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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 1/51
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On ancient and modern (meta)theatres: definitions and practicesAuthor(s): Chiara ThumigerSource: Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici, No. 63 (2009), pp. 9-58Published by: Fabrizio Serra editoreStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27784314Accessed: 31-03-2015 18:40 UTC
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This content downloaded from 186.62.33.73 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:40:16 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 2/51
Chiara
Thumiger
On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres:
definitions
and
practices
1.
1.1.
Defining
'metatheatre'
The
critical notion of ?metatheatre? was first suggested by
Abel
in
1963.
Since then
the
term
has
been
immensely
suc
cessful,
in
two
opposite
ways:
on
the
one
hand,
as
a
concept
ap
plicable
to
all
sorts
of
gaps
in
the
hermeneutics
of
difficult
texts;
on
the
other,
with
equal
passion
and
commitment,
as
quintessence
of the
post-modern tendency
to
privilege
the
blurring
of boundar
ies,
therefore
a
suggestion
to
be
wary
of,
if
not to
dismiss
entirely1
Both
receptions
of
the
notion
were
bound
to
find
an
ideal
environ
ment
in
the field of
classical
studies,
especially
drama.
Here,
in
fact,
the
difficulty
in
accessing
ancient
texts
and the
controversial
debate
between modernist and historicist
readings
are
remarkable.
Thus,
the
concept
of
'metatheatre'
has raised
great
interest
in
re
cent
discussions
of
Greek
tragedy.2
As
soon
emerged,
however,
the
very
concept
of
'metatheatre'
is
far from
unproblematic,
and
calls
in
a
number of
implications
which
are
often
overlooked,
as
Rosenmeyer
highlighted
in
his
es
say
on
the
topic.3
The
validity
of
a
universal
category
of 'metathe
atricar
is
what this article
sets
out
to
challenge.
An
analysis
of
'metatheatre',
first of
all,
has
to
take
notice
of
its
1
See
Taplin,
Wilson
1993,
p.
169
on
the
increasing
interest
in
theatrical
self-refer
entiality
in
classical
scholarship
as
determining
a
?false
dichotomy
?
between
a
?
self
conscious
and
playful
methodology
?
and
?an
over-demanding
empiricism
?.
I
would
like
to
thank Herb
Golder,
Richard
Seaford,
Ian
MacGregor
Morris,
Lorna
Hardwick,
Mike
Edwards,
and
the four
anonymous
readers
at
?md?
for
their
comments
on
ear
lier drafts
of this
article.
I
am
especially
indebted
to
Pat
Easterling,
whose
acute
criti
cism
has
helped
me
immensely
to
re-think
the final
version
of
this work.
2
See
representatively
the
monographs
by
Batchelder
1995,
Segal
1996,
Ringer
1998,
Dobrov
2001.
A
different
voice
is
that of
Radke
2003,
who
rejects
in
toto
metatheatri
cal and
generally
modernist
readings
of
the Bacchae
and bases
her
reading
of
the
play
largely
on
the
principles
expressed
in
Aristotle's
Poetics.
3
Rosenmeyer
2002.
Rosenmeyer
offers an
insightful
commentary on the fortune
of the
concept
and
an
instructive illustration
of what
he
describes
as
its
Overload'.
I
am
very
indebted
to
this
piece
of
scholarship
for the
development
of
the
present
essay.
?MD?
'
63
?
2
9
This content downloaded from 186.62.33.73 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:40:16 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 3/51
io
Chiara
Thumiger
lack of a universal definition. Many formulas have been offered,
but
on
close
scrutiny
a
clear
and
tangible
notion is
not
yet
available.
If
we
look
at
scholarly
definitions of
'metatheatre' and metafic
tion
in
both
modern
and
ancient
literature,
what
is
striking
is their
vagueness
and
appeal
to
general
functions
and
effects
as
if
they
did
not
need
to
be
argued
for.
The
concept
has become
more
and
more
elusive
over
the
past
forty
years.
Abel
defined
metatheatrical
plays
as
?th??tre
pieces
about life
seen as
already
theatricalized...
[whose
characters]
themselves
knew
they
were
dramatic
before
the playwright took note of them?. These characters ?are aware
of
their
own
theatricality
?
and
?the
playwright
has
the
obligation
to
acknowledge
in
the
very
structure
of this
play
that
it
was
his
imagination
which
controlled the
event
from
beginning
to
end?.1
For
James
Calderwood,
?metatheatre?
is
?a
kind of
anti-form
in
which
boundaries
between
the
play
as a
work of
self-contained
art
and
life
are
dissolved?.2
Turning
to
the
field of
classical stud
ies,
Marino
Barchiesi,
in
a
pioneering
application
of
metatheatrical
interpretations
to
Roman
theatre
(especially
Plautus),
qualifies
it
thus:
?the
epic
"I"
has
penetrated progressively
into the
drama,
and
expressing
itself
in
the
self-awareness of
the
actor-persona,
in
the
intermingling
of
more
levels of
reality
and
in
the
tendency,
now
[in
our
modern
time]
predominant,
of
the
theatre
to
repre
sent
itself?.3 For
Bruno
Gentili,
?metatheatrical?
is
a
play
that
is
?constructed from
previously
existing
plays?.4
Moving
to
narra
tive
literature
more
broadly,
for
Patricia
Waugh
the
?metafictional
novel tends
to
be
constructed
on
the
principle
of
a
fundamental
and
sustained
opposition:
the construction
of
a
fictional
illusion
(as
in
traditional
realism)
and
the
laying
bare
of
that
illusion
...
itbreaks down the distinction between "creation" and "criticism"
and
merges
them
into
the
concepts
of
"interpretation"
and
"de
construction"?.5 For
Richard
Hornby,
?metatheatre?
is
?whenever
the
subject
of
a
play
turns
out
to
be,
in
some
sense,
drama
itself?.6
In
Niall
Slater's
words,
it
is
?
theatrically
self-conscious
theatre,
the
atre
which
is
aware
of
its
own
nature
as
a
medium
and
capable
of
exploiting
its
own
conventions
and
devices for comic
and
occasion
ally
pathetic
effect?.7
For
Jean-Pierre
Maquerlot
?"metatheatre"
1
Abel
1963,
pp.
60-61.
2
Calderwood
1971, pp.
4, 5,11,12.
Barchiesi
1970,
p.
116
(my translation).
4
Gentili
1979, p. 15.
Waugh
1984,
p.
6.
6
Hornby
iq86.
d. 17.
7
Slater
1990,
p.
103.
This content downloaded from 186.62.33.73 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:40:16 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 4/51
On ancient and modern
(meta)theatres
11
will designate all forms of playing within the performance-text that
calls
attention
to
the dramatic and theatrical codes
subsuming
the
stage
repr?sentation?'.1
Anton
Bierl
understands
metatragedy
as
a
species
of ?metatheatre
...
the
totality
of mechanisms
whereby
the
poet
reveals that
he
is
aware
of himself
as
the
creator
of
drama
and
whereby
the theatre refers
to
itself?.2Mark
Ringer
argues
that
?"metatheatre" and "metadrama"
mean
drama
within
drama
as
well
as
drama
about drama....
it
encompasses
all forms of
theatri
cal
self-referentiality?.3
Gregory
Dobrov,
who
largely
examines
a
number of ?figures of play? inGreek tragedy, calls it ?that process
whereby
a
representation
doubles back
on
itself,
where
a
narrative
or
performance
recognises,
engages,
or
exploits
its
own
fictionali
ty?.4 Finally,
Rosenmeyer's
summary:
?the
play
recognizes
its
own
status
as
fiction
and
performs
a
hermeneutics of itself?.5
We
seem
to
be still far from the 'considerable
flexibility
and
...
healthy,
mutual
intelligibility
with
respect
to
terminology
and
definitions' that
Ringer
optimistically
applauds.6
What
we
have
is,
rather,
a
community
of
indefiniteness,
in
which
very
diverse
phe
nomena are
put together (self-referentiality, intertextuality
decon
struction...)
and
no
advance
towards
clarity
or a
fixed
canon
has
been reached
in
forty
years.
The
reasons
for this
are
not
contingent.
.
2.
Audience
and
spectacle:
dualism and
liminality
First,
in
the definitions
quoted,
a
dualism
between
'art'
and
life',
'fiction' and
'reality',
and
so
forth
is
established.
It
is
suggested
that
'metatheatre'
is
not
simply
a
literal
reference,
in
a
play,
to
the
the
atrical
medium,
but
a
feature that
engages
more
deeply
with the
boundaries between what is perceived
as
'art' and 'reality', 'fabri
cation'
and
'natural',
undermining
and
challenging
these bound
aries,
exploiting
their
ambivalence
or
inviting
closer
engagement
with them.
This
instantiation of
fiction
versus
reality,
however,
on
which
'metatheatre'
(thus
defined)
is
played
is
far from
straightfor
ward when
considering
literature,
but
especially
it is
not
for
the
atre.7
1
Maquerlot
1990,
p.
42.
2
Bierl
1991,
p.
116
(transi,
by
T.
Marier).
3
Ringer
1998,
p.
7.
4
Dobrov
2001,
p.
9.
5
Rosenmeyer
2002,
p.
97.
6
Ringer
1998,
p.
9.
7
These difficulties
are
evident
in
a sense of unease
with
the
concept
of 'illusion'
which
emerged early
in
scholarship,
but did
not
show itself
capable
of
eliminating
the
concept
from
the
picture
:
ifakis
1971
claims
that
?illusion
as a
psychological
phenom
enon
was
entirely
alien
to
the Greeks
?
while
?even
after
Brecht's
revolution
against
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 5/51
12
Chiara
Thumiger
The theatrical experience, in fact, isby definition a fluid, liminal
one,
where
the
boundaries between
what
one
might
wish
to
define
as
'real'
vs
'fictitious',
public
vs
stage,
actors
vs
characters
are
shift
ing
and
continuously
re-negotiated
in
the
open
field
of the
interac
tion
between
audience and
spectacle.1
The
relationship
between
audience and
spectacle,
a
relationship
of
alternating
distance and
identification,
and of
varying expectation,
changes
with
every
in
stance.
The
process
of
engagement
with
the boundaries
between
'art' and
'reality'
is
sensitive
to
changes
in
any
of
these,
so
that
it
is impossible to conceive of a universal, fixed 'metatheatre' in the
traditional
drama
-
to
say
nothing
of the theatre of
the
absurd,
and others
-
the
theatre of
illusion
...
is
still
very
much
alive?
(p.
7),
and
?it is
wrong
...
to
speak
of
interruption
or
disruption
of illusion
and
thus
imply
that illusion
is
the normal
state
of affairs
?
with reference
to
Old
Comedy;
?any
conventional
type
of
drama?
(like
ancient
drama)
?is
anti-illusionistic?
(p.
11).
Muecke
1977
shows the
same awareness
as
he
adopts
the
term
?
dramatic illusion?
but
?for the
sake
of
convenience
?,
however
recognising
crucially
that
?the
contrasting
of different fictions
as
a
technique
of
com
edy
derives
...
more
from
the double
nature
of the theatre
itself,
than
from
a
special
historical
relationship
between the
performers
of
old
comedy
and
their audience?.
Ta
plin
1986
points
out
that
?
"illusion"
is
a
badly ambiguous
term
to
use
of
a
highly
non
naturalistic th??tre?
(p.
164).
Bain
1987
speaks
?unrepentantly
of the dramatic illusion
on
the
assumption
that
...
the reader
will
understand what
Im
saying? (p.
1),
distin
guishing
?
theatricality
?
(found
in
tragedy)
from
?breach of
the illusion?
(not
found)
(p.
14).
Lada-Richards
(1997,
p.
79)
affirms
instead that ?the mode of
the
tragic
genre
(as
opposed
to
comedy)
...
consistently
maintains
the
illusion
of
its
own
fiction
and,
consequently,
demands
from
its
performer
to
become absorbed
into
the
being
imper
sonated?.
Marshall
(2000,
p.
330)
claims
that
?any
discussion
of illusion
or
Coleridge's
"willing
suspension
of disbelief"
is
inappropriate
and
necessarily inadequate
for the
fifth-century
tragic
stage?
-
though
he
retains
the
concept
as
a
working
term.
Slater
2002
clearly
exposes
that
?illusion
itself
is
an
artifice?,
and
?when
we
speak
of "break
ing
the illusion"
we
imply
that the
contract
[between
performers
and
audience]
is
somehow violated
...
it
would
be
better
to
speak
of
a
renegotiation
of the
contract?.
1
There is
a
psychological
reason
for
this
provisionality
of boundaries when
it
comes
to
theatre,
a reason
that
has
to
do with the
representation
of
humanity
that
theatre
offers
as
constructed
by
the
interaction
with the
audience,
rather
than
pre
existing
the
performance.
Fisher-Lichte
2002
offers
a
fitting
account
of
the
history
of
European
theatre
as
activity
that
by
definition
challenges
identities
and
representa
tions
(pp.
4-5),
establishing
a
?dialectical
relationship
...
between theatre and the
so
cial
reality
of the
theatregoers
?
...
?a
permanent
dynamisation?
in
the
way
the
social
reality
of
the
audience
is
incorporated
or
discussed
in
the
theatrical
representation (p.
5).
Once
we
accept
theatre
performance
as
?concerned
with
staging
identity
?
(p.
4),
and
account
for
the
fluid
and
liminal
quality
of
?
identity
?
as
constructed
in
the
space
between
audience
and
spectacle
/actors,
it
becomes
apparent
that
to
define
sharply
?
reality
?
vs
?illusion?
in
the
context
of theatre is difficult. Cf. Ruffini 1981, p.
10:
?per
haps
the
moment
has
come,
to
give
in
to
the
fact
that
the
history
of theatre
is
not
the
history
of
a
category
through
which
we
select the
objects
of
our
inquiry,
but
a
history
of
objects
which,
once
incorporated
into
our
inquiry,
redefine
progressively
a
category
which
becomes,
after
all,
perfunctory [my
translation]?.
This content downloaded from 186.62.33.73 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:40:16 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 6/51
On ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
13
way we conceive of a universal, fixed category for, say, 'recognition
scenes',
'messenger
speeches',
and
so on.
Thus,
the theatrical
experience
appears
from
the
start to
be
an
open
field
of
intersections
between
the
two
poles
of
audience
and
spectacle,
rather than
a
well-defined,
self-enclosed
product,
and
is
therefore
inherently
'metatheatrical'.
With
reference
to
literature
more
widely,
modern
scholarship
is
increasingly
sensitive
to
this
point.
From
Jauss'
Re?eptions?sthetik
to
contemporary
'reception
studies' there
is
a
tendency
to
deny
literary
texts
the
status
of
a
determined, univocal item independent of 'the receiver'.1 Such
theoretical
objections
to
a
critical determinism
in
defining
'text'
are
especially
urgent
for
theatrical literature
-
one
could
argue,
in
fact,
that
it is
a
'theatrical' model of
engagement
with narrative
and
poetry
which
is
at
work
in
reception
theories,
a
model
which
has
provided
reception
studies
with
many
instruments and
analo
gies:
the
very
idea of
the
'plurality'
of
the
response
to
a
text
is
implicitly
a
theatrical one.2
Secondly,
elements of 'self-awareness' and
'self-referentiality',
recurrent
in
discussions of 'metatheatre' and
in
the formulas
I
have
quoted,
are
also
problematic.
Self-awareness and
self-referentiality
presuppose
an
objective
notion
of
'self,
both
applied
to
people
(if
we are
talking
about the
actors)
and
to
what
we
might
call 'institu
tions'
(such
as
'the
theatre',
a
genre,
a
festival,
the
activity
of
play
writing,
and
so
on).
Also,
they
presuppose
an
agreement
on
what
'awareness' entails:
the
postulate
that the reader
or
on-looker,
or
indeed themodern
critic,
can
detect and evaluate
rigourously
mo
ments
of 'awareness'
in
the author of
an
(ancient)
work,
or
that
the
awareness
of
a
dramatic character should
exist
per
se as
an
item
to be
analysed.3
Most to the
point,
they
look at theatre as the sum
1
Cf. Martindale
2006,
p.
3
for the reference
to
Jauss'
1967
lecture.
2
Cf.
Batstone
2006,
p.
17
on
the
'point
of
reception'
where
the
reading
of
a
text
takes
place:
?in
the theatre
of
plurality
we
find the fiction of
identity
?.
3
Moreover,
even
if
agreement
on
these
two,
'self
and
'awareness',
were
reached
we
would
be
leftwith the
impasse
of
the irreducible
'ontological'
self-referentiality
of
all
products,
including
works
of
art.
As
Maquerlot
appropriately
explains
(1990,
p.
