Not so a stage play. The script is not the work of art. Playwriting is not literature. Playwriting's ultimate goal is not within the pages, but upon the boards. Playwriting is putting together a set of detailed requirements and instructions for others to create the production, the living work of art. Playwriting must be clear, concise, explicit, precise, and contain descriptive, colorful, and adequate directions of what actors say and do, in order to achieve the playwright's intent. The playwright imagines a particular world, peopled by compelling characters, where a specific situation rides its course. That's where the genius occurs. The art of playwriting is capturing those people, images, and scenarios and transcribing them to the page.
The production, with its opening night hustling for the first curtain, is the work of art, which brings up another aspect of theater's uniqueness. This work of art is recreated anew by each different company that produces it, and even within a run, each night's show will be somewhat different from every other one. A quieter or louder audience, an actor who caught a dress-rehearsal-week cold, a missing or wandering prop; these are influences on productions beyond the playwright's control.
So, for each production to have the best chance of resembling every other production, the playwright has to make sure the important traits, pieces of background information, and motivations are sufficiently represented. The two most important and reliable routes from the stage to the audience are action and dialogue -- what the audience sees the actors doing and what they hear them saying.
Character descriptions and emotional cues (the italics) assist the actors in developing the characters, but that information must be accompanied by appropriate dialogue and movement. The audience doesn't read along or get the chance to turn back a page or two.
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