genre written by playwrights, whose main purpose is to offer dialogues between characters with the intention of being represented before an audience. For this reason, this type of theater is also known under the name of "drama ".

Also called"theater"is the art of acting in which stories are personified in front of a spectators or in front of a camera.

The word theater Comes from the Greek term Theatron Which means"place to look"(Balme, 2008) (Pavis, 1998). Thus, the original term referred to both the site where it was carried out and the dramatic activity itself (Balme, 2008).

Often people also use the term drama To refer to the theater. This is probably due to the Greek word for"doing"or"acting"to refer to theatrical activity on a stage, without necessarily addressing drama as a literary genre of fiction (Balme, 2008).

Although the word with which we call this stage and literary art is of Greek origin, the beginnings of the theater go back to civilizations of greater date like the Egyptian or the China.

The scientific community agrees that it is difficult to determine an exact historical point of the emergence of the theater because according to the records of the cave paintings (prehistoric drawings in caves or caverns), there were already some manifestations in religious rituals that also included music and The dance (Csapo & Miller, 2007).

Being the theater an artistic manifestation and a form of communication present in all the cultures, it developed own characteristics according to the historical moment and its geographical location.

From this perspective, we affirm that the theater is formed by two basic components: the text and the representation.

The theater is born of uniting text and representation, however varied the forms and formulas in which this"union"takes place (Trancon, 2006, p.151).

Essential elements of the theater

There are 3 basic elements of the theater that are actors, the public and the text. There are other additional elements that complement and make the spectacle such as makeup, costumes, scenery and lighting more striking, convincing and real.

1- Actor

He is an artist present on stage space, whose mission is to act and speak in a fictional universe that he builds or contributes to build (Ubersfeld, 2004).

There must be at least one and they should not necessarily be people because puppets or puppets can also be used.

As Ricard Salvat puts it:"The actor is, of all the elements of the theatrical payroll, which is essential. At the moment of going without some components of the theater complex, always ending up reducing the actor"(Salvat 1983, page 29).

The actor or actors are the ones who give life to the characters, through their actions, words and clothing.

It is they who recite dialogues imprinting vocal tones, diction, emotions and energy that reinforce the credibility of the performance and influence the involvement of the spectators in history.

Seen in another way, the actor's body appears as a living, integrated, capable of embodying the character with all the physical and physical demands that fiction requires (Trancon, 2006, 148).

2- Text

It is the writing that proposes the story to be developed and consists of a structure similar to that of the story (beginning, knot and outcome), which in the specific case of theater is known as Approach, Knot or Climax and outcome.

Dramatic works are always written in first-person dialogues and use parentheses when you want to specify the action that is taken while pronouncing the fragment (this is known as the acotational language). When the piece is going to be taken to the stage or to the cinema, it is called"script".

This writing is not divided into chapters (as would normally be done in a novel or other type of prose) but in acts, which in turn can be divided into even smaller fragments known as pictures.

The text is the spirit and the genesis of the theater; Without him it is not possible to speak of theater. Its degree of necessity is such that it is possible to"attend to common sense and verify that we do not know any play without text, so we start from the hypothesis that theater is"text more representation"(Trancón, 2006, Page 152)."

3- Audience

Anyone who sees a play or attends a show is considered a spectator. Apparently the audience does not interfere in the development of the play, however, the purpose of this is to entertain the audience. The spectators are the raison d'etre of the theater.

Throughout a play, a relationship is built between the audience and the actors; And thanks to them, not only the creation-communication cycle is completed, but also immediate feedback is received from the actors, since there is no passive audience, but all are critical observers (Trancón, 2006, p. 83) who develop a positive perception or Negative of the visual art they contemplated.

Complementary elements

The following elements are not vital to carry out a play but its contribution brings great value in making the story more interesting, organized, credible and real.

In the words of Salvat:"the stage accessories"such as sets, lights, props, costumes, machinery, etc., which contribute to create illusion in the unreal reality of the scene"(Salvat, 1983, p. 13). These are:

1- Clothing

It is the attire worn by the actors. Through them and without the need to spell words, the public can identify the gender, age, occupation, social status and characteristics of the characters, as well as the era in which the story unfolds.

Today there is a person dedicated exclusively to this aspect and works hand in hand with the director and with the makeup artists to create harmony in the construction of the appearance of the character.

2- Makeup

It is used to fix distortions caused by lighting (such as loss of color or excessive facial brightness).

In addition, the application of cosmetic products serves to consolidate the character through its external characterization, highlighting or disguising factions of the actors or adding effects to the characters: rejuvenate, aging, moles, scars or simulate wounds, among others.

3- Scenography

It corresponds to the set of decorations used to enact the dramatic representation. This means that it is the space in which the actors interact, decorated in such a way that shows the geographic, temporal, historical and social space in which the story unfolds.

Most elements are static and to produce a more impactful effect, they rely on lighting. A simple example may be the proposed"daytime"and"nighttime"scenarios.

The utensils or tools used by the actors during the performance are called Prop objects.

4- Lighting

As with scenography, lighting encompasses objects such as the action of handling lights. That is, the lighting is the set of lights used during the artistic representation, as well as the creation and execution of the same to help convey emotions, highlight and hide actors, and give more assertiveness to the scenery, makeup and costumes.

5- Sound

Composed of music and all auditory effect to improve the acoustic aspects of the play to the actors and the audience.

For example, microphones so that the dialogues of the actors can be heard by the audience, reinforce the transmission of an emotion or an action such as the sound of the rain or the sudden brake of a car.

6- Director

He is the creative artist in charge of the coordination of all the elements that intervene in the performance, from the scenography to the interpretation. He is responsible for the material organization of the show (Ubersfeld, 2004, p.39).

The director's figure is practically new in relation to the whole historical trajectory of the theater: the work of the director scarcely existed before 1900 as a separate artistic function and before the theater of 1750, very seldom (Balme, 2008).

This is proved by the fact that in the Greek theater, the Roman theater, the medieval and the Renaissance this figure did not exist in the strict sense of the word. This person is not present on the stage, unlike the actors.

References

1. Balme, C. (2008). The Cambridge Introduction to Theater Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Carlson, M. (1993). Theories of Theater. A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present. New York: Cornell University Press.
3. Csapo, E., & Miller, M. C. (2007). Part I: Komastsand predramatic ritual. In E. Csapo, & M. C. Miller, The Origins of Theater in Ancient Grece and Beyond (pp. 41-119). New York: Cambrigde University Press.
4. Pavis, P. (1998). Theater Art. In P. Pavis, Dictionary of Theater. Terms, Concepts and Analysis (page 388). Toronto: University of Toronto Press Incorporated.
5. Salvat, R. (1983). The Theater as a text, as a show. Barcelona: Montesinos.
6. [Links] Theater Theory. Madrid: Basis.
7. Ubersfeld, A. (2004). Dictionary of key terms of theatrical analysis. Buenos Aires: Galerna.