41):
?
hether
its
metatheatrical
statement
is
articulate
or
not,
barely
audible
or
excep
tionally
eloquent,
every
work of
art
is,
up
to
a
point,
self-reflexive
or
self-focusing
in
that
it
calls
attention, quite apart
from
its
"message",
to
its
physical
existence
or
phe
nomenal
being
...
take the
most
decidedly
unshakespearean,
unbrechtian,
unpiran
dellian,
unbeckettian,
Broadway
or
Boulevard
comedy
arid
listen
carefully
to
what
it
does
not
say
but
all the time
speaks
of
and
you
will
hear
a
metadramatic
whisper
that
I
can
amplify
for
you:
"here
I
am,
rather
poor
stuff,
I
admit;
a
cheap
but
quite
efficient
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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14
Chiara
Thumiger
of individual
subjectivities
-
overlooking
the fact thatwhat makes
theatre
unique
is
its
diffuse
nature
as
interaction
between
two
'communities',
the
public
and the
actors
onstage.
The
weight
of
these
objections
becomes
most
apparent
in
the
complexities
of
dramatic
characterisation,
as
Rosenmeyer
explains
addressing
tragic irony:
?in
drama,
the
actor-character
addresses
the
audience,
sometimes
over
the heads of
his
fellow
characters,
sometimes
through
them. And from the
very
beginning
the bound
ary
between what
is
an
actor
and what
is
a
character
is
not
entirely
clear?.1 Among the shifting exchange of these individual subjec
tivities,
those of the
actors
and those
of
the
public,
and
within the
awareness
of
conventions
they
share,
the borders
of
'self,
'reality',
'fiction'
are
continuously
moving.
Ortega,
in
his Idea del
Teatro,
summarised
the
complex
item
formed
by
audience and
actors
as
a
combinaci?n de
hiperactivos
y
hiperpasivos,
?a
combination
of
hyper
active
[the
actors]
and
hyper-passive?
individuals
(the
spectators).2
This is
a
felicitous
formula,
provided
that
we
take
passivity
not
in
the
reductive
sense
of inert
receiving,
but
as
intentional
availability
to
respond
to
a
code that isunderstood
as
different from and
more
'intense'
than the
every-day
one.
Intensification
to
the
point
of
im
plausibility
appears,
in
fact,
to
be
specific
to
theatrical characters:
?when
we
speak
of
theatricality,
we
include
a
tendency
on
the
part
of the
dramatic
hero
...
to
engage
in
self-dramatization,
often
at
the
point
where
his
weakness
or
the
misfortune that holds
him
captive
is
most
apparent...
[the]
disproportion
between
rhetorical
energy
and
personal disintegration
is
a source
of
powerful
irony,
which
is,
by
and
large,
unavailable
to
the
writer of
narrative
...
because
the
novel
lacks
the
ability
to
trace
a
character's
progress
of
decline
by
the
gauge
of
shaped,
public
speech?.3
In
this
environ
ment,
in
which
a
set
of
new
and
different
rules
apply,
an
every-day
term
such
as
'self-awareness'
appears
ultimately meaningless.4
provider
of illusion. Das
Verfremdungseffekt
is
not
my
forte,
but still
you
will find
me
very
metadramatic
in
my
own
way
and
very
metatheatrical
too
because
I
am
so
obvi
ously representative
of
the codes
of
twentieth-century
bourgeois
comedy?.
1
Rosenmeyer
1996,
p.
500.
2
Ortega
1946, p.
36.
3
Rosenmeyer
1996,
p.
500.
4
The
paradoxical
status
enjoyed
by
the actorial
self,
sketched
out
by
Rosenmeyer,
exposes the distinction between the two twentieth-century approaches to acting, the
Brechtian
(dissociation,
as
much
as
possible,
of
the
actor
from the dramatis
persona)
and
the
Stanislavskian
('adjustment'
and
'reincarnation',
fusion with
the
new
iden
tity)
as
fictional and
provisional
(that
is,
didactic and
valid insofar
as
it remains
a
pragmatic
indication for
theatre
practitioners).
Both
estrangement
and identification
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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On ancient
and
modern
(meta)theatres
15
The difficulties we have mentioned are inherent in a qualifica
tion of 'metatheatre'
as
a
universal
term
rather than
a
shortcom
ing
of
the definitions
we
have
seen.
Greater
precision
could
not
be
achieved without
testing
the
universality
of
the
concept
against
the
particularity
of each
instance
in its
performed reception.
Un
less the
concept
of 'metatheatre'
is
to
be
dismissed
altogether,
to
argue
for
its
working validity
we
should
approach
it
as a
system
of
effects
as
varied
and
elusive
as
theatre
itself,
with effects
potentially
very
different and
intertwined with the
dynamics
of
the audience
spectacle exchange.
We
mentioned
liminality
and
fluidity
as
constitutive
of such
ex
change
and of the theatrical
experience
overall.
To
clarify
this
point
it is
useful
here
to
recall Goffman's work
on
the ?frames? that
we
use
to
understand
reality
and
to
organise
experience.1
Goffman
challenges
a
radical
conceptualisation
of
the 'theatrical'
versus
the
'real',
explaining
that
human
experience
is
organised along
a
rath
are,
in
fact,
two
psychological
constructions,
two
strategies,
not
facts,
just
as
the
op
position
between
?cognitive?
(Brechtian?)
and
?emotional-empathic?
(Stanislavski
an?)
engagement
with the dramatis
persona
are. On this
point,
Marshall 2000 is
very
helpful:
?the
supposed
polarity
that
separates
what
is
theatrical
[here:
'Brechtian
]
from what
is
dramatic
[here
:
'Stanislavskian
]
assumes
that
an
audience's intellectual
appreciation
of
an
actor's
craft
is
incommensurate
with
an
emotional
appreciation
of
the character's situation. On
the
contrary
...
both levels of
awareness are
maintained
simultaneously))
(see
also
p.
329).
In
a
very
instructive
piece
(however
not
always
per
suasive)
Lada-Richards
applies
the
opposition
between Brecht's
and
Stanislavsky's
theories
to
ancient
theatre,
testing
its
validity
as
marker for
comedy
vs
tragedy,
the
genre
?
which tells the
spectator
he's
in
a
th??tre?
(p.
72,
quoting
Brecht)
and that of
identification and fusion.
Lada-Richards
is
very
cautious in
presenting
the
analogy
as
a
working
instrument
rather than
a
perfect
formula,
and
introduces several
complexi
ties
to
it;
the
schema
appears
however
to
lie
on
an
over-simplifying postulate
about
the actor's
self,
as evident in the treatment of
Sophocles'
Philoctetes : ?in line 120 the
actor's self indeed
agrees
to
yield
its
consent
to
adopt
a
different
persona?
(p.
80);
?the
actor
[playing
Neoptolemus]
was
required
to
remodel
thoroughly
himself
as
to meet
Odysseus'
standards;
in
fact,
he
was
required,
in
a
Stanislavskian
way,
to
see
the world
through
the
eyes
of his character?
(p.
83),
but
?Neoptolemus' attempted
fusion of
persona
/personality
remained
superficial?
(84);
?Neoptolemus,
the
inter
nalized
actor,
ruined his
"secondary"
impersonation
through
his failure
to
achieve
...
a
Stanislavskian
"complete
conversion"
...
he
ultimately
indulged
in
a
Brechtian
impersonation)) (p.
84).
It is
rather the
case
that
this
oscillation between
cognitive
and
emotional
response,
distance and
identification,
actor
and
persona
is
always
there
in
theatrical
experiences,
and
is
not
specific
to
one
genre
or
approach.
1
Goffman
1986.
See
Easterling's
1990
use
of
it
in
her
treatment
of character
in
tragedy
(pp.
84-88).
See
Goldhill
1999,
esp. pp.
12-17
for
a
re-elaboration
of
various
approaches
to
'gaze'
and
optics
towards what
one
may
call
a
'sociology
of
viewing'
mindful of
ancient
theatre
as
civic
and social
moment,
and
drawing
on
the work of
Bakthin
as
well
as
anthropologists
like
van
Gennep
and
Turner.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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i6
Chiara
Thumiger
ermore
complex
combination of levels,
including
dreams,
games,
and
performances
of
various
kinds.
All
these
imply
different
types
of
'framing.
His
proposed starting point
is
the
question
?under
which
circumstances
do
we
think
things
are
real??.
We
have
at
our
disposal,
he
argues,
a
number of
?subworlds? which
have ?each
its
own
special
and
separate
style
of existence?:1
theatrical
per
formances
are
examples
of such
subworlds,
with
varying
degrees.
Within
this
category
Goffman
establishes
a
distinction
in
terms
of
?purity?,
namely
?the exclusiveness
of
the
claim of the watchers
on the activity theywatch?.2 That is, at the 'pure' end of the spec
trum we
find
dramatic
Scriptings
(where
the absence
of
an
audi
ence
means
that
there
is
no
performance).
At
the
other
end,
the
least
'pure',
we
find work
performances
(like
at
construction
sites)
or
rehearsals,
which
are
brought
into
effect
whether
an
audience
is
there
to
see
them
or
not.
In
between these
two,
we
find
a
variety
of
intermediate
phenomena,
such
as
contests
or
matches,
ceremo
nies
(weddings
and
funerals),
public
speeches,
and
lectures.
Differ
ent
degrees
of
'purity',
of
'autonomous
existence'
of
the
spectacle
from
the
spectators engender
different
sets
of emotional
responses
from
the
audience and of
cooperation
between audience
and
ac
tors.
?Th??tre
audience?,
Goffman
continues,
is
also
complex,
as
it
combines
two
identities: the
theatre-goer
(the
individual
citi
zen),
and the
on-looker,
(the
accomplice
to
the
theatrical
mode,
who
chooses
to
adopt
and
endorse
a
'syntax
of
response'
which
is
proper
to
theatre).3
These
two
identities
coexist
in
the
audience,
with
varying
proportions,
and
are
qualified
on
the basis of their
participation
to
One
world',
or
'the
other',
or
indeed
to
both
with
different
modalities.4
The
following
questions
arise:
how does
engagement
between
audience
and
spectacle vary?
How
does
the balance between
on
looker
and
theatre-goer vary?
Ancient
theatre,
arguably,
is
'purer'
(in
Goffman's
sense)
than
Western
twentieth-century
theatre
in its
1
James
1950,
pp.
283-324,
quoted by
Goffman
1986,
p.
2.
2
Goffman
1986,
pp.
125-127.
3
Ibidem,
pp.
129-130.
4
Ortega
(1946,
p. 49)
explored
these substantial
dualidades ?de
espacio? (stage
and
seats);
?de
personas?
(actors
and
public)
(p.
49);
ultimately,
the
one
between
what
we
may
call
the
tenor
and the
vehicle
of
the
metaphor
of
reality
theatre offers
:
these
are
both forms of ?ser?, of ?being?: the drama and the 'world outside', the rose and
the
girl's
cheek
in
the
metaphor
?a
girl's
cheek
is
a rose?
(p.
43)
are
two
equally
real
dimensions,
which
depend
on one
another
and
are
both
necessary
for
the final
com
bination
to
exist,
just
as
stage
and
seats,
actors
and
public
are
necessary
to
each other
for
the
theatrical
experience
to
exist.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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On ancient
and
modern
(meta)theatres
17
closer engagement between audience and spectacle, in its integra
tion
of
on-lookers
and
theatre-goers,
of
context
(the
dramatic fes
tival)
and fictional
events
(the
actual drama
presented).
How
does
this
affect
our
understanding
of 'metatheatre'
there,
and
in
later
literature?
A
way
of
experiencing
theatre
and
'metatheatre'
is
dependent
on
what
status
is
held
by
'theatre'
as
institution
and
practice.
A
'metatheatricar effect
is
achieved within
the
complex
exchange
be
tween
audience and
spectacle
-
it is
felt
against,
or
interacts
with
the expectation(s) in terms of ?frame(s)? (as inGoffman) and con
ventions
to
which
the
audience,
or
reader,
must
be
accustomed.1
This
expectation
is,
first,
an
historical
fact;
second,
a
fact
related
to
genre;
third,
a
fact determined
by
the
specifics
of
each audience
and of each
performance
as
unrepeatable
event.2
That
is,
'meta
theatre' has
to
be
located
in
the
open
field of reactions
and
ex
changes
between audience and
spectacle,
but
it
also has
to
be
con
textualised:
historicised
(our
first
item)
as
well
as
located within
the
parameters
of the
genre
(our
second
item)
just
as
any
other
?defamiliarizing
device?.3 The
third
point,
the
unique reception
of the
single performance,
irremediably
eludes
our
grasp;
we
shall
therefore
concentrate
our
efforts
on
the first
two.
1
As
the
name
itself, fmetatheatre\
reveals:
since
the
interpretation
given
to
the
title
of the
Aristotelian
writings
a
e
a
a
a
(understood
as
?the
writings
be
yond
the
topic
treated
in
the
Physics?,
while
it
possibly simply
indicated
the work's
place
in
the
canonical
arrangement
of the
philosopher's writing,
?after
the
Physics?),
in
fact,
in
compound
names
the
'meta' indicates
a
reaching beyond,
and
subsequently
a
switching
back
and
forth,
a
blurring
of the
boundaries of what the
object
(in
our
case
'theatre')
entails.
2
Even
Dobrov,
who
argues
for
?metatheatre?
as a
substantial component of
an
cient
drama
and
sets
for
himself
a
?descriptive
phenomenological?
agenda
(p.
9),
has
to
diagnose
that
an
evolution
to
allow the
genre
to
?
react to
itself
?
was
needed
for
'metatheatrical'
aspects
to
develop,
explaining
thus the fact
that
?
Euripides'
later
plays
are
perceptibly
richer
in
self-conscious detail
than
the earlier
surviving
plays
of
Aeschylus
?
(p.
11).
This idea
of
an
evolution
from
one
?state
of fiction?
to
the
other
contradicts Dobrov's
prolegomenon
(pp.
8-9),
the
idea that
the
metafictional
should be
somewhat
constitutionally
part
of
the Athenian
drama
as
?multiple negotiation
?,
in
termingled
with the
dynamics
of
the first
democracy.
?Metatheatre?
cannot
be both
a
later
product
in
the evolution
of
a
genre,
and
a
component
of its
primary
physis.
This
ambiguity
is
due,
again,
to
the
problems
inherent
to
a
notion
of
'metatheatre'
as
fixed
item.
3
For
'metatheatre'
as
a
defamiliarising
and
estranging
device
see
Jestrovic
2002,
2006.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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18
Chiara
Thumiger
.
3.
Reconstructing
the
context:
history
Such
need for
context
has
not
always
been
perceived.
This
has
happened
regardless
of whether metatheatrical
readings
were
supported
or
contested;
most
have dealt with
the
topic
sur
prisingly
assuming
its
absoluteness.
Sometimes,
in
a
dogmatic
fashion,
'metatheatre' has been
seen as
construction
and
anach
ronistic
by
critics
if
applied
to
tragedy,
without
exploring why
and
risking
a
simplistic
dismissal
of the
concept
as a
'late
and
devious "anti-form"
imposed
on
something
more
primitive
and
pure
...
a
sign
of
decadent,
self
indulgent complexity'
imposed
onto
?the
innocent
child of
the
European
canon
[i.e.
Greek
the
atre]?.1
In
discussions
on
'metatheatre' the
relationship
between
audi
ence
and
spectacle,
or
the
notion of fiction
as
culturally
deter
mined have
not
been
prominent.
Abel's seminal work
did under
line
a
link
between
'metatheatre' and
a
cultural
milieu,
a
historical
moment
characterised
by
a
weak and relativist
view
of
reality.2
However, his claims rested upon an
opposition
between 'metathe
atre'
and
tragedy
'proper'
which
subsumes
a
dogmatic,
rigid,
'post
Nietzschean' ideal of the
ancient
genre
as
a
monolithic
category
of the
spirit,
under which
much of
Euripides'
work would
hardly
fall.3
Conversely,
a
stereotypical
image
of
an
'anti-tragic'
modern
world
was
implied:
Abel
argued
that
?one
cannot
create
tragedy
without
accepting
some
implacable
values
as
true.
Now
the
West
ern
imagination
has,
on
the
whole,
been liberal and
sceptical;
it
1
As in
Dobrov's defence
of ?metatheatre?
(2001,
pp.
10-11).
2
See
Abel
1963,
esp. pp.
40-58
(?Hamlet,
Q.E.D.?)
on
why
?it
was
quite
impos
sible
in
the
age
of
Elizabeth
for
any
dramatist,
including
Shakespeare,
to
make
true
tragedy
of Hamlet's
story?
(p.
41).
Abel
emphasises
the
role of 'Christian
sensibility'
to
determine this
impossibility
(p.
43).
Likewise
Barchiesi
1970,
p.
119:
?I
believe
that
nowadays'
metatheatrical obsession
is
mainly
to
be connected
with
our
painful
in
ability
to
unify
"reality" according
to
a
synthetic principie?
(my
translation).
3
Cf.
Bain's
comments
(1987,
p.
8).
See Abel's
closing
summary
(1963,
p.
