Play and Its Importance in Theatre

 
Abstract
Unlike the early years of 20^th century, in which, most theories sought the roots of theatre in rituals, and based on this notion were busy analyzing for stage texts and on stage events, contemporary theories overview this phenomenon in relation with other performance genres such as play and their interactions. According to this fact, based-on-origin theories have lost their primary reputation, and so theatre is no more considered as an evolved performing form but just as a manner of expressing, parallel with other performance genres. On the other hand, a thorough cognition of play, its structure, the way that it is performed and its moodsare functional prerequisites for examining theatre and theatrical text in relation with this phenomenon. Regarding two facts that the concept of play can be traced from pre-Socratic philosophers to contemporary postmodern thinkers and different anthropological and sociological studies have brought forward a vast range of possibilities for understanding the world of play, the onto-phenomenological approach seems to be the most appropriate one in dealing with play world. This approach strongly depends on both conceptual and structural achievements, which not only are of great help in interpretation of conventional stage texts and events, but also provide more innovative and complicated forms such as dark play, which can be beneficial in new theatrical recognition, expression and creation. Johan Huizinga’s HumoLudens- The study of play-element in culture, has been a key source in play studies during last seventy years, and therefore we base our study on his notions. But, despite his genuine idea and significant approach, Huizinga seems to fail to present a thorough comprehension of play which can fully satisfy our demands in order to examine play and performance in relation with each other. In other words, the essential playfulness of play may be considered as the main obstacle to handing in such precise understanding. However, Huizinga’s insistence on culture’s birth in play still has its own supporters, but many outstanding reviewers have pointed to some paradoxical parts of his work and therefor depicted some concealed dimensions of play, many of them depending on the way the play is performed. We also are going to, next to reviewing a locanic introduction on the relation between play and theatre, shift our way to exploration of the concepts and structures of play by which we mean examining the notions of Huizinga and its limitations. By barrowing Huizinga’s ideas and based on them, we would find appropriate materials in order to confidently develop our exploration toward the very complicated structures, concepts, manifestations and moods of play. Anthony Scheffer’s play, Sleuth, as a typical case of manipulating plays and games in order to create theatrical text, will carefully go under study and by this we carefully take a step forward to have a comprehensive construction of play during its performance. Actually, play manifestation through performance reveals sophisticated notions of play such as frame, meta-communication and the message, complicated forms like dark play and deep play and amusing moods like flow.