Malaga's Roman theatre followed Vitruvius's design. The cavea (seating levels) were built partly on the hillside and partly on artificial foundations. Except for the stairs that led to the summa cavea and portico, the upper half of this cavea remains unknown. The velum, a fabric roofing structure that may have covered the stands, was supported here.

The semi-circular orchestra at the cavea's base held a limited group of city notables on marble seats like those in Malaga's theatre. The vaulted side aisles were lined with massive marble slabs.

A Flavian-era marble inscription between the orchestra and the scaena reuses marble from an earlier inscription. The local elite paid for this type of building, which gave them prestige and popularity and legitimized political power in the eyes of the citizens.

The scaena was a wide rectangular space above the orchestra with a low exedrae-decorated wall. The scenic apparatus was surrounded by an attractive façade, the frons scaenae, ornamented with apertures, columns, and images of the emperors, imperial family, and city divinities. The architectural canon states that this wall had three gates: the center valva regia and two symmetrical valvae hospitalium on either side.

Thus, early theatre construction in Hispania and the western provinces should not be linked to the genre's quick growth. It was imposed as a means of socio-political control on both the autochthonous population and the Italic minorities, despite their needs for entertainment and spectacles, which the theatre probably only partially met and may have had pre-Roman origins.

The Roman theatre's attention to spectator seating in the cavea, as evidenced in late Republican judicial literature, is another interesting component. Even non-citizens were portrayed in the cavea in a rigorous sequence that reflected the social structure and each person's position in it. Thus, city magistrates, priests, and distinguished guests were given orchestra seats on the proedria. The tribunalia has boxes over the itinera for special seats.

Wealthy knights (ordo equester) had access to the cavea's bottom part. The remaining crowd, organized by professional associations or teachers and students, filled the grandstand. Slaves and women tended the top.

After the theatre building was abandoned in the 3rd century, a factory was built to industrially exploit salted fish and produce sauces like garum. In the 5th century, these pools were reused as burial places and the site was turned into a necropolis. Byzantine occupation revived commerce, although it ended in the 7th century. After the Muslim victory in 711, a military enclosure and mosque were built here.