What Makes a Good Play?

There are many plays written, performed, thought up, reviewed, discussed, taught, and learned every day in the world. Who decides which of these plays are good? Who decides which of these are worthy of discussion? Who decides which of these plays ought to be performed? Taught? Learned? Who deems these plays worthy? We do; the readers, the audiences, the actors, the directors, the playwrights, the students, the teachers, the critics, the people. How do we, as those people, rank such a thing as a play? How do we go about labeling one play as better than another? Can everyone agree on a standard by which to "grade", if you will, these plays in question? No. I don't believe that we can. I believe that everyone will judge a play on his or her own standards. However, I also believe that there are benefits in knowing what scale of criteria one judges a play on.

How Does One "Judge" a Play?

A play is a performance, just like every act in one's day-to-day life. With that in mind, knowing the scale of criteria on which one judges plays provides an insight as to what that person feels is important in life. Now, realize there that I said it provides an insight. I do think it would be absurd to say that the way in which one judges a play runs absolutely parallel with one's worldviews and beliefs. However, I do believe there is something to be said for one person finding a play offensive, while another finds the same play to be enjoyable. For example, let's look as SIUC's production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible last year. I thought that the play was fantastic, while my high school English teacher thought it was awful. We have many things in common, she and I do. We are both Christians, women, we love kids, she is an English teacher, I want to be an English teacher, among other things. Why is it that she looked upon that particular production of the play with disdain while I enjoyed it and thought it a useful, thought-provoking tool for today's society? It's because of what we value and how we perceive things that makes this difference.

The Four Factors

With all that said, now it is time for me to exposit what factors I believe constitute a good play. There are four major points I would like to focus on in this discussion. Those are that of depth, meaning, reality, and, most importantly, viability. Each of these tie very closely in with the others, however, I believe it valuable to discuss the importance of each individually.

Depth

With depth I am referring to the complexities involved with arranging the play. Plays have many different layers. There is the text of the play, the reading of the play, the execution of the play, the impact of the play, and the response of the play. The deeper the play is, the better it is. The more intricately woven the layers are, the more interesting the play is. The more interesting the play is, the more thoughts it provokes. The more thought-provoking the play is the more it has the possibility to change your view on a certain topic, which ties in with the play's viability. Within each of these subcategories there are certain elements: the characters, scenic devices, plot, and context. These are each things than can be manipulated be each person who gets a hold of a play.
Manipulation of a play can occur on many levels. There are the characters that the playwright puts into the play, the characters that the director makes them to represent, the flare that the actors give to those same characters, the way the audience perceives those representations, and the impact that all of those layers have on everyone involved. The plot is manipulated in much the same way as the characters. With the scenic devices, there is the implied, and sometimes directly called for scenery selected by the playwright him or herself. There is the message presented to the audience by the director based on his or her interpretation and representation of the scenery. This is point in the play where the technical crew gets a chance to have their input into the content and perception of the play. Also, we cannot forget the way that the audience perceives and is affected by the representation of the scenic elements shown to them.

The context of the play is a very interesting element at which to look, seeing as how putting the same play in two different contexts can send dramatically different messages. Context can be manipulated in many different ways. Manipulation of context could occur when the playwright chooses from which perspective to write the play. The same series of events told by a small child, if told by a middle-aged person would be much different. Time period can be a pertinent manipulation point. Taking a play written 50+ years ago and putting it in a modern setting can create a world of difference in the perception of the play. For instance, Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in the 1500's for an audience much different than that of the people of today. However, in 1996 Buz Lahrmann directed a movie with the same text as Shakespeare's original play, the catch being that it was set in modern times. This provided for a much different perception of the play. To some people, it was much more real. Actions on stage can convey something not bluntly conveyed in the text, and it is up to the director, actors, and audience to do with that what they will.