113)
on
the
?values
and disvalues of
tragedy
and
'metatheatre'?,
where
tragedy
is
summed
up
as
that
which
?
gives
by
far
the
stronger
sense
of
the
reality
of
the world
...
glorifies
the
structure
of
the world
...
makes human
existence
more
vivid
by
showing
its vulner
ability to fate
...
tries tomediate between world and man
...
cannot operate without
the
assumption
of
an
ultimate order
?.
In
short,
?
there
is
no
such
thing
as
humanistic
tragedy
?.
More
cautiously
Buxton
(1996,
p.
42)
suggests
that
?a
feature of
many
plays
called
"tragedies"
is
the
sense
they
convey
of the
presence
of
a
metaphysical
struc
ture
informing
and
conferring
significance
on
events
?.
This content downloaded from 186.62.33.73 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:40:16 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 12/51
On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
19
has tended to regard all implacable values as false?. As Susan Son
tag
reminds
us,
however,
there
is
more
articulation and
complexity
within the ?modern
world?,1
which
cannot
be
easily categorised
as
altogether
sceptical
and
relativist,
as
if
its
Christian tradition
and
the
weight
of
twentieth-century
totalitarian
ideologies
bore
no
im
portance.
Likewise,
there
is
more
articulation
to
ancient
tragedy,
and
to
'metatheatre' itself.2
Despite
these
warnings,
in
metatheatrical
interpretations
the
tendency
to
flatten
diversity
and
reify
'theatre'
and
'metatheatre'
has
persisted,
and the
assumption
that
all
aspects
of metafiction
should
be
equated
with
a
post-modern
phenomenon
(or
be
ac
companied by
the cultural
implications
of
post-modernity)
still
looms
large.3
The
reference
to
a
view of
art
and
a
Weltanschauung
1
See
discussion
in
Sontag
(1966,
pp.
135-136,138):
?that
life
is
a
dream,
all the
meta
plays
presuppose.
But
there
are
restful
dreams,
troubled
dreams,
and
nightmares.
The
modern
dream
-
which the modern
metaplays
projects
-
is
a
nightmare,
a
nightmare
of
repetition,
stalled
action,
exhausted
feeling.
There
are
discontinuities between the
modern
nightmare
and
the
Renaissance
dream which Abel
...
neglects,
at
the
price
of
misreading
the
text?.
2
Waugh
questioned
this line
by arguing
formetafiction more
generally
as
linked
indeed
to
an
age
of
relativism
and
scepticism
-
a
?c?l?bration
of the
power
of
the
creative
imagination together
with
an
uncertainty
about the
validity
of
its
represen
tations
...
a
pervasive insecurity
about
the
relationship
of fiction
to
reality
?
(Waugh
1984,
p.
2)
-
but
as
literary
engagement.
Against
readings
of
'metatheatre'
as
essentially
ludic and
'escapist',
she
suggests
that
?[metafictional
works]
are
...
extremely
respon
sible both
in
socio-cultural
terms
and
in
terms
of the
development
of
the
novel itself
?.
Hutcheon
(1989,
p.
61)
similarly
argues
for
?a
critical
return
to
history
and
politics
through
-
not
despite
-
metafictional self-consciousness and
parodie
intertextuality?.
This
interpretation
links metafiction
to
a
certain
intellectual
milieu,
but
redeeming
it
from accusations
of
solidarity
with the
?age
of
relativism
?
in
which
we
live
(Waugh
1984,
p. 78).
In
fact,
that 'metatheatre'
could
be
engaged
was
readily apparent
since
Brecht's
use
of antinaturalistic features
for
a
didactic
purpose,
a
type
of
'metatheatre'
obviously
very
far from the relativism
and
mistrust
in
fixed values
of
Pirandellian and
Absurdist theatre.
Likewise,
in
cultures other than
the
Western
a
different 'metathe
atre'
is
possible:
in
African
theatre,
as
explored
by
Crow
2002,
?metatheatre?
is
less
?
existential
in its
central
thrust
[than
inWestern
drama]
-
less centred
on
the
self and
the
"problem"
of
its
identity
and
individual
capacity
for
fulfilment
and realization
?
(p.
2).
Rehm
(2002,
p.
23)
offers
a
similar distinction
with
reference
to
ancient
'meta
theatre':
?in
my
view
the
metatheatrical
aspect
in
Greek
tragedy
does
not
operate
primarily
on
an
aesthetic
level
(delight
in
the theatrical
play
for
its
own
sake)
nor
does
it
signal
a
"crisis
of
representation",
where the
drama
refers
to
its
own
(and
other)
performances
and little
else?.
3
See
representatively
Segal
1997,
pp.
272-338,
?The
crisis of
Symbols?.
Zeitlin
1980,
p.
57,
on
Euripides'
Orestes as
?ironie,
decadent, 'modern', even
'post-modern
?
by
virtue of the
?
self-conscious
awareness
of
a
tradition
which
has reached the end
of
its
organic
development...
both
[...]
emancipation
from
tradition
and
[...]
disinheri
tance
and loss?.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 13/51
20
Chiara
Thumiger
characterised by crisis or scepticism is also scattered throughout
theworks of those critics
who
recognise
some
degree
of 'metathe
atre'
in
ancient
texts,
generally
coupling
crisis
and relativism with
meta-forms.
I
propose
to
focus
our
attention
on
ancient views
on
art to
argue
for
or
against
the
applicability
of 'metatheatre'
to
ancient
theatre.
The
very
concepts
of
'art'
and 'fiction' have
changed
in
the
history
of
Western
culture.1
Fiction
as
?untruth?,
or as
?artificial
cr?ation?
originally
meant
?for the
purpose
of
d?ception?2
reflects
broadly
themodern production and fruition of fiction as an alternative to,
if
not
escape
from
reality,
characterised
by
a
sharp
separation
be
tween
work and
audience,
theatre-goer
and on-looker.
Since the
concept
of 'metatheatre'
is
meaningful only
in
relation
to
other
objects
(art,
reality)
it
has
to
be defined
in
contrast to
the
notion
of
theatre
proper
to
that
point
in
history.
We
should
ask, therefore,
what
these 'notions of theatre'
are
and what this
'vision
of
reality'
is
for Greek drama.
The
separateness
between audience and
spectacle,
on-looker
and
theatre-goer
of the
type
modern audiences
may experience
in
the dark of
a
cinema
watching
a
thriller,
akin
to
the
'impurity'
of
performance
proposed by
Goffman,
had
not
been
among
the
expectations
of
the Athenian theatrical audience for
comedy,
nor
for
tragedy.3
The
distinction between fictional
account,
artistic
ere
1
Barchiesi
(1970,
pp.
115-116)
explored
(with
some
simplification)
the
?birth
of
modern th??tre? and
the evolution that led
to
what
he
called the
?pr?sent
crisis?
starting
from
Hegel's
Aesthetics:
?the
man
of
the Renaissance has
based
theatre,
for
the
first
time,
exclusively
on
human
relationships
(zwischenmenschlich),
expressed
by
dialogues.
A
fundamental
aspect
of the
drama
is
now
its
being
assoluto
e
p?ma?o,
in
as
much
as
it
does
not
recognize
anything
outside
itself,
and
nothing
can
intrude
into
it:
not
the
'epic
of
the
playwright,
absent from the
text... not
the
actor,
or
the
character,
fused
as
they
are
in
an
autonomous
theatrical
entity...;
not
the
public
...
who
witness,
almost
paralysed,
the
spectacle
of
a
'second
world'
in
order
to
forget
themselves
in
it
entirely
...
this
pattern
can
be
considered
valid
from
the
Renaissance
until the
end
of
the
nineteenth
Century?
(my
translation).
2
I
am
quoting
here from the
entry
fiction
in
the
Oxford English Dictionary.
3
Artaud
1938
spelt
out
this
modern
tendency
to
see
theatre
as
?entertainment,
that
aspect
of
useless
artificiality,
an
evening's
amusement
so
typical
of
our own
th??tre?
(p.
42),
hitting
the
mark,
with
characteristic
emphasis,
of
modern
art more
widely:
?[they
have
instilled]
a
concept
of
art
for art's
sake
in
us,
art
on
the
one
hand
and life
on
the
other,
...[a]
lazy,
ineffective
idea... This
concept
of
unworldly
art,
charm
poetry
existing
solely
to
charm
away
the
hours
is
a
decadent
notion,
an un
mistakable
symptom
of
the
emasculatory
force
within
us?
(p.
58).
In
the
same
years
the
American
playwright
Wilder
denounces
the
same
frustration
in
the
preface
to
his
metatheatrical
play
Out
Town
(1937):
?I
began
to
feel
that the
theatre
was
not
only
This content downloaded from 186.62.33.73 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:40:16 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 14/51
On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
21
ation and reality, in fact a crucial philosophical division, cannot be
taken for
granted
in
the
same
terms
for
the
ancient
Greeks
as
it is
for
us.
This is
confirmed further
by
the fact that the
birth of
ancient
poetic
theory
-
which considers
poetry
as an
autonomous
object
of
investigation
-
is
located
late
in
the
development
of Greek
liter
ature.
1
One
might
profitably
invoke,
and
compare,
the collision of
what
were
called,
in
broad
terms,
a
'poetic
of truth' and
a
'poetic
of
fiction'
within the
ancient view
of
art.2
These
correspond
to
a
vi
sion
of the
poet's
role
as
asserting
external
'inspiration',
and
to
the
modern vision of the poet holding himself entirely responsible for
his work.3 The first characterises the
pre-Aristotelian conception
of
art
as
mimetic
truth,
with
no
independent
life
or
aim
(Plato's
fierce
criticism of
poetry
is
to
be
read
on
these
assumptions).4
The
second
is
a
'new
poetic
of
fiction',
which
arises
as
an
alternative 'at
some
point
in
the
fifth
century
bc
?.5 The
poetic
of
truth
judges
po
etry
by
?transcendent
criteria
?,
where the
criteria
of the
poetic
of
fiction
are
?immanent?
-
meaning
?internal?.6
One
may
suggest
that,
within this broad
evolution,
Euripidean
tragedy
is
located
at
a
crucial
stage
in
the
passage
from
a
poetic
of truth
to
a
poetic
of
fiction,
whereby
the
rules
of
art
and the
independence
of
art
from
external
reality
are
acknowledged;7
that,
in
broad
terms,
indepen
dence
of
performance
and
its
expectations correspond
with
a
poetic
of
fiction;
and
that,
say,
Euripides'
audiences would have had other
expectations
than
ours,
or
expectations
less
exclusively
defined.8
inadequate,
it
was
evasive;
it
did
not
wish
to
draw
upon
its
deeper
potentialities.
I
found
a
word for
it: it
aimed
to
be
soothing?
(p.
viii).
1
Representatively,
see
Ford
2002
and Ford
2003.
2
Finkelberg 1998, p.
21.
3
See also
Kernan
(1979, p.
146),
assimilating
under
this
respect
ancient and
medi
eval
society
against
the moderns:
?the
poet
did
his work
relatively
unself-consciously
...
by
the
19th
century
the situation
had
changed
completely.
The
fine
arts,
including
literature,
had become
the
mainstays
of
such
central cultural values
as
creativity
and
beauty,
and the
objectifications
of that humanistic substitute for the
soul,
the
tran
scendental
power
of
imagination?.
4
Finkelberg
1998,
p.
17;
Wood
1993,
p.
15.
5
Finkelberg
1998,
p.
26.
6
Ibidem,
25.
7
The
nature
of this
'passage'
has been
explored
from
various
points
of
view
by
scholarship.
Despite
obvious
differences,
the
non-straightforward
nature
of 'fiction
as a
theoretical
concept
in
antiquity
is
widely
affirmed.
Gill
(1993,
p.
87)
goes
so
far
as
to
claim
that
?even in
Plato's
acknowledgements
of the
incomplete
truth
of
his
myths
or
arguments,
there
is
no
equivalent
for the modern
claim
that the
status
of
such
discourse
is
"fictional"
?.
8
Along
these
lines,
Kullman
1993,
p.
253
points
out
that
spectacle
metaphors
would
be 'undenkbar'
for
Euripides
(despite
his fame
for
being
experimentalist,
etc.).
Eu
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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22
Chiara
Thumiger
.
4.
Reconstructing
the
context:
genre
The
second element of 'context'
is
the
expectation
commended
by
different
genres.
The
varying
expectations
for
tragedy
and
comedy
in terms
of
audience
response
have
been discussed
at
length,
and
the
debate
on
the
topic
has
developed
in
the
past twenty
years.
Oliver
Taplin
first
described the
two
genres
as
?two
quite
differ
ent
modes of
interplay
between
stage
and
auditorium?,
whereby
?most
tragedy
casts
its
spell
in
a
more
exclusive,
almost
hypnotic
way
... itdemands the total concentration of its
audience,
intellec
tual
and
emotional?.1
On
this
interpretation,
'metatheatrical'
allu
sion
of
the kind familiar
from
Old
Comedy
is
absent from the
trag
ic
genre,
and
if
present
would
be
much
more
damaging
-
almost
absurd
-
for
our
'suspension
of
disbelief,
since
the
tragic
genre,
necessarily
characterized
by
amore
heightened
emotional
tension,
is not
as
hospitable
as
comedy
towards
digression
and
play.
Many
scholars,
including Taplin
himself,
are now
inclined
to
adopt
a
less
oppositional
view of the
two
genres
in
this
respect.2
In both tragedy and comedy, in fact,we find a number of con
ventions
which
allow
varying
degrees
of
self-referentiality
as
an
expected
part
of
the
'frame'. These
are
most
evident
in
Old
Com
ripides
?
treated
life
with
much
more
seriousness
[than
us]?
(my
translation);
on
the
other
hand,
argues
Kullman,
only
with
Plato does
an
abstraction
of
'fiction'
start
to
define
itself,
and
only
as
a
devaluation
of
the
visible
world,
seen
as
faint
copy
of world
of
Ideas,
rather
than
as
interest
for
the
rules
and
status
of
fiction
per
se.
Sifakis
(1971,
p.
9),
on
the
same
point:
'none
of
the
characteristics
of
modern
realistic
(my
italics)
drama
can
be found
in
Greek
(or Roman)
drama.
The
stories
were
old...
;
so
their end
was
known;
the dramatic characters were not
individuals,
but
types;
...the dramatic
situations
...
were
all
'legendary',
cosmic
in
their function
to
account
for
humanity's
past;
...[Greek
drama]
did
not
aim at
realistically representing
everyday
human life
on
the
stage
or
at
creating
the illusion of
reality
for the
audience?.
1
Taplin
1986,
pp.
164,
171-173
with corrections in
1996
and
1993,
pp.
67-68.
The
op
position
between
tragedy
and
comedy
would work
better
if
Aeschylus
or
Sophocles
were
taken
as
representative
of
the
tragic
genre:
Taplin
(1986,
p.
65)
in
fact
expressly
omitted
late
Euripides,
in
whose
work
we
can
find
several
'comic',
or
'un-tragic'
in
stances
(Helen,
Ion...).
See
also
Bain
1977,
p.
23
and
1987,
pp.
2, 9
on
the
distinction
between
audience
addresses
and
equivalent
effects
in
the two
genres;
Muecke
1977,
p.
59:
?the
break of
the
illusion
in
comedy
could
well have
been
funny
by
virtue
of
breaking
the
rules
of
tragedy?;
Steiner
1996, pp.
534-535
on
the
deep
?cut?
between
the
two
registers,
the
comic
and the
tragic;
Slater
2002,
p.
7,
who
draws
a
connec
tion
between
(lack
of)
sympathetic
identification
and
metatheatrical
overtones.
Lada
Richards
1997
still
adopts
a
working
model
that
has
?comic
versus
tragic
game?
with
reference
to
metatheatricar issues.
2
Cf.
Taplin,
Wilson
1993.
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On ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
23
edy,where the parabasis or the references to the audience are ex
pected
as
an
integral
part
of the
three-dimensional
performative
experience.
Tragedy,
however,
also accommodates
features which
invite
engagement
between audience and
spectacle
as
part
of the
composite,
'multimediatic'
experience
of the dramatic festival
overall.
Choral
self-referentiality
recurrent
in
the
corpus
of
extant
tragedies
(most
famously,
but
not
exclusively
in
895-896:
?For
if
such
deeds
are
held
in
honour,
why
should
we
join
in
the
sacred
dance??),
is
wholly
part
of the
performance
and
invites
?the audi
ence to
participate in
a
more
integrated exp?rience?.1 Moreover,
the
chorus of
tragedy
'mimics'
or
evokes
metaphorically
other
'choral
performances'
with which the Greek audiences
were
famil
iar,
as
Taplin
underlines
(e.g.,
?paian, epinikion,
hymenaios, parthe
neion
and
so
forth
?).
This
establishes
a
?
continuity,
with
differing
degrees
of
intensity,
between
the
tragic
chorus
and
[a]
range
of
collective cultural
activities
external
to
tragedy
?,2
encouraging
a
complex
communal
engagement,
spelt
out in
the interaction be
tween
audience and
spectacle.
The
difference from
self-referential elements
in
comedy,
as
East
erling
formulates
it,
is one of ?tone?.3 Ancient
playwrights
were
sensitive
to
anachronism:
while
reference
to
features such
as
the
chorus
were
allowed
within the
integrated
response
of the audi
ence,
one
notes
?the
vague
way
in
which
the
tragedians
allude
to
1
Henrichs
1994,
p.
59-
Henrichs
rightly
describes
the
common
ground
between
imagination
and
polis
as
?fluid?: ?choral
performance
takes
place
in
both
worlds
?
(p.
68).
See
also
Csapo
(2000,
pp.
417-426)
on
tragic
self-referentiality
and
especially
Euripidean
?choral
projection?,
with
a
list
of
instances
(pp.
420-421);
Wiles
2007,
p.
176,
commenting
again
on
the
much-discussed
passage
from
or,
and
contemplating
a
different
?unifying dynamic?
effected
by
choral
dance,
that
between
?this
evanescent
world? and
?the
incorruptible,
deathless world of the
gods?
(in
Bacon's
words,
1994
1995,
20).
2
Taplin,
Wilson
1993,
p.
170.
Bain
1987,
p.
11:
?self-reference
in
tragedy
is
effected
by language
which
does
not
take
us
out
of
the
Homeric
world,
a
world
of
song,
music,
muses,
bards
and minstrels
?.
Compare
Helena's famous lines
at
II.
vi,
357-358
(
a
/
a
&
e
e
'
a
),
her
?metafictional?
claim that
?even
in
days
to
come/we
may
be
a
song
for
men
that
are
yet
to
be?
is
in
tegrated
with
her
experience,
that of
a
noble
woman
accustomed
to
hear
rhapsodes
singing
the
enterprises
of
famous
and
noble
people.
Similarly,
see
Odysseus'
tears
listening
to
Demodocus'
account
of
the
destruction of
Troy
at
Alkinoos'
banquet
in
Od.
vin,
487-531.
3
Easterling
1997a,
p.
167:
?perhaps
the
main
difference
between
tragedy
and
com
edy
lies not in their contact with the audience but in the tone of that contact. For the
tragedian
there
is
a
paramount
question
of
decorum,
that
is,
what
is
appropriate
to
the
seriousness and
dignity
of the
genre
and
to
its
setting
in
the
time of the
Homeric
h?roes?.
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24
Chiara
Thumiger
their own medium?, and on how tragedy, unlike comedy, 'studi
ously
avoided?
an
?unequivocal
reference
to
contemporary
insti
tutions?.1
On
the other
hand,
in
comedy
'metatheatrical'
features
are
integrated by
virtue
of
a
ludic
quality,
where
a
special
kind
of
spectatorship
allows
a more
relaxed
response
-
what
one
may
call
a
'down
keying
.
hese
features
involve
no
?break
of
illusion,
since if
theatre
is
illusion the down
keying
is
part
of
it?.2 All
in
all,
these
types
of
audience-spectacle
engagement
offer
the
public
exactly
what
they
expect
to
see
from the
only
kind
of
tragedy,
or
comedy they have ever experienced; they are not a 'defamiliaris
ing'
device.
In
summary,
we
have
argued
that 'metatheatre'
is
a
problem
atic
and
elusive
concept,
which
cannot
be
used
as
a
fixed
item.
This
is
due,
first of
all,
to
the fluid and
liminal
nature
of theatre
as
performed
experience
from
the
start.
Secondly,
there
are
further
qualifications
to
be
made,
in
terms
of
historical and
cultural
con
text
(what
expectation
is
held
by
the
contemporary
audience?)
and
in
terms
of
genre
(what
are
the
requirements
and
conventions of
a
specific
theatrical
genre,
and what
expectations
do
they
raise?).
The
engagement
between audience and
spectacle,
and the
contig
uous
relationship
between -looker' and
'theatre-goer'
emerge
as
central
in
this
discussion.
2.
2.
.
A
glossary
of
audience-spectacle
engagement
To
bring
the
discussion
to
the
concrete
level
of
text
and
practice,
we
shall
now
sketch
out
a
tentative
'glossary'
of references
which
are
specifically
relevant to the
exchange
between audience and
spectacle.
This
'glossary'
is
formal
in
organisation,
grouping
items
which
are
similar
in
dramatic
language
and
practice;
the
aim,
how
ever,
is
to
highlight
how
similar
elements
within such
a
'glossary'
can
combine
very
differently
within
the
overall
'syntax'
of
perfor
1
Easterling
1986,
p.
6.
At
the
same
time,
some
theatrical conventions of ancient
theatre
(formal
and metric
patterns, among
others)
?mark the
difference
between
theatrical
and
ordinary
discourse,
reminding
the
spectators
that
they
are
theatai
at
a
special
event
with its
own
established
conventions
and
its
own
kind
of
sacrifice?
(Easterling
1997a,
p.
158).
2
Rosenmeyer
2002,
p.
103
quoting
Goffman
1974,
p.
364.
To
play
with
genres,
moreover,
is
written in
the
dna
of
comedy,
as
recently scholarship
has
increasingly
explored:
see
representatively
Platter
2007.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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On
ancient
and
modern
(meta)theatres
25
mance, changing with the changing elements of context we have
just
discussed.
We shall
refer
to
theatrical
examples
from different
periods
-
from
antiquity
until
twentieth-century
plays.
In
no
way
are
we
aiming
at
giving
an
exhaustive
overview;
instead,
we
shall
use a
limited
number
of
plays
in
order
to
establish
a
background
of
working
comparisons.
The
items
we
analyse
are
the
instances
most
commonly
men
tioned
in
scholarship
of
'metatheatre',
from
Abel onwards:
fol
lowing Rosenmeyer's
summary
of such
'entries',
we
find: charac
ters
showing
themselves
?to
be
aware
of
being
on
a
stage?;
?the
character's dramatic life
[as]
already
theatricalized?;
?the
plot
[as]
product
of
the author's
own
imagination
and
not
rooted
in
a
fixed
tradition?;
?characters
[who]
tend
to
improvise,
thus
usurping
the
role of the
playwright?;
?the
playwright
[as]
not
fully
in
control
of
his
own
material?;
?the
action
[as]
marked
by
a
dream
of
[with]
the
quality
of
a
dream?;
?closure
undermined,
and
authority
sub
verted));
?language
[as]
self-centred,
with words
manipulated
as
pointers
to
other words
more
than
as
signifiers?.1
We
shall
broadly
follow these
points
-
although
being
aware
that
what
separates
them is a
working
distinction,
rather than a
rigid
categorization,
and
many
elements could
indeed
belong
to
more
than
one
group.
2.1.1.
Reference
to
facts related
to
performance
These
are
perhaps
the
most
readily acknowledged
instances of
engagement
between
audience
and
spectacle.
Some
of these
are
sometimes
called
'epic
devices'
-
devices
which
to
some
extent
?expose
the
system
of mediation:
...asides,
prologues,
epilogues,
direct addresses
to
the
audience, songs,
the
chorus?;2
then
we
find,
more
widely,
literal
references
to
the theatre
as
institution and
practice:
the
theatre
building,
the
author/director,
the
actors,
the
theatrical
conventions;
finally,
instances
of
'play-in-the-play',
when
a
'play',
a
theatrical
performance
is
actually
staged
within the
plot
(for
instance,
the
'Murder
of
Gonzago' staged by
the
prince
in
Shakespeare's
Hamlet.
Some
of
these
references
are
found
in
ancient
theatre,
both
comedy
and
tragedy
These should
be framed within
the
expecta
tions raised
by
the
two
genres,
rather
than
measured
against
our
modern fetishism of improvisation - ?our European sense of stage
1
Rosenmeyer
2002,
pp.
87-88.
2
Jestrovic's
definition
(2006, p.
32).
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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26
Chiara
Thumiger
freedom and spontaneous
inspiration?.1
In
Aristophanic
comedy
the
parabasis
(the
interruption
of the drama
to
leave
space
for
a
speech
given
by
the
chorus,
who dismiss
their
scenic
clothes
to
ad
dress
the
audience
on
contemporary
issues)
exposes
the fictional
nature
of the
drama
by
interrupting
it
openly.2
Audience address
es^
e e
...,
ea
a,
also work
as a
particular
reminder
of
spectatorship,
inviting
a
personal
engagement
on
the
issues
at
play: ?being
addressed
directly
or
semi-directly
does
modify
our
psychic
response;
and thismodification
is
not
quite
similar
to
the
one we experience when watching a play-in-the-play or overhear
ing
actors
speak
about the th??tre?.3 References
to
contemporary
facts and
mention
of
contemporary
public figures
familiar
to
the
audience,
and
in
particular
of
tragic
playwrights,
such
as
Eurip
ides,
as
target
of
mockery
are
similar versions of
?exposing
the
system
of
m?diation?
while
addressing political,
ethical
or
literary
issues.
These elements
are
not
alienating
or
defamiliarising,
as
they
are
part
of the
expected
conventions
of the
genre.
At
various
degrees,
self-reflective elements
are
also found
in
the
tragic performance,
even
though
more
integrated
into
the
dramat
ic
action
and
never
implying
an
interruption
of the dramatic
plot
or
an
integration
with the
contemporary
world
-
we
have
comment
ed
on
this
tragic
?
avoidance
of
anachronism ?.4 The
most
notable
feature
here
is
the allusions of the chorus
to
their
own
mimetic
dance.5
In
addition,
readers
have
noticed other elements
as
pos
sible
ground
for
interplay
between
audience and
spectacle,
such
as
the
exploitation
of the
usage
of
a
limited number of
actors
and
of
their
recognizable
voice
behind
the
mask,6
and
the
reference
to
masking.7
Winnington-Ingram,
for
instance,
discussing
Sophocles'
1
Artaud
1938,
p.
37,
advocating
?the
superior
value
of
theatre
conventions?
in
tra
ditions other than that
of
nineteenth-century
modern theatre
(e.g.,
Balinese
theatre)
in
conveying
the
utmost
expressiveness
through depersonalisation (p.
40).
Awareness
of
this
modern
Western
prejudice
is
important
in
assessing
ancient
theatre
-
see
Si
fakis
1971,
pp.
10-11
on
the
opposition
between
modern drama and ancient
'conven
tional'
drama.
2
On
this
see
Slater
2002,
pp.
14-19;
Sifakis
1971,
pp.
11-14.
3
Maquerlot
1990,
p.
48.
4
See
p.
24
with
n.
1.
5
See
p.
23
above.
6
Cf.
Pavlovskis
1977
for
an
overview
of
'the
additional,
frequently
ironic
dimen
sion
which
the
duplication
of
voices
can
have
contributed
to
these
plays';
cf.
Mar
shall
2000,
pp. 338-339
for
a
more
recent
assessment
of
actors'
'role-sharing'
as a
play
wright's
tool
in
ancient
drama.
7
Euripides'
Bacchae
is
the
play
where
such
interpretations
have been
most
notable,
but
by
no
means
the
only
one.
See
Wiles
2007,
pp.
220-236
for
a
discussion
and
criti
cism
of
'metatheatrical'
readings
of
tragic
masking.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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On
ancient
and
modern
(metajtheatres
27
Electra (1296, 1309) notes that ?Electra iswarned not to betray her
joy:
there
is
no
fear of
that,
she
says,
since
her
ancient
hatred
is
engrained
upon
her.
A
reference,
as
the
editors
rightly
say,
to
her
"unchanging
mask"?.1
The
reference,
thus
interpreted,
aligns
the
non-naturalistic
mask with the
emotions
at
play, enhancing
'real
ism',
perhaps,
but
most
importantly
inviting
a
more
complex
en
gagement
on
the
part
of
the audience with
the contradictions
in
the character's
own
feelings.2
'Epic'
devices
are
also found
in
tragedy:
in
particular,
the
Eu
ripidean prologue, the conventionality of the codas, and the deus
ex
machina
might
expose
the element
of
mediation
in
the
perfor
1
Winnington-Ingram
1969,
p.
130.
2
Elam
suggests
that
?
devices which
break
the frame
of
the
action
-
or,
better,
break
the
internal
communication
system
-
continue
to
confirm
the
facticity
of the
repr?sentation?
(Elam
1980,
pp.
87-92
in
Rosenmeyer
2002,
p.
103).
See
also
Rosen
meyer
2002,
p.
93:
?th??tre
has
from the
beginning,
with
a
few
exceptions,
such
as
Menander
and
the latest
realism,
been
a
formal and
semantic
construct
positioned
at
a
certain
remove
from
the
patterns
of
experienced
reality,
and hence
less
in
need
of
the
realignments
introduced
by
the
tools of
'metatheatre'?,
and
Hornby
(1986,
p.
14)
on
the chimera
of 'realism'
: ?no
form
of
drama
or
theatre
is
any
closer
or
further
from
life than
any
other,
in
any
way
that
truly
matters.
No
plays,
however
"realistic",
reflect
life
directly;
all
plays,
however
"unrealistic",
are
semiological
devices
for
cat
egorizing
and
measuring
life
directly?.
The
paradox
of the
Electro,
example,
that refer
ences to
the
medium
can
enhance realism
and
equally
undermine
it
(a
paradox
which
Goff
2000
exposes
subtly
with
reference
to
Euripides'
Electra;
see
also
Marshall
2000,
pp.
326;
341),
is
only
solved
by
allowing
for the
complexities
of the
audience-spectacle
relationship.
'Realism',
and
its
expectations,
is
in
itself
a
problematic
concept,
its reifi
cation
standing
on
an
agreed,
determinist
view
of what
reality
is,
and
on
its
acknowl
edgement
by
the
audience
as one
consciousness.
One
should
not
forget
that the real
ist
tradition
is
not
a
fixed
genre,
or
literary
practice;
rather,
it is
that
in
which
?l'effet
du r?el
is
not
so
much
characteristic
as
ultimately
decisive?
...so we
should consider
realism
not
as
a
?
period
term,
but
as a
designation
of
a
perennial
mode
of
represent
ing
the
world"
in its
"consequential
logic
and
circumstantiality",
a
mode which
has
no
"single style"
and whose actual
style,
or
styles,
in
any
given
age vary
according
to
cultural
norms,
and
whose "dominance
at
any
one
time is
a
...
cultural
option"
?
(Silk
2000,
pp.
212-213,
quoting
Stern
1973,
pp.
32, 28, 52,
79,158).
As
we
allow
for
the
nature
of audience
response
as
plural
and
complicitous
to
the theatrical
conventions,
'real
ism' loses
its
relevance.
In
this
way,
Ortega's
formula
in
Idea
del
Teatro
(1946)
which
qualifies
the trans-historical
nature
of
theatre
as
substantially
one
of
'play'
and
'es
capism', ?jugar?
and
?diversi?n?
(pp.
54-55)
(?el
supreme
escapismo
que
es
la
farsa,
la
suprema
aspiraci?n
del
ser
humano?,
p.
57)
appears
simplistic.
What
theatre
brings
to
effect
is
a
continuous
interplay
between
the
two
levels,
in
which
they
become
no
lon
ger
distinguishable
;
the
audience-spectacle
interaction is
the
locus
in
which
varying
modulations
of
realism,
naturalism,
or
(de)humanisation
are
played.
Likewise,
when
Ortega spoke
of
a
?dehumanisation
of art?
(1925),
he offered a
suggestive
formula for
much of
twentieth-century
artistic and
literary
avant-garde,
but
he
spoke
arbitrarily
on a
postulate
of
the
'human'
as
something
definite
and
clear,
which
asserts
that
a
character
in
Beckett
is
less
'humanised'
and
real
than
one
in
Chekhov.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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28
Chiara
Thumiger
mance.1 This is especially overt if a divine character is
reciting
the
prologue,
as
in
Euripides'
Bacchae,
where
the
dramatic
action
is
encircled
by
the
presentation
of
Dionysus's plan
and
motivations,
almost
from
the
viewpoint
of
a
stage
director,
at
the
start,
and his
appearance
ex
machina,
at
the
end.
In
Hippolytus,
Aphrodite's
moti
vations
and
destructive
plan
are
similarly
exposed
at
the
beginning,
placing
the
expectations
of
the
audience
in
perspective
of the
en
suing
developments.
The
'epic
device'
of the
tragic
prologue
functions
within the
range of responses ancient audiences were used to, and has no
alienating
result.2 The
same
effect
can
be
achieved
without
a
pro
logue.
In
Sophocles'
Ajax,
the
opening
exchange
between
Athena
and
Odysseus
about
their
victim,
Ajax,
establishes
a
hierarchy
in
awareness
between
characters
thatmimics
that
between
audience
and
dramatic
characters,
creating
a
momentary
and
provisional
complicity
between
the
public
and
the
two
characters
onstage,
which
will be
repeatedly
tested
by
the
development
of
events,
as
the
ethical
implications
of
Ajax's
victimisation
are
highlighted.
