The Greek word élenchos came to Latin as elenchus , which in turn led to cast in our language . The first meaning of the concept mentioned by the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) in its dictionary refers to an inventory , a catalog or a summary .
The most common use of the notion, however, refers to the group of actors who work on a play or who make up a theater company . Plays, movies, television soap operas, and operas have casts.
For example: "The new comedy by the British filmmaker has a great cast" , "When I found out who the other members of the cast were, I was very happy because they are all very talented actors " , "Tomorrow the cast of the soap opera will be in the center commercial interacting with his fans .
A cast, also known as a cast , is made up of the various performers who appear on stage . Sometimes, the term is also used to refer to directors, producers and members of the technical area.
Take the case of the movie "Titanic" , directed by James Cameron and released in 1997 . Its cast includes figures such as Leonardo DiCaprio , Kate Winslet , Billy Zane , Gloria Stuart , Frances Fisher and Kathy Bates . These stars appear a lot of time on screen and have the responsibility of representing a good part of the actions narrated in the story; However, the film's cast includes many other actors and actresses.
The expression large cast , present in one of the previous examples, is very common in the promotions of films and other shows in which several people participate, to excite the public regarding their quality. It is important to remember, however, that the idea of a great cast is not perceived in the same way by everyone, since each one has a different perception of what talent means (for example, acting).
Therefore, criticism of a film promoted by emphasizing its "great cast" can be very harsh, both from the public and from professionals, since the performance of the artists is not guaranteed in the eyes of the entire audience. . On the other hand, we must not forget that the cast is only one of the components of a project of this type; Although it is of utmost importance, so are the script , direction, makeup, clothing, music and lighting, among other aspects.
The cast of a film, television or theater work cannot satisfy the entire audience one hundred percent, with some exceptions, because it is usually made up of many professionals. The higher the number, the lower the chances of unanimous acceptance, simply due to the very nature of the statistic. No matter how famous a person is and no matter how favorable the general opinion may be about their work and personality, there are always detractors who think the opposite about them.
If we refer to a thesaurus, we will find the following terms that can be used instead of cast in some cases: list, catalog, role, repertoire and payroll . Although this is not its most used meaning, it is consistent with what the RAE dictionary offers us in the first place. This noun does not have antonyms, for quite obvious reasons: it is not an action or a concept that implies morality, so the opposite is simply its absence, for which it is enough not to mention it.
Depending on the type of work, the casts have different numbers of members: in a one-person theater , the cast is actually a single actor who performs a monologue.