As the basic unit of theatre, a play is not a thing so much as an event, an action surrounding a conflict. It can also be seen as a piece of literature, and its 2500 years of written practice has given rise to two primary taxonomies for understanding the nature and potential of dramatic form.
One method of understanding plays is to classify them. Duration is one method of grouping plays, but the more useful, although subjective, approach is through genre. Tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, dark comedy, farce, melodrama, documentary, and musicals are some of the classifications that have been given to types of drama, but generic classification is subjective to a high degree, and plays often escape easy designation.
Historically, scholars and theatre practitioners have relied upon two primary ways of analyzing the structure of particular plays. Aristotle initiated analysis of a play according to its components 2500 years ago, and yet his list of a drama's six parts, with the modern addition of a seventh, convention, is still useful to understanding how a play functions. Another way to evaluate a play's structure is to break down its temporal order. With an appreciation that plays exist in time and therefore within a theatrical experience, Aristotle's observation that drama has a beginning, middle, and end can be expanded to include the groupings of the preplay, the play proper, and the postplay.
