Plays that include too many scenes in to many far fetched places will never be produced and never be put into high school 10th grade curriculum high rotation. The only productions that can afford to go from France to Rome and across the oceans to America in 20 minutes are the phenomenon "The Broadway Musicals." The glitz and glamour of it all is entertaining, beautiful, magnificent, and the like, but all in all the play itself needs the extra. .
Just about anyone can publish a book or a few poems but a play? Not unless you have had a good running at a theater for a few years. Drama was never intended to be written anyway because before the printing press it was not economical. The play was either performed or a figment of the imagination. .
So what does this say? A play is not a play if it is not performed. Poetry has taken a step in the printed direction because compared to a novel most people do not see a comparison. When it comes to drama people say "just add in all the rest and it's a book so what's the point. Let the writer do all the work." For most people reading a play is like listening to a conversation retold by a friend: it's not the same if u weren't there to see it all go down. More imagination is needed to read a play. Stage directions can only do so much because the intention is for it to be seen. Some people like creating the world on their own, and that pretty much what has to happen, but no one can get a real feel for what the playwright is trying to say if that can't hear the way he/she anted it to be said.
Another convention of drama different form other forms of literature is the need for an audience. A play read is a play read but a play is not a play if there is no one to see it performed. A play is unfinished until after it is performed. A novel is finished once the story is done. This emphasizes the idea that audience is important in drama. A reader is important for a novel but does not take away from the fact that it is a completed work of literature.