In
ancient
tragedy
we
do
not
find instances
of
play-in-the-play
whereby
a
miniature
of
the
events
taking
place
in
the
larger
drama
is
placed
en
ab?mewithin
the
play
such
as
those
of
modern
examples.3
1
See
Dunn
(1996,
pp.
57,
46)
on
how elements such
as
deus
ex
machina,
aition
and
coda
'authorize
the
end',
and
corroborate
control
on
the
part
of
the
author;
the
aition
articulates
a
connection
between
the
dimension
of
the
play
and the
real
world
of
the
audience
-
but
perhaps
a
pretended
connection,
which
therefore
underlines the
'fab
rication
process'.
The
functionally
equivalent
deus
device works
in
the
same
way.
As
Dunn
reminds
us:
?
hereas
the
epilogue
speaker
in
Gay
and
Shakespeare
explicitly
breaks the
dramatic
illusion
by
exposing
an
actor or
an
author,
the
deus
in
Euripides
is
a
more
conventional
participant
in
the
action;
if
there
is
a
breach
in
dramatic illusion,
it is
only
implied?
(ibidem,
p.
29).
2
See Bain
(1987
p.
2)
on
how
instances
which
appear
to
offer
?direct communica
tion?
with
the
public
in
tragic
prologues
(esp.
Euripidean)
remain
however
vague
and
carefully
avoid
mention
of the
spectators,
in
contrast
to
comedy.
There
are
argu
ably
examples
of
tragic
prologues
which
may
appear
to
get
close
to
Aristophanic,
or
Menandrean
self-consciousness:
in
Euripides'
Telephus
fr.
696,
8
the
speaker
com
ments,
'I'll
cut
my
story
short',
a
a
e
;
in
Aeschylus'
Carians
/
Europa
fr.
99,
also
likely
to
belong
to
a
prologue,
Europa
says:
a
a
e
a a
a
,
?I
shall
tell
the
tale
of
the
past
in
a
few
words
?
(p.
4).
These
remain
however
part
of
the
metalingual
conventions
of
speeches,
and
Bain
is correct
in
his
judgement
about
Menandrean
audience
addresses,
that
?
there
is
nothing
like
this
in
tragedy
?
(1987,
2).
3
I
disagree
here
with
the
interpretation
of
Dionysus
in
the Bacchae
as
stage
direc
tor
instantiating
an
internal
play
(see
Goward
1999,
pp.
158-159
for
a
representation
of
the
god's
suggestio
falsi
in
the
prologue
along
those
lines).
The
prologue
of
the
Bacchae,
rather,
promotes
complicity
with
the
audience
'against'
Pentheus,
with
an
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
29
Instances of organised deception, however, may be compared as
they
prompt
a
functionally
similar
engagement
of the audience
with
the
spectacle,
playing
on
the
degrees
of
knowledge
shared
by
characters
and
by
the
spectators.
Easterling
offers
a
sophisticated
analysis
of
such
interplay
in
Sophocles'
Philoctetes,
where
the
mi
mesis
of
theatrical
dynamics
(the
make-up
of
a
studious
deceit
in
order
to
convince Philoctetes
to
give
up
his
bow)
serves
the
pur
pose
of
exploring
moral
issues
that
can
only
be
played
out
in
full
in
the
intermediary
area
between audience
and
actors. In
particular,
the exchange between Odysseus
and
Neoptolemus, playing
out
their
deceit
in
the
presence
of
Philoctetes,
has
multiple
meanings:
they
are
part
of
the
make-believe
at
the
expense
of
Philoctetes;
they
are
a
'secret'
communication
between
the
two
accomplices;
they
are
a
super-dramatic
communication
to
the audience.1
In Eu
ripides'
Bacchae,
the
dressing-up
scene
(821-846,
912-970)
has been
interpreted
with 'metatheatrical'
overtones,
as
mise
en
ab?me,
isolat
ing
Pentheus
as
unwitting
actor,
and
foregrounding
an
abstraction
of the
tragic
experience.2
Rather,
the
effect
of
the
scene
is
perhaps
to
invite the
audience
to
appreciate
the
multiple
suggestions
that
the
dressing-up
carries,
and the
very
means
by
which we
judge
in
dividuals
from
what
we see.
Pentheus'
attire
evokes
initiatory
rites,
burials,
the
preparation
for
a
hunting expedition,
the
stereotype
of
womanish
vanity,
a
reference
to
warriors
dressing
up
for battle.3
The
importance
of
the visual level
promotes
an
engagement
with
the
various
layers
of
the character
which
integrates
appearance
and
hidden desires
or
intentions,
while
the
different
implications
of
his behaviour
are
exposed:
transvestism,
cross-gender
mimesis,
ambitions
as
hunter,
death.4
additional
complication,
since
what
the
god
promises
to
do
will
not
happen;
and the
additional
effect
is
to
invite
reflection
on
the
reliability
of traditional divinities.
1
Easterling
1997a,
p.
171
on
how
?the
ironic
play
with the dramatic
medium
is
intimately
related
to
the central
issue
[of
the
play]?.
2
Cf.
Segal
1986,
p.
73:
?in the
Bacchae
Euripides
has
tragedy
act
out,
in
the
visual
form of
dramatic
representation,
its
own
illusion-creating
processes
of
masking,
rob
ing,
and
fiction-making
...
the
scene
mirrors back
to
the
audience
their
own
willing
ness to
endow
an
actor
on
the
stage
with
the
personage
of
a
mythical
being merely
by
virtue
of the
mask
and
robes
with
which
the
poet
clothes
him?;
see
Segal
1997
for
a
broader
'metatheatrical'
interpretation
of the
play.
3On all
these,
see
Thumiger
2007,
p.
127with n. 97.
4
On the
importance
of
the
disguise
motif
in
tragedy
see
Muecke
1982,
who
claims
that
the motif
became
an
element of
parody
in
comedy only
by
contrast
with
its
use
in
tragedy.
Muecke
notes
how
Euripides
introduced
disguise
in
myths
in
which
it
did
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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30
Chiara
Thumiger
Ajax s 'deception speech' (646-692) functions on
comparable
multiple
levels. The
hero's
words
have
different
meanings
to
him
self,
to
Tecmessa,
who
is
silently
present
beside
him,
to
the
gods,
and
finally
to
the
audience.
By
then,
Ajax
has
already
conceived his
suicidal
plan,
we are
made
to
believe,
and
some
of the
words
he
utters,
if
ambiguous,
are
true
to
his
real
feelings:
?I
shall
go
where
I
can
find
an
untrodden
place
and
I
shall
hide
this
sword of
mine
...
digging
in
the
ground
where
nobody
shall
see
it;
let
night
and
Ha
des
keep
it
safely
down below?
(657-660),
where his
own
body,
in
fact,will be such sought-for 'hiding place'. His words appeal dif
ferently
to
different characters:
to
Tecmessa,
he
is
retreating
from
his
challenging
attitude
towards
the
gods
and
his
chiefs,
?even
I,
who
at
that
time
was so
terribly
firm,
like
iron
hardened
by dip
ping,
have been
softened
like
a
woman
in
my
speech,
thanks
to
the
woman
here?
(650-652);
to
the
gods,
he
is
bowing,
but also
pray
ing
?that
what
my
heart
desires
may
be
accomplished
right
to
the
end?
-
a
reference
to
consistency
which
betrays
his real
feelings;
to
the
audience,
he
is
offering
a
complex
set
of
suggestions
and
contradictory
clues:
at
646-648,
he
warns
that ?time
brings
forth
all
things...?,
seemingly
alluding
to
his
unexpected softening,
but
in
fact
to
his
imminent
suicide;
that
?even
things
that
are
terrible
and
very
strong
yield
to
what
is
held
in
honour?
(669-670),
yes;
but
qualifying
this
with
imagery
such
as
the
alternating
seasons,
the
winds
taming
the
sea,
day
and
night,
sleep
(670-676),
cyclical
phenomena
that
warn
the
public
of
the
fact that
this
announced
'change'
in
the
hero's will
may
change
again
as
easily
-
as
indeed it
will.
The
deception,
finally,
has the
hero
himself
as
victim
too,
as
his inner
doubts
and the
contrasting
arguments
for
and
against
are
also reflected in these
multiple
meanings.
The
composite
theatri
cal
reception
of
his
ambiguous
words
spell
out
the
various
facets
of
the self
and
of
the
process
of decision
making,
offering
at
the
same
time
a
paradigm
of how
theatre
works.1
The
theme
of
deceit
(especially
but
not
exclusively
divine
deceit),
central
in
various
ways
in
our
last
Sophoclean
passage
and else
not
exist
-
such
as
Telephus,
Philoctetes,
and
Helen,
arguing
that
even
though
in
the
case
of
the Bacchae
?the
use
of
disguise
...
is
to
be
set
within
the
tragic
tradition
in
which
disguise
is
a
plot
device?,
even
though
the
element
determines
a
superimposition
of
Dionysus' role onto that of the
tragedian
creating
his text
(pp.
33-34).
1
Contrast
Ringer
s
reading
(1998,
pp.
31-49)
and
its
punctual
interpretation
of
Ajax
as
metatheatrical',
even
identifying
the
tent
of
the
hero with
the
stage-within-the
play
(both
in
Greek).
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 24/51
On ancient
and
modern
(meta)theatres
31
where, is also central in classical theatre, from the Oresteia to Plau
tus.1
It
works
in
the
staged
practice
of
theatre with
much
greater
intensity
than
it
would
in
narrative,
interacting
with the
partial,
if
privileged
viewpoint
assigned
to
the audience.
An
analogous
case
is
the
theme of
Tear of
being laughed
at',
Tear
of
mockery',
topi
cal
in
tragedy,
which
also
urges
an
engagement
between the
public
and
the
internal
audiences
within
the drama.
This
concern,
which
draws
primarily
on
actual
social
norms
shared
by
the
audience
and
endorsed
by
the
play,
prompts
the audience
to
a more
aware en
gagement with the drama and invites scrutiny of their
own
ways
of
reacting
to
the fate of
others.2
The
play-in-the-play
device
was
a
favourite
in
European
drama
and theatre.
Thomas
Kyd's
the
Spanish
Tragedy
(1580)
is
organised
around
reduplications
of
events.
The
plot
is
set
in
motion
by
the
killing
of
Andrea,
the lover
of Bel
Imperia;
this death
is
replicated
in
that of
Horatius,
Andrea's
loyal
friend and
now
also lover of
Bel
Imperia;
and
finally
re-enacted
in
the dramatised
staging
of
a
play-in-the-play
where
the killers
of Andrea and
Horatio
will be
slaughtered
on
stage.
Likewise
in
Hamlet,
the
staging
of
The
Mur
der
of
Gon?ago
by
order of
the
prince
enacts
themurder
of
the
king
concerted
by
his
own
brother and
by
the
queen.
In
both
examples
the
play-in-the-play
is
an
enclosed
item
placed
within the
body
of
dramatic
events.
An
entirely
different
educational
and moral
purpose
is
be
hind
play-in-the-play
used
as
defamiliarisation
device
in
Brecht
's
theory
and
practice
of
estrangement
(Verfremdung).
The
aim
of
openly
declaring
the fictional
nature
of
the theatrical
experience
is
to
hinder
emotional
reactions
that
would be
an
obstacle
to
true
engagement with the
play
and invite the audience to question
their
identification
with
the
staged
events
rather than
abandon
ing
themselves
to
them.
In
this
way,
Brechtian
'epic
theatre'
is
aimed
at
transcending
the
individual
experience,
at
appealing
not
to
the
spectator's
feelings
and
emotional identification
but
to
his
reason
and
judgement.3
Far
from the
existential
objection
to
what
'reality'
is,
the
intended effect
is
to
reinforce
the
weight
and
1
Explored
by
P?trone
1983.
2
On 'fear of
mockery'
as
motif
in
tragedy
see
Catto
1991.
3 For a
definition,
see Brecht
1964:
?the essential
point
of
epic
theatre is
perhaps
that
it
appeals
less
to
the
feelings
than
to
the
spectator's
reason.
Instead
of
sharing
an
experience
the
spectator
must
come to
grip
with
things
?
(p.
23).
We have commented
on
the
insidious
nature
of
this
distinction
(pp.
14-15,
n.
4).
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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32
Chiara
Thumiger
the objectivity of themessage conveyed. The nature of fiction
and
reality
are
not
brought
into
discussion; rather,
an
objective
response
to
facts is
sought.
So,
in
Brechtes Caucasian
Chalk Circle
the
exemplary
'chalk circle'
is
a
play-in-the-play
framed within
a
staged
'struggle
for the
valley'.
In
this
frame
the
members of
two
kolchos
villages
are
discussing
the
settling
of
a
territory
on
which
they
both
claim
rights.
To
illustrate
their
motives,
one
vil
lage
stages
the
old
legend
of the
'chalk
circle'
(a
version
of the
judgement
of
King
Solomon)
whose
morals,
?that
what there is
should belong to those who are good for it?, is applicable to the
fictional audience
in
the
sense
that
?the
valley
should
belong
to
the
waterers,
that
it shall
bear
fruits?,
and
to
the
real
audience
in
more
universal
terms.
The
play-in-the-play
has the
function of
objectifying
piece
of
fiction ithin
the
fiction,
nd
highlighting
it
for the
audience
to
evaluate and
eventually
endorse,
in
co-op
eration
with
the
internal
audience.
In
other
twentieth-century
theatrical
experiences
the
reference
to
theatre
building
and
to
elements of
staging
(the
director,
the
ac
tors,
the
author,
the
public) gains
a
much
more
radical and alien
ating
effect.
In
Lorca's
El
Publico
(1930)1
a
'director'
is
present
on
stage,
negotiating
with
the
actors
the
performing
of
a
new,
un
conventional
kind of
theatre.
Pirandello's
trilogy
of
the
'Theatre
within
the
theatre'
(Six
Characters,
1921;
Tonight
we
Improvise,
1930;
Each
in
his
own
way,
1924)
is
entirely
set
in
the
world of
theatre
staging.
The
show
proper
is
hindered
from
starting
by
some
situ
ation
of
impasse
during
the
staging
process.
In
Six
Characters,
it
is
the
arrival of the
characters
deprived
of
plot
or
author
to
give
them
substance.
In
Each
in
his
own
way,
we
have
the
open
inclu
sion of elements like the
prima
donna actress, a theatre
company,
the
commenting
audience,
an
old theatre
critic,
the
box office
through
a
complicated
set
of
stage
directions;
this
causes
the
plot
to
be
hampered
and
aborted
from the
beginning,
and
interrupted
before the
end of the
representation.
In
Tonight
we
improvise stage
directions
are
also
heavy,
and
voices
from
the
audience,
the allu
sion to
Pirandello himself
as
author,
the talk
about
improvisation,
1
KG.
Lorca,
El
Publico,
1930.
The
structure
of
the
play
and the
development
of
the
plot
have
no
conventional
logic.
A
successful
theatre
director is
urged by
friends
to
turn
from
the
staging
of
a
Romeo
and
Juliet
in
an
Open-air
theatre'
to
a
'theatre
under
the
sand',
a
theatre
which
defies
theatrical
conventions
and
tells the truth. As
the
director
had
initially
argued,
the
audience
would
never
tolerate such
a
theatre.
Faced
with
the
truth,
the
audience
destroys
the
theatre and
attacks
the
actors.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 26/51
On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
33
plot, characters, and producers make the staging of a 'plot' impos
sible.1
In
Ionesco's Rhinoceroses
(i960)
the
alienating
effect
is
more
cir
cumscribed. The
play
centres
on a
small
town
dealing
with the sud
den
appearance
of
a
rhinoceros.
The
first
rhinoceros
is
followed
by
a
second,
then
a
third,
until
it
becomes
a
universal
movement
of
rhinoceroses
whereby
the
whole
city
is
transformed.
The
process
is
witnessed
through
the
eyes
of
a
set
of characters
including
a
generally
na?ve
and
often
drunk
man,
Berenger,
his
rational and
arrogant counterpart, Jean,
an
Old Gentleman and
a
Logician.
As
all
inhabitants of the
city
transform
themselves into
rhinoceroses,
at
the end of the
process
only
one
character,
Berenger,
retains
hu
man
semblances.
In
the
play,
Ionesco
as
author
is
mentioned
open
ly
Jean:
?instead
of
squandering
all
your spare money
on
drink,
isn't
it
better
to
buy
a
ticket
for
an
interesting
play?
Do
you
know
anything
about
the
avant
garde
theatre there's
so
much talk about?
Have
you
seen
Ionesco's
plays??
and
?will
you
come
with
me
to
the
theatre this
evening?
?
(23-24).
