What is a play and find how is a play different from a novel and a poem?

Answer 1

A play is a piece of literature you can watch on the stage at a theatre. I mean actors and actresses act out dialogues, they sometimes say monologues and at the same time act out the role of a hero/heroine. You can't watch a novel or a poem at a theatre unless it is dramatized.

A play is a form of performance art, in which respect it resembles music and dance. In these art forms, someone creates instructions for performance and (usually) someone else performs it, often under the direction of a director. Thus Mozart writes the music, and a conductor tells an orchestra how to play it, someone writes Ballet music, someone else choreographs it, and the dancers perform, and someone writes the script, a director interprets it and actors perform it. All of these forms allow for improvisation, where the writer performs as it is written, or self-direction or collaborative direction.

As a result, a "play" can be two things--a script or a performance. "I read Shakespeare's play Hamlet" means a script; "I went to see Shakespeare's play Hamlet" means a performance.

In this way plays are radically different from novels or poetry. Novels or poetry are meant to be read--the artistic event is complete when the reader reads them. A play is not complete until it is performed, and cannot be understood otherwise. If you are reading the script of a play you must visualize how it might look on stage in order to understand it. As a result, plays are best understood when they are watched in performance, while novels and poetry are best understood when they are read.