As the King speaks to Sakuntala he says: "Day wipes out the moon from view but not the water lily" (279). In addition to adding to the poetic form of the play, these images also help to create a pleasing aesthetic imagery that is usually lacking on the stage itself.
The stage of Indian drama is very minimal. Few props are used, and the curtain is utilized to communicate emotional states and moods. If a character is upset, the curtain is tossed. An actor may also be wrapped up in the curtain to represent travel. This causes the audience to use their imagination and gives the performance a sense of the unreal. Colorful masks and costumes add to the melodramatic nature of the show. Facial expressions and complex hand gestures known as mudras are also used to express the different rasas.
Scenery must be imagined since it is not presented on stage for the audience to see. This gives the actual prose of the play a responsibility to describe most of the settings the characters find themselves in. The King speaks of his surroundings as he approaches the area where he finds Sakuntala: "Rippling beneath a passing breeze, waters flow in deep channels to lave the roots of trees; smoke drifts up from oblations to the Sacred Fire to dim the soft sheen of tender leafbuds; free from fear, fawns browse lazily in meadows beyond, where darbha-shoots are closely cropped" (269). This lyrical representation of the setting is more effective in imagination than it could be in reality. An audience member might be seated too far away from the stage to actually see these details if they could be presented on stage, but the imagination is not limited by distance.
Chinese theater usually consists of stories that are centuries old. Confucianism plays a large role in Chinese culture, and many of the plays are meant to teach a moral lesson at the end. The lines of tragedy and comedy are not well defined in this type of theater, but a good character will typically be rewarded and a bad character usually will suffer.