Beckett also
uses
open
references
to
authorship
and
staging,
though
in a less
literal,
insisted
way
At the end of
Waiting
for
Godot,
for
instance,
Pozzo
wonders,
addressing
Vladimir:
?where
are
we??
?I
couldn't tell
you?
?It
isn't
by
any
chance the
place
known
as
the
Board?? ?Never
heard
of
it?
?What is it
like??
?(looking
around).
It's
indescribable.
It's
like
nothing.
There's
nothing.
There's
a
tree,?
?Then
it's
not
the Board?.
The
engagement
between
audience
and
spectacle
engendered
by
these elements
of
'metatheatrical
glossary'
is
more
radical
when
the
opposition
between the
two,
and between on-looker
and
theatre-goer' becomes sharper - that is, in some twentieth-century
theatre.
In
the
case
of
Pirandello,
the talk about the
medium
ex
cludes
any
other
talk,
and
an
abstraction of
art,
creation,
fiction
as
concepts
is
invited.
No
other theme
is
allowed
to root
and
impose
1
See
Jestrovic
(2006,
p.
39)
on
the
different
outcomes
of
defamiliarising
devices
in
Pirandello
and
Brecht: ?Pirandello
presents
theatre
within
theatre
in
the
form of
ro
mantic
irony
...
the
playwright
[leaves]
the audience
in
a
state
of
ambiguity
between
contemplating theatricality
as a
metaphor
and
indulging
in
the
as-if
world
that
the
play
has
to
offer.
The
process
...
serves
to
shift the
line
between theatre and
life,
illu
sion and
reality...
Brecht uses devices of
theatricality
not tomake theatre the theme
of his
work,
but
to
represent
and
problematise reality...
[he]
uses
Verfremdung
not
only
to
distance
the
familiar,
but also
to
ensure
the
correct
comprehension
of the
material and
to
influence
the
reception
process
?.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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34
Chiara
Thumiger
itself on the audience, as self-referentiality shifts the focus from
the
eventual
human
or
moral
issues
of
the drama
to
the
nature
or
creation,
art,
authorship,
and
so on.
In
Ionesco
and Beckett
too,
the
inclusion of the author
or
of
plain
references
to
the medium
gains
an
existential,
philosophical
value that
questions
the
status
of
reality,
and reduces life
to
a
nonsensical
show.
On
the
contrary,
the
mimesis
between
'theatricality'
and
'reality'
in
ancient
exam
ples
promotes
a
closer
engagement
between audience and
staged
events,
where the
various
degrees
of
understanding
and
identifica
tion characterizing audience reception reproduce dynamics inter
nal
to
the
drama,
and
vice-versa.
2.
.
2.
Intertextuality
Extra-textual allusions
to
other
plays
or
literary
texts
are men
tioned
as a
vehicle
for 'metatheatrical'
engagement.
The
category
is
broad,
and
may
include
parody,
quotation,
homage,
plain
ref
erence,
teasing,
and
apparent
and sustained
engagement
with
an
other
text.
This
device
promotes
engagement
between audience
and spectacle by pointing at the 'story' as part of a tradition, or
connected
with
previous
texts,
allowing
the
audience
to
appreci
ate
and
evaluate
allusions,
new
versions
of the
plot,
and
creative
re-elaborations.
To
trace
intertextuality
in
ancient
drama would
be
an
endless
task.
For ancient
literatures,
in
fact,
a
notion of
work
of
art as
a
completely
new
'creation'
is
not
applicable.1
All
stories
told,
from
epics
to
choral
songs
and
to
theatrical
plays
draw
on
a
long
tradition of
characters,
myths
and motifs
and
put
them
selves
in
dialogue
with alternative
or
past
versions.
This
aspect
is
deeply rooted in the very
nature
of Greek literary culture, and, if
anything,
qualifies
ancient
fiction
as
more
integrated
with the
ex
pectations
and
shared
background
of the
public
than
our own.
In
this
way,
the
Agamemnon
of
the
Oresteia
has
to
be understood
in
the
light
of his Iliadic
counterpart;
the Electra
plays
by Sophocles
and
Euripides
establish
a
continuous
dialogue
with the
Aeschylean
Choephoroi;2
and
so on.
In
comedy,
the
practice
of
paratragoedia
is
characteristically
more
punctual
and
overt
than
the
use
of the
pre
vious
tradition
in
the
tragedians.
Aristophanes
explicitly
mentions
the
tragic
playwrights
(even
foregrounding
Aeschylus
and
Eurip
1
On
this
point,
see
Bain
1977,
p.
13;
Sifakis
1971,
pp.
7-8.
2
See
representatively
the
discussion
in
Marshall
2000,
esp.
pp.
332-335.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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On ancient and
modern
(meta)theatres
35
ides as tragedians inFrogs) and uses themockery of tragic lines as
part
of
his
comic
repertoire.1
In
twentieth-century
works
we
find
a
different
type
of
intertex
tuality
which
reflects
the
modern
view of
the author
and of
the
text
as
unicum,
as new
creation.
The
expectations
of
Western
audi
ences
at
the end of
the
nineteenth-century
are
broadly
of
natural
ism
and
'suspense'
: a
play
should
offer
a
story
which
is
entirely
the
playwright's
creation and whose
outcome
is
not
predicted.
When
intertextuality
is
open
and
emphasised,
therefore,
it
is
an
inten
tional move with a specific alienating effect. For instance, Garcia
Lorca's
El
Publico
(1930)
re-elaborates
the
Shakespearean
drama
of
Romeo
and
Juliet
and
revisits
it
in
a
provoking,
homosexual
key.
The
teatro
bajo
la
arena
is
the
personal,
authentic
drama
to
which
the
conventional,
canonical
teatro
al
aire
libre
is
opposed;
two
homo
sexual
lovers,
who
love
each
other with
an
immeasurable
love',
replace
Romeo and
Juliet.
The
engagement
with
a
classic of the
Western
theatrical
canon
becomes
an
instrument
to
criticise the
conventions
to
which
a
bourgeois
public
would
be
accustomed,
and
the audience's
lack of critical
judgement.
In
Stoppard's
Ros
encrant^
and
Guildenstern
are
Dead
Shakespeare's
Hamlet
provides
the
entire
dramatic
context
and material
for
a
net
of
literary
jokes:
?I
thought
you
said
we were
actors?
-
?Oh.
Oh
well,
we are.
But
there
hasn't been
much call?
-
?You
lost.
Well then
-
one
of
the
1
Hornby
(1986,
p.
88)
rightly
says
that
?
there
are
many ways
in
which
a
play
can
refer
to
other
literature.
In
each
case,
the
degree
of metadramatic
estrangement
gen
erated
is
proportional
to
the
degree
to
which the audience
recognizes
the
literary
allusion
as
such?.
For
ancient
literature
such
recognition
cannot
be
taken
for
granted.
By
this do
not
dismiss the
deep knowledge
of
Homeric
and
tragic
texts
that
an
cient
audiences had
(Aristophanes'
Frogs
shows the
extent
of such
widespread
literary
competence
beyond
any
doubt),
but
I
wish
to
advance
that the
very concepts
of
'quo
tation'
and
'allusion'
as
extra-fictional
phenomena
are
functional
to
-
our
-
strong
and
personalistic
view
of
authorship
and
text.
For
example, Winnington-Ingram,
in
a
discussion
of
Euripides
as
poietes
sofos,
rightly
points
at
a
reading
of
the
younger
tragedian's
Electra
as
containing
a
parodistic
reference of
Choephoroi,
as
?exhibition
of cleverness
?
and
a
way
?to
score
points
at
the
expense
of the
archaic
technique
of
the
older
poet?
(Winnington-Ingram
1969,
p.
129).
This
involves,
yes,
some
notion of
authorship
and
a
reference
adpersonam
to
the work
and
status
of
the
older
tragedian;
but
accomodating
the
allusion
and
the re-elaboration
within
the
various
voices
of
the
play.
For
a
different
view,
see
Slater
(1985,
p.
169)
on
Plautus
(?the
Plautine
process
of
composition
is
the
very
paradigm
of metatheatre
:
he
imitates
not
life but
a
previ
ous
text?)
and
Dobrov
(2001,
p.
158)
(?tragedy
habitually
reshapes
and
manipulates
epic
narratives
to
produce
a new
fable that
is
...
aware
of
itself of theatrical
perfor
mance?).
The
role of allusion
to
different
versions
of the
same
story
in
tragedy
has
been
treated
by
Stinton
1990
and
Halleran
1997.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 29/51
36
Chiara
Thumiger
Greeks,
perhaps?
You're familiar with the
tragedies
of
antiquity,
are
you?
The
great
homicidal
classics?
Matri,
patri,
fratri,
sorori,
uxori
[...]...?.
There
are
important
differences
between these
two
and
our an
cient
examples.
It is
undeniable
that
all
literature
is
'intertextual'
or
'transtextual',
and
that ?issues of
indebtedness,
transformation
and
critique?1
are an
irreducible
part
of
a
text
as
product
neces
sarily
linked
to
a
practice
and
institution,
and
part
of
a
'canon of
some
sort.
Though
proper
to
most
texts,
however,
intertextuality
is as varied in effect as themany texts, traditions and practices may
be. The
'metatheatrical\
alienating
effect
in these
instances
de
pends,
of
course,
on
the
type
of
engagement
the allusion
invites.
In
the
case
of the
Aeschylean
Agamemnon,
ancient
audiences
are
prompted
to
evaluate
the character
of
the
king
and
his abhorrent
decision
to
sacrifice
his
daughter complying
to
the order
of
Chal
cas
(Ag.
186)
by
measuring
it
against
the
Iliadic
representation
of
the
king.
At
II
1,
106-120
Agamemnon
refuses
to
obey
the
seer,
with disastrous
consequences
for
the
army;
the
presence
of the
tradition behind
the
play
enriches
the audience's
response
with
an
additional element
to
judge
the
moral and
emotional
representa
tion
onstage.2
In
modern
texts,
operative
within
a
view
of
'text',
'author'
and
'canon'
exclusively
defined,
other
works
are
referred
to
and
objectified
with
a
polemical
intent,
to
invite the
audience
to
abstract themselves
as
audience,
judge
their
own
expectations
from
theatre
and discover
their
own
prejudices. Only
in
the
light
of this
shift
can we
properly
understand
Artaud's
claim
in
his
avant-garde
manifesto,
that
?we
must
finally
do
away
with
the idea
of
master
pieces
reserved
for
a
so-called
elite
but
incomprehensible
to
the
masses?, as this ?
idolising
of
masterpieces
? is ?an
aspect
ofmiddle
class
conformity
?,
and
we
should
?repudiate
theatre's
superstition
concerning
the
script
and
the
author's
autocracy?.3
2.1.
3.
Motifs afferent
to
the
sphere
of
perception
Moving
closer
to
the
text,
we
find
a
number
of
themes
and motifs
which invite
interplay
between
audience
and
spectacle
through
their
relevance
to
spectatorship:
viewing, doubling,
perception
and
its
failure:
sleep,
madness,
delusion,
deceit,
and
intoxication.
1
Rosenmeyer
2002,
pp.
97-98.
2
As
explored by
Goldhill
1990,
p.
124.
3
Artaud
1938,
pp.
55,
56-57,
82.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 30/51
On ancient
and
modern
(meta)theatres
37
Emphasis on seeing as vehicle of knowledge is important in trag
edy,
most
overtly
in
and
Euripides'
Bacchae. The fate of
Oedipus
'the
wise',
who failed
to
'see' the detail that
was
most
important
to
him,
his
real
identity,
culminates
in
his
self-blinding
-
a
paradox
implicit
in
his
own
name,
which
engenders
a
play
with the Greek
root
*oid>
'to see'/'know'.1
Seeing
and
knowing
are
intertwined
in
the
play,
and
qualify
the
whole
development
of
events:
the
final
blinding
of
Oedipus
?negates
the
communication
between
mask
and
audience?,2
in
such
a
way
as
to
protect
the
individual from
the
vision of an unbearable reality,but also to protect this reality from
the
pollution
that
Oedipus
carries with him.
Similarly,
Tiresias'
blindness
can
be
conceived
as a
shield which
protects
or
isolates
the
world
from
the
pollution
of
a
man
who
has
seen
too
much:
the
stories
of
the
two
men,
even
though
opposed
in
the
tragedy,
are
brought
together
by
this
common
destiny,
which has
seeing
and
awareness at
the
centre.
The
act
of
seeing
is
therefore
a
subject
in
its
own
right
in
or,
and the
very
idea of
knowledge
and
reliability
is
brought
into
question.3
In
the
Bacchae,
Pentheus'
inability
to
see,
emphasised throughout
the
play,
will
turn
him into
an
unwitting
spectacle,
as
he
will
be satisfied
in
his desire
to
be
exposed,
and
will
finally
be handed
over
to
slaughter.
At
the
end
of the
play,
a
black
out
of
vision will be invoked
by
one
of the
two
surviving
charac
ters,
Agave,
a
black-out which
is
also
a
bitter
denial
of
the
commu
nal
experience
of
being
a
theatrical
audience:
e a e
'
a
/
e a
5
e
([I
wish
to
go
where]
..
.neither defiled Cithaeron
may
see
me,
nor
I
(may
see)
Cithaeron
with
my eyes
1384-1385).
These
are
only
two
examples
within
a
cul
ture
which
gave
prominence
to
seeing
and
knowledge:
as
Goldhill
says,
?the role of
sight
and
understanding,
illusion and
fantasy,
is
a
recurring
problematic
of Greek
enquiry,
not
only
in
drama?.4
Doubling
is
also
present
in
tragedy
as
a
reminder of
the
fallacy
of human
judgement,
and
is
modelled
on
the
duplicity
inherent
in
the
polarity
of audience and
spectacle.
In
Euripides'
Bacchae,
in
his
1
See
Buxton
1980;
Seale
1982,
pp.
215-260;
Calarne
1996,
pp.
18-19;
Buxton
1996
on
ot;
Goldhill
1986
on
the
?
fifth-century enlightenment
?
in
terms
of
epistemological
evaluation
of
reality
and
human
judgement,
especially
in
or;
1999
and
2000 on
Greek
theatre
within
a
'sociology'
and
a
'history'
of
vision.
2
Calarne
1996,
p.
28.
3
Buxton
1996,
p.
45:
?if
I
had
to
summarize the
impact
of
Oedipus
Tyrannos,
I
would do
it
like
this.
What,
when
it
comes
to
it,
can
you
rely
on??.
4
Goldhill
1986,
p.
281.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 31/51
38
Chiara
Thumiger
hallucinations, Pentheus exclaims: ?Now I seem to see two suns,
and
a
double
city
of
Thebes,
two
cities
with
seven
g?tes ...?
(918
922),
echoing
his initial
words,
with which he
rejected
the
idea
that
Dionysus
might
be
a
god:
?is
there
[in
Asia]
[another]
Zeus,
who
generates
new
gods??
(467).
Euripides'
Helen
stages
the
version
of
the
story
according
to
which Helen did
not
go
to
Troy,
but
was
replaced
by
an
image
fashioned
by
Hera,
an
e
-
a
.
he
motif of the eidolon
naturally
engenders
a
reflection
on
the
vanity
of human conflicts and the
illusory
driftwhich
befalls
relationships, two themes which mimic the nature of theatre as
'perceived'
phenomenon.
As
Menelaus
comments
in
his bewilder
ment,
on
hearing
that 'Helen' is
in
Egypt
(while
he
thought
she
had been
on
the
ship
with
him
all
along):
I
am
then
to
find
another
woman
living
here
with the
same name
as
my
wife. She
called her the
begotten
child of
Zeus.
Can
there be
a man
that
hath
the
name
of Zeus
by
the banks
of
Nile? The
Zeus
of heaven
is
only
one,
at
any
rate.
Where
is
there
a
Sparta
in
theworld
save
where
Eurotas
glides
between his
reedy
banks? The
name
of
Tyndareus
is
the
name
of
one
alone.
Is
there
any
land of the
same name as
Lacedaemon
or
Troy?I
know
not
what
to
say;
for
naturally
there
are
many
in
thewide world
that
have the
same
names,
cities
and
women
too;
there
is
nothing,
then,
to
marvel
at.
(490-499)
Doubling
is
a
challenge
to
the
reality
of
facts,
or
an
attempt
to
explain
it;
but
it
also
points
at
the
performance
as
part
of
this chal
lenge,
and
as a
way
to
explore
this
challenge.1
Madness and
derangement
as
the
cause
of
a
distorted
percep
tion
are
an
important
part
of the
tragic repertoire,
and also
invite
the audience to reflect on human
knowledge
of
reality:
hf,
Orestes,
the Bacchae
are
perhaps
the three
most
extreme
examples
in
which
the
stupor
of
maddened characters
(Heracles,
Orestes,
Pentheus)
offers
a
different
angle
from which
to
observe
reality,
and
produce,
to
an
extent,
an
alternative
reality.
