According to Freytag, a play consists of five basic parts: exposition (which makes audiences aware of the plot), rising action (in which the conflict in the play escalates), climax (in which the action comes to a turning point), falling action (in which a final twist is added to the climax) and denouement (in which the climax is resolved and the play is brought to a conclusion).
Plays are traditionally divided into acts, each of which constitutes a set scene or interaction. Classic Greek plays had five acts, as did most plays of William Shakespeare. In the last 200 years or so, plays have adopted three acts, covering a beginning (exposition), middle (rising action) and end (climax, falling action and denouement). Modern plays often have two acts, dividing the drama in half and permitting an intermission in the middle of the drama.
Plays with a climactic structure entail tightly wound plots which slowly unfold during the course of the play. They usually follow a linear format, in which one event leads directly to another, and the length of the play usually matches that of real time. Such plays entail a lot of exposition early on to get the audience up to speed and proceed more or less resolutely towards the climax, when the central conflict is resolved. Examples include classical Greek plays such as “Oedipus Rex,” and more modern plays like Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”
Plays with an episodic structure embrace a more epic scope, utilizing multiple characters and embracing a plot which can entail years of time. The settings can change from act to act, and even scene to scene, while multiple subplots interweave themselves throughout the play. William Shakespeare is perhaps the best-known practitioner of this sort of structure, though Ibsen, Marlowe and numerous modern playwrights have used it as well.
Plays with an experimental structure avoid Freytag’s notion of rising action, as well as the strict organization of acts and scenes. Instead, they adopt a nonlinear pattern to their work: repeating scenes, improvising action and even directly interacting with the audience. In so doing, such plays change the notion of what drama is supposed to be, and discover new types of structure which can propel the medium into the future.