At
hf
822-873
Lyssa
and
Iris
ex
pose
Hera's
plan
against
Heracles,
to
drive
him
mad and
urge
him
to
slaughter
his
own
children.
In
this
'epic'
instance
the
audience
find
themselves
in
the
privileged
perspective
of the
divine
mind
'directing'
the
play
from
inside,
and
are
established
as
'spectators',
in complicity with the two divine presences, of a plan inwhich
Heracles
is
unwitting
actor.
The
hero's
derangement
is
the
junc
1
See
Thumiger
2011
about the
motifs of
doubling
and
viewing
in
tragedy.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 32/51
On ancient
and
modern
(meta)theatres
39
ture between these two levels, as he is unaware of the nature of
his
ensuing
actions.
Mental
soundness
as
precondition
for
correct
perception
and
sense
of
reality
is
theatrically
loaded,
as
the audi
ence,
in
contemplating
madness,
are
also invited
to
test
their
own
judgements
and
perceptions.
In
Euripides'
Orestes,
as
the hero
lays
prey
of the
visions
of the
Erinyes,
different
characters
display
dif
ferent
reactions.
Electra does
not
share her
brother's
perceptions,
and
regards
them
as
hallucinations
(314-315).
However,
when
Or
estes
faces Menelaus
(409-413),
he
recognizes
the three
Erinyes
as
an actual presence: at 409, referring to the three goddesses, he says,'
a e e
a
,
a
a
'
?
a
,
?I
know the
ones
you
mean.
I
don't
care
to
name
them?.
In
this double take
on
the
god
desses'
status
of
reality
within
the theatrical
representation
and/or
hallucinations,
madness
invites the audience
to
test
their
own
ideas
on
the
divine,
on
guilt
and
pollution,
and
on
human
responsibility
These
tragic
instances
engage
with
theatricality
in
an
integrated
way
within
the
audience-spectacle exchange.
The themes
of
mirroring,
double and
appearance,
and the
overall
metaphor
of
the world
as
stage
will
have
great
fortune
in
the
history
of
European
theatre.
A
staging procedure
shapes
the
whole
of
Shakespeare's
The
Tempest
(1610-1611)
and Calder?n
de
la
Barca's
La
vida
es
sue?o
(1635).
In
these
two
examples,
the
staging
of
a
deceit
at
the
expense
of
characters,
a
deceit
carried
out
through
the
use
of
intoxicating
and
sleep-inducing
substances,
has
theatri
cal characteristics
and
invites the audience
to
reflect
on
the
expe
rience of
viewing
and
perceiving
reality,
with
a
playful
thrust
in
The
Tempest,1
and
with
ethical
implications
in
Calder?n,
where
the
reference
to
theatricality
is
spelt
out
as a
message
on
'true nature'
vs.
appearances
which is shared with the
public.2
The
plot
of
Shakespeare's
The
Tempest
commences
when
King
Alonso of
Naples
and his
entourage
sail home
for
Italy.
They
encounter
a
violent
storm,
which
washes
everyone
ashore
on
a
1
E.g.,
Gonzalo
fantasises
he
were
the
king
of
the
island,
and how
he
would
gov
ern
it:
?I'th'
commonwealth
I
would
by
contraries
execute
all
things...?,
trying
to
recreate
a
?golden
age?
ambient:
?no
kind
of
traffic
would
I
admit,
no
name
of
mag
istrate
...
all
things
in
common nature
should
produce,
without
sweat
or
endeavour?,
ili; etc.).2
E.g., Segismundo:
?the
world,
in
short,
is
where
men
dream
/ the
different
parts
that
they
are
playing?
(p.
168),
but
all
the
same
?...this
is
a
dream,
and
I
must
do
/what
good
I
can
when
even
in
/
his
dreams
such
goodness
is
not
lost
/
upon
a
man?.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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40
Chiara
Thumiger
strange island inhabited by themagician Prospero who has delib
erately
conjured
up
the
storm.
Prospero
is
the
rightful
Duke of
Milan and has
dwelled
on
the
enchanted islewith
his
daughter,
Mi
randa,
for
twelve
years
after
his
brother
Antonio,
and
Alonso,
the
King
of
Naples, conspired
to
usurp
his throne.
They
had
set
Pros
pero
and Miranda adrift
in
a
boat,
and
they
had
eventually
found
themselves marooned
on
the island.
Prospero
and
Miranda live
in
a cave on
the
island which
is
also
inhabited
by
Ariel,
a
spirit
who
carries
out
the
bidding
of
Prospero,
and
the
half human Caliban.
Various plots against themain characters are tried in the course
of the
play,
but
fail
thanks
to
the
magic
of
Prospero;
the
play
ends
with all
the
plotters
repenting,
as
the
tempest
is
calmed.
Many
theatrically
active
elements
are
present
here:
Prosperous
'authorial'
figure, directing
the
story
through
sorcery
and enchant
ments,
Ariel's
'special
effects'
and
the characters'
sleep
induced
at
the
right
moments,
the
setting
on
an
enchanted
island,
secluded
from
the 'real
world'.
We
find
clear
references
to
the work
of
a
poet
in
the
closing
lines
(?now
my
charms
are
all
o'erthrown?,
says Prospero,
?...but
release
me
from
my
bands/with
the
help
of
your
good
hands
?,
with
reference
to
clapping
at
the end of
a
show).
Also
in
La
vida
es
sue?o
a
'mastermind',
King
Basilio,
directs
the
creation
of
a
parallel
world
to serve
his
own
purposes.
Here
the
engagement
between audience
and
spectacle
broadly
proposes
a
reflection
on
the
deceiving
quality
of
appearances,
and
on
the
ca
ducity
of human
life.
King
Basilio has
locked his
son
Segismundo
in
a
tower
for the first
twenty
years
of his
life,
in
order
to
escape
a
grim
prophecy
that
his
son
would become the
ruin
of
his
coun
try and his own father.
Segismundo
is
kept
unaware of his condi
tion
as
a
prince;
when
he
reaches
the
age
of
twenty
his
father
the
king
decides
to
give
him
a
chance
to come
out
of his
prison
and
prove
his
character.
Segismundo
is
admitted
into
the
royal
court,
but
under
the
effect
of
drugs
that
make
him
live
the
experience
as
a
dream.
In
this
way,
in
case
something unexpected
occurred,
he
could be
returned
to
the
tower
and
remain
convinced that
noth
ing
has
really
happened.
Illusion
and
hallucination
caused
by
drugs
are
the
practical
expedient
to
test
Segismundo's
nature;
but
they
become the symbol of how true nature defies appearances, and
prophecies
disguise
instead of
revealing
the
truth
about
human be
ings.
King
Basilio's
solution
to
avoid the
prophecy,
paradoxically,
has
had the
result
of
accomplishing
it
instead,
initially
turning
the
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 34/51
On
ancient
and
modern
(meta)theatres
41
secluded prince into the beast and the resentful, dangerous crea
ture
the
prophecy
had
(wrongly)
envisaged.
The motif
of
mirroring
and
doubling
is
used
by
these
play
wrights
to
explore
the
mystery
of human character.
In
the
sec
ond
Act,
Astolfo
meets to
his astonishment
his
former lover
Ro
saura
(under
the
false
name
of
Astrea)
after
long
separation;
he
is
now
courting
another
woman,
Estrella.
He
still
carries
a
portrait
of
Rosaura
hanging
from his
neck,
and
is
required
to
dismiss
it
by
his
jealous
new
lover.
Upon
their
meeting,
prompted by
the
portrait
Rosaura and Astolfo
have
an
exchange
on
the
concept
of
original
and
copy,
person
and
picture,
which
interacts
with
a
reflection
on
the
deeper
discontinuities
between
appearances
and
truth:
For
although
a
feigned
resemblance
/
Eyes
and voice and
tongue
might
try/
Ah,
the truthful
heart would
tremble,
/
And
expose
the
lie';
and
again,
Astolfo
to
Rosaura-Astrea,
on
Princess
Estrellaos
wish
to
receive
the
portrait
of
Rosaura:
Tell
the
Princess,
then,
Astrea,
/ That
I
so es
teem
her
message,
/That
to
send
to
her
a
copy
/
Seems
to
me so
slight
a
present,
/
How
so
highly
it
is
valued
/
By
myself,
I
think
it
better
/
To
present the
original,
And you easilymay present it,Since, inpoint of fact,
you
bring
it/ ith
you
in
your
own
sweet
person
.
he
baroque
motif
of
life
s
play
and
dream
is
made
explicit
in
the famous
monologue
of
Segis
mundo
at
the
beginning
of the
play,
What
is
life?
A
frenzy
/ hat
is
life?
An
illusion,
/A
shadow,
a
fiction,
/And the
greatest
profit
is
small;
/
For
all of
life
is
a
dream,
/And
dreams,
are
nothing
but dreams
?.
This
?play
metaphor?,
and wider
reflections
on
representation
and
duplication
?seem
to
have
been
one
of the characteristics
of the
[Elizabethan]
period?.1
As
Righter
points
out,
the
uses
of
stage
metaphors ?were so common as to become, inmany instances,
almost
automatic,
an
unconscious
trick of
speech?.2
It is
not
surprising
that
in
the
twentieth
century
this form
of
'metatheatricaF
instances has had
an
impact
unseen
before.
In
some
way
this
expresses
a
distinctive
quality
of
our
time,
as
the
1
On these
motifs
as
characterising
the
theatrical
production
in
the
so-called
Span
ish
siglo
de
oro
the
seventeenth
century
(with
Lope
de
Vega,
Pedro
Calder?n de la
Barca,
Cervantes
among
the
most
distinguished
representatives)
see
Fisher-Lichte
2002,
pp.
80-85.
2
Righter
1962,
p.
83. See also Fisher-Lichte 2002,
p.
54 on how ?the confrontation
with the
opposition
between
appearance
and
reality
provoked
a
growing
awareness
of
the
relativity
of
human
perception?
in
the
philosophical
milieu
in
the
Elizabethan
period.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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42
Chiara
Thumiger
metaphor becomes a more radical, existentialist questioning of
the
boundaries
of what
we
perceive
as
being
real.
In
Genet's The
Balcony
(1957)
we
find
a
brothel
where
workers and
clients
are
in
volved
in
a
game
of
transvestism
and
mirrors
directed
by
a
demi
urgic
?madam Irma?.
The
status
of
the
reality
outside
the brothel
is
ultimately
questioned
and
the
staging
and
acting
process
are
highlighted;
empty
social
conventions
mirror
the
expedients
of
theatre
and vice
versa,
and the real
world
outside results
in
being
falser than
the
one
inside.
Copy
and
original
are
played
with: ?it's
the plumber leaving?? ?which one?? ?the real one? ?the one who
repairs
the
taps?
?is
the
other
one
fake??
and
so
on.
In
Beckett's
Krapp7s
last
tape
(1958),
the
mirroring
item is
the
tape
recorded
by
Krapp
years
before,
when he
was
thirty-nine,
and
endlessly
re-lis
tened
to.
At
the
beginning
of
Stoppard's
Rosenkrant^
and
Guilden
stern are
Dead
(1966),
we
find
a
playful
scene
with the
two
sides of
three
coins,
and with
the
concept
of
doubling
and
reproducibility
where
Guildenstern
announces:
?I
am
the
essence
of
a
man
spin
ning
double-headed
coins,
and
betting
against
himself
in
private
atonement
for
an
unremembered
past? (10-11). Seeing
and
percep
tion
are
central
in
other
works
of Beckett
too. In
Happy
Days
(1961)
we
find
Winnie's
attempts
to attract
Willie's
attention,
and
craving
for
the
?happy
days
when there
are
sounds?,
and her final
accusa
tions
to
him
that he
is
?deaf and
dumb?
(58);
there
is
themotif of
sleep,
eyes
and
eyesight,
blindness,
visibility,
obscurity,
and watch
ing
through spyglass
in
Endgame
(1957).
The
scenario
itself offers
from
the
start
an
identity
between
life,
or
rather
man
and
stage,
the
act
of
perceiving
and
the
object
of
perception:
?A
bare interior
...
left
and
right
back,
high
up,
two
small
windows,
curtains
drawn
... centre, in an armchair on castors, covered with an old sheet,
Hamm?:
a
setting
which
may
be
seen
to
reproduce
the
inside of
a
human
head,
with
two
eyes
shut
on
the world
outside,
a
world
screened
from
the
sight
of the
actors
as
much
as
it is
to
the
audi
ence,
who
are
gazing
at
it
through
from
the back
of
an
imaginary
head. The
central
actor,
Hamm
(a
helpless
'ham'?)
is
covered
with
'an
old
sheet',
a
personalized,
down-sized
stage-curtain,
which
will
return
at
the
end of the
play,
as
he
covers
his
head with
a
hand
kerchief
to
signpost
the
'end' of
the
drama,
reducing
the limits of
representation even further through this 'no longer seeing', rather
than
the 'no
longer
being
seen'
that
the
curtains
usually
effect
at
the
end of
theatrical
performances.
In
Waiting
for
Godot
(1948)
Poz
zo
becomes
blind
in
the
second
act,
and the
audience
are
alluded
to
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 36/51
On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
43
as ?those people spying on us ... hallucinations?, with Pozzo's final
outburst
on
the
absurdity
of
time
and
existence
expressed, again,
as
annihilation of
perception:
?one
day,
is
that
not
enough
for
you,
one
day
like
any
other
day,
one
day
he
went
dumb,
one
day
I
went
blind,
one
day
well
go
deaf,
one
day
we were
born,
one
day
we
shall die...?.
The
motifs
of
sleep
and dream
as
alternatives
or
challenge
to
reality
are
also
important.
Sleep,
a
recurrent
image
for
death,
loss
of
consciousness,
or
fictional
delusion
is
staged
and often
longed
for. Both in La vida
es
sue?o (sleep is crucial
to
Segismundo^ decep
tion
154-155)
and the
Tempest
(as
part
of
Prosperous
arts),
sleep
is
akin
to
intoxication and
madness
in
mimicking
theatrical
illusion.
In
Waiting
for
Godot
Estragone
and
Vladimir
talk
over
Lucky
while
he
sleeps
(e.g.,
93),
and
in
Stoppard's
play
Rosencrantz
observes
that death
is
like
?being asleep
in
a
box?
(52).
Narcotics
and alco
hol
as
instruments
of delusion
appear
everywhere
in
the works
quoted:
from the
drugged Segismund
of
Calder?n
s
play,
to
the
Tempest's
Stefano,
Caliban and
Trinculo,
to
Beckett's various char
acters,
to
Ionesco's
drunks,
to
Chantal's
penchant
for
alcohol
in
The
Balcony.
As
madness and
intoxication
become the lever for reflection
on
and
understanding
of
an
objective
level of
reality,
the
mind and
mental life
as
expressed
through
verbal
utterances
are
often
ques
tioned.
In
Ionesco's
Rhinoceroses,
the relativisation
of
mental
san
ity
and of
reason as
Cartesian
proofs
of
existence
undermines
the
status
of the
events
going
on
in
the
play.
Berenger:
?It
would
have
never
entered
my
mind ?
-
Jean:
?You
have
no
mind ?
(15).
'Mad'
as
idiomatic
for
wrong
or
misjudged
is
abundant
-
for
example
Daisy,
on being acknowledged that she was
telling
the truth, exclaims
banally:
?So
you
see,
I'm
not
mad after all ?
(43).
The notion of
normality
is
questioned:
?who
can
say
where
the
normal
stops
and
the abnormal
begins?
Can
you
personally
define these
concepts
of
normality
and
abnormality?))
(84).
In
modern
cinema
this last Absurdist'
use
of the 'metatheatrical'
element
is
the
most
popular
one,
as
it
obviously
strikes
a
sensitive
chord
in
modern
audiences
-
reality
as
construction
or
illusion
is
a
contemporary
fixation. Three
movies
show
this
in
a
conspicu
ous
way.
In
Wachowsky's
Matrix
(1999)
certain human
beings
re
alise
they
are
living
in
a
fictional,
digital
reality
created
by
superior
creatures
who
aim
at
enslaving
humanity;
in
Amen?bar's
Abre
los
Ojos
(1997)
the
cryonic sleep
of
the
main
character
creates
a se
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 37/51
44
Chiara
Thumiger
ries of parallel worlds inwhich his mind is lost, and he is unable
to
regain
his
true
self.
Finally,
the
alienation of
our
modern
lives
reduced
by
pervasive
media
to
a
pre-arranged
spectacle
is
at
the
core
in
Weir's The
Truman Show
(1998),
where
a
Prospero-like
me
dia
genius,
Mr.
Christof,
has
organised
and
managed
a
monstrous
reality
show,
the life of
Truman
Burbank,
consecrated from
birth
to
be
an
unwitting
actor
on
television.
One
day
he revolts
against
the
monotony
and
desperation
of
his
spectacularised
life and
fi
nally
manages
to
escape,
having
survived
an
artificially
induced
storm reminiscent of the Tempest's opening: but the storm ishere
emptied
of
any
ludic
or
constructive
quality,
and
offers
a
power
ful
image
of
the sadistic
obstinacy
of Christofs mediatic
master
mind.
In
fact,
the
difference between
wise,
joyful
and
hedonistic
Prospero
and the
hardened
and
cynical
Christof
seems
to
offer
a
good
illustration
of
the
two
different
qualities
of 'metatheatrical'
reference
in
Elizabethan
or
Baroque
theatre,
and
in
the
concerns
of the
twentieth
century.
On
the
other
hand,
a
Brechtian
use
of
the
epic
device
in
cinema
is
Woody
Allen
s
comedy
Melinda and Melinda
(2004),
where
the
main
events,
the
story
of
a
troubled
New York
woman
who
returns
to
the
city
after
having disappeared
for
a
few
months,
are
made
the
object
of
conversation
by
a
group
of
friends
in
a
restaurant.
One
of
the diners
sees
Melinda's
story
as
the
script
for
a
tragedy;
another,
as
material
for
a
comedy.
The
movie
proceeds
in
re-enact
ing
two
versions
of the
story
of
Melinda,
along
each of
the
two
paths
in
order
to
show,
at
the
end
(paraphrasing
a
character's
line),
that 'our
tears
of
joy
and
tears
of
sorrow are one
and
the same'.
The
alienating
frame,
the
conversation in
the
restaurant,
guides
the viewer's
participation
in the
unfolding
drama towards a more
aware,
newly
scrutinised
moral and
emotional
engagement.1
1
In
this
example
the
play
with the
knowledge
of,
and
expectations
from
genres
held
by
the
public
is
a
'meta-theatrical' feature
that invites
specifically
a
scrutiny
of
the
audience's
emotional
and
intellectual
exigencies
and
availability
With
the
obvi
ous
distinctions,
compare
Brecht
on
the
opposition
between
?
dramatic
th??tre?
(i.e.
bourgeois,
nineteenth-century
theatre)
and
?epic
th??tre?: ?The dramatic theatre's
spectator
says:
Yes,
I
have felt like that
too
-
Just
like
me
-
It's
only
natural
-
It'll
never
change
-
The
sufferings
of
this
man
appal
me,
because
they
are
inescapable
-
That's
great
art;
it
all
seems
the
most
obvious
thing
in
the
world
-1
weep
when
theyweep,
I
laugh
when
they laugh.
The
epic
theatre's
spectator says:
I'd
never
have
thought
it
-
That's
not
the
way
-
That's
extraordinary,
hardly
believable
-
It's
got
to
stop
-
The suf
ferings
of
this
man
appal
me,
because
they
are
unnecessary
-
That's
great
art;
nothing
obvious
in it -1
laugh
when
they
weep,
I
weep
when
they laugh
?
(p.
71).
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 38/51
On
ancient
and
modern
(meta)theatres
45
This overview of the motif of seeing, perceiving and its failure
shows how
elements of
'metatheatrical'
glossary
may
have differ
ent
outcomes,
as
well
as
different
ideologies
underlying
them. This
variation
depends
on
the
type
of
engagement
between
audience
and
spectacle
that
is
determined
in
each
instance.
Seeing, perceiv
ing,
and
understanding
are
in
themselves
important
aspects
of hu
man
life,
activities
that
exist in
their
own
terms;
whether
they
may
acquire
an
existential
thrust
engendering
considerations about the
validity
of
a
notion
of
reality
depends
on
how
they
are
used
in
the
theatrical syntax of each play. Preoccupation about these aspects
of
the
human
experience
is
arguably
specific
to
Western
civilisa
tion;1
theatre
engages
with them
in
different
ways,
hardly
reduc
ible
to
a
unifying
pattern.
2.1.
4.
Metalingual
references
Engagement
between audience and
spectacle
is
also enhanced
by
metalingual
instances
-
i.e.,
instances
in
which
language
refers
to
itself,
exposing
its
artificiality,
its
provisionality
the failure
or
hin
drance of its communicative purpose. Possibly any utterance, even
in
everyday
discourse,
must
refer
to
itself
to
some
extent,
which
makes this
item
problematic
to
isolate;
in
theatre,
however,
insis
tence
on
utterance,
on
'the
words',
is
heightened by
comparison
to
every-day
speech,
just
as
the
emphasis
on
gesturing
and
visual
as
pects
is.
This
insistence
responds
to
the
necessities
imposed
by
the
theatrical
medium;
it
is
a
way
of
holding
the
action
and the
mutual
plausibility
of characters
together,
to
remind
spectators
and
actors
of
words
previously
spoken,
to
maintain
the
dialogic,
'dramatic'
quality
of the
text.
In
dramatic
practice,
the
metalingual might
comprise
references
to
one's
inability,
or
prohibition,
or
willingness
to
talk;
reference
to
the
style,
appropriateness
or
effectiveness
of
the
others'
speech;
general
awareness
of
tropes
or
other
imagery
on
the
part
of characters
using
them,
or
implied
for
the audience.
These
textual
elements
are
pervasive
in
tragedy,
a
genre
which
'puts language
in
the
middle',2
with
its
dangerous
power
and
its
1
See
Hornby
1986,
p.
180:
?as
I
began
to
explore
the theme of
perception
inWest
ern
drama,
I
became
impressed
by
how
it
recurs.
Husserl
saw
this
very
conflict
as a
"crisis"
in
Western
society,
as
there seemed
a
widening
gap
between
the
objective
formulations
of
science and the
subjective
world
in
which
we
live. This
gap
goes
back
to
the
ancient
Greeks,
however,
who invented
the
scientific
method
?.
2
Goldhill
1997,
p.
145:
?the
way
in
which
"language
is
a
sort
of
instructive
way
to
organize
reality"
(Pi.
Cratylus
388bi3)
is
a
shared
fixation of
the
intellectual
activity
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 39/51
46
Chiara
Thumiger
contradictions, and which uses a number of features, such as the
'messenger
speech',
or
passages
of
rhesis
in
which
long
sections
are
uttered
by
the
same
character
and
the
acts
of
reporting
and
persuasion
are
at
the
centre.
First,
there
are
recurring
motifs fore
grounding
speech
and communication
per
se.
Lack
of
freedom
of
speech
in
front of
a
king
is
repeatedly
evoked,
and
so
is
the
unreli
ability
of
speech:
examples
are
the
messenger's
reluctance
in
front
of
Pentheus
in
the
Bacchae
(at
671,
where
a
servant
does
not
dare
speak
freely,
in
part
because of
Pentheus' ,
'sharp'
and
royal nature) and Sophocles' (300-462), the exchange between
Oedipus
and
Tiresias,
where
the
seer
has
a
most
unwelcome
mes
sage
to
deliver and
is
challenged
by
the
king's
proud
temper.
In
both
examples
the
use
of
'authority'
on
the
part
of
two
(seem
ingly) unwitting
characters
to
repress,
or
control
communication
-
two
elements of
characterisation,
internal
to
the
drama
-
interact
with the
theatrical
level,
mimicking
the
position
of
the
audience,
their
access to
information,
restricted
as
it
is
to
the
utterances
of
characters,
and the
importance
of
their
availability
to
hear.
Then,
especially
in
Euripides,
we
can
also find
a
number of
'apologetic'
phatic
expressions,
which
may
seem
at
first
sight
to
aim
at
likelihood and
linguistic
naturalism. This
is
the
case
when
the
herdsman
introduces
into his
narrative
the
indirect
speech
of
a
third
character,
at
Bacchae
717:
he
defines
him
in
advance
as
a
a
'
a
a
?
,
?
one
who
often
comes
to
the
city
and
is
ready
with words
?,
as
if
to
?
apologise
?
for the
ensu
ing
fluent
idiom,
which would
not
be
naturalistically
plausible
if
applied
to
himself This remark
both
prepares
the on-looker for
the
conventionality
of
a
messenger
speech,
and adds
plausibility
to the
following
passage. Likewise, we may mention Hecuba's
cue
in
Euripides'
Troades
686-687:
the
queen
apologises
for
using
a
conventional nautical simile
to
express
her
turmoil,
as
she,
being
a
woman,
would
not
be
supposed
to
have
a
direct
experience
of
ships
and
sailing:
a
e a
e
?
a
,
/
a
'
a
a
'
e
,
a a
?I
have
never
boarded
a
ship
myself,
but
I
know
having
seen,
and from what
I've
heard?.
Again,
the remark
exposes
a
non-naturalistic
element,
the
use
of
analogic
imagery
at
an
emotionally charged
time;
at
the
same
time,
it
makes
itplausible within the portrayal of the character. The double effect
of
the
classical
city
...
democracy
prided
itself
on
putting
matters
es
meson,
'into the
public
domain
to
be
contested'.
Tragedy
puts
language
itself
es mes?n?.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 40/51
On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
47
of these instances isdue to the problems implicit in the concept of
'realism',
as we
have
seen.
Whether
a
metalingual
instance
func
tions
as a
reminder of
fictionality
or,
on
the
contrary,
as an
element
of
plausibility
depends
also
on
the
expectations
played
out
in
the
audience-spectacle relationship.
In
the
tragic
genre
this
expectation
is
obviously
different from
that
implied
of,
say,
nineteenth-century
audiences;
and within the
tragic
genre,
it
changes
from
Aeschylus
to
Euripides
in
a
way
that
is
visible
in
the idiom of
the
two
authors;
this
explains
our
Euripidean examples
in
terms
of
a
search for
a
more convincing, characterised style.
Then,
we
could
mention insistence
on
the
power
of
words.
In
Bacchae,
for
instance,
the
opposition
between the
king
and
Diony
sus' 'seduction'
is
centred
on
the
power
of verbal
persuasion,
devel
oping
from
Pentheus'
diffidence
to
Dionysus'
words
to
his
falling
under their
spell.
Pentheus
appears
baffled and
bewildered
by
Dio
nysus'
utterances.
At
475
Pentheus
sneers,
e
'
e
?
e a
(?you
have counterfeited
it
well?);
at
479
he
says
to
the
god
'
a a e a
,
e
'
(?again
you
have diverted
this
matter,
speaking cleverly
and
saying nothing?);
at
489,
he takes
the
stranger
to
be
using
low
?sophistries?
(
a
a
);
at
491,
he finds him
?not
untrained
in
words?
(
a
a
),
and
at
650
he attacks his
enemy
as
?
always
introducing
strange
Statements?
(
a
e
a
ae
),
Statements
which
prove
him
to
be
dangerously
?clever?
(
,
655),
and
preparing
a
trap
for
him
(
'
e
a
a,
?now
this
is
a
trick
you
are
devising
against
me?,
805).
A
few
lines later Pentheus
will
again
comment
on
the
god's
words,
now
to
express
his
approval
and
consent,
with
an
ironic
effect:
at
818 a a e a a e (?what you say is
right?),
and at 824
e
'
e
a a
'
e
a
a
(?what
you say
is
right
again
How
clever
you
are,
and
have
been all
along ?).
His
final defeat
is
entirely
determined
by
the
effect that these
words
have
had
on
him
to
convince
him
of
a
certain
'version
of
reality.
The focus
on
words
is
also linked
to
a
focus
on
intellectual
and
moral value
:
ord
play
on
sophia
and all
it
may
entail,
from
clever
ness
and
sophistry,
deceit
to true
wisdom,
is
pervasive
in
the
text
and
connected
to
language
as
vehicle of
communication,
but also
obfuscation of truth.
In
our
examples
from
twentieth-century
theatre
language
is
again
at
the
centre
of
the
dramatic
happening,
but
in
a
completely
different
way.
Mockery
of the rational
power
of
language (logics,
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 41/51
48
Chiara
Thumiger
argument, syllogism...) as instruments of sound communication is
consistently exploited.
In
Genet's The
Balcony,
the
game
of mirror
reflections that
composes
the
stage
is
perpetuated
in
the contradic
tory,
symmetrical
statements
about
reality,
such
as
?the
queen
is
snoring
and
she
is
not
snoring?
?she
is
embroidering
and she
is
not
embroidering?,
and
so
on.
In
Ionesco's
Rhinoceroses
power,
values,
and
language
are
relativised,
and verbal
communication
devalued
altogether:
left
alone
in
a
world of
rhinoceroses,
at
the end of
the
play,
Berenger
laments:
?to
talk
to
them I'd have
to
learn
their
lan
guage. Or they'd have to learn mine. But what language do I speak?
What
is
my
language?
Am
I
talking
French?.. .butwhat
is
French?
I
can
call
it
French if
I
want
and
nobody
can
say
it
isn't
-
I'm
the
only
one
who
speaks
it?.We
find
a
recurrent
devaluation of
logic
and
rationalism
as
empty
display
of
'cleverness',
mainly
embodied
by
the characters of the
Logician
and
Jean.
The
first
claims
that ?fear
must
yield
to
reason?
(io),
practises
syllogisms
in
order
to
extend
the
concept
of
'cat'
starting
from the number of
its
paws
(e.g.,
18-21)
and
uses
the
weapons
of
logic
to
distinguish
one
rhinoceros
from the
other
by
the
number of
its
horns
(28-29,34-35,
85-86).
Jean
blames
Berenger
for
being
?
devoid of
logic
?
(19)
when
he
replies,
to
his:
?I
sometimes
wonder
if
I
exist
myself?:
?you
don't
exist
...
because
you
don't
think. Start
thinking,
then
you
will?.
He
tells
Berenger
to
?use
the
weapons
of
patience
and
culture,
the
weap
ons
of the
mind?
(21,19).
The obsession with
definition
ismocked
continuously,
for
instance
by Berenger:
?lunacy
is
lunacy
and that's
all
there
is
to
it
Everybody
knows what
lunacy
is.
And
what about
the
rhinoceroses
-
are
they
practice
or are
they
theory?
?
(84).
Beckett's
language
is
constantly
tuned
on
repetition
and deter
mines a
emptily
formal communication between characters. The
conventionality
of
language
is
exposed
through
syntactic
means,
through
broken,
almost
monosyllabic
exchanges.1 Stoppard
also
uses
linguistic
impasse.
Guildenstern and
Rosencrantz:
?now
mind
1
Cf.
Endgame (p.
23),
Clov and
Hamm:
?So,
you
all
want
me
to
leave
you??
Natu
rally
?So,
I'll
leave
you?
?You
can't
leave
us?
?Then,
I
shan't leave
you?
-
and
so on.
Waiting
for
Godot,
Vladimir
and
Estragon:
?We
could
start
all
over
again perhaps.
?
?That
should be
easy?
?It's the
start
that
is
difficult))
?You
can
start
from
anything
?
?yes,
but
you
have
to
decide?
?true?
Silence,
?help
me ? ?I'm
trying?
Silence,
?when
you
seek
you
hear?
?you
do?
?that
prevents you
from
finding?
?it
does
that
prevents
you
from
thinking?
?you
think
all
the
same?
?No,
no,
impossible?
?
that's the
idea,
let's
contradict
each
other?
?impossible?
?you
think
so??
?
we're
in
no
danger
of
thinking
any
more?
(pp.
63-64).
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 42/51
On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
49
your tongue, or we'll have it out and throw the rest of you away,
like
a
nightingale
at
a
Roman
feast?
-
took the
very
words
out
of
my
mouth?
-
?you'd
be
lost for
words?
-
?you'd
be
tongue-tied?
-
?like
a
mute
in
a
monologue?
-
?like
a
nightingale
at
a
Roman
feast?
-
?your
diction
will
go
to
pi?ces?
-
?your
lines will be
cut? ?to
dumb
shows?
-
?and
dramatic
pauses?
-
?
you'll
never
find
your
tongue
?
-
?lick
your
lips?
-
?taste
your
tears?
-
?your
breakfast?
-
?you
won
t
know the diff?rence?
-
?there
won
t
be
any?
-
?we'll take
the
very
words
out
of
your
mouth?
-
?so
you
Ve
caught
up?
(46).
The metalingual function, in summary, is inherent in human
verbal
communication,
and
as
such
it is
foregrounded
and
inten
sified
in
theatrical communication.
The
ideology
conveyed by
the
device, however,
depends
on
the
type
of
complicity
which
is
created
between
audience
and
spectators:
in
tragedy,
such refer
ences are
intertwined with the conventions of
the
genre,
and
may
reinforce
plausibility,
as
we
have
seen,
or
problematise
values,
or
expose
the
dangers
and
import
of
rhetoric
and debates
as
part
of civic life.
In
our
twentieth-century
examples,
instead,
the
aim
appears
to
be
a
questioning
of the
status
of
reality
and of the
pos
sibilities
of
representation,
with
an
alienating
and
defamiliarising
effect.
2.1.
5.
Narratological
facts1
Plot
structure
is
an
element which
conveys
a
rhythm
of existence
which
is
different
from
that of
every-day
life,
and
may
invite inter
action
between
audience
and
spectacle.
At
stake here is
not
only
a
generally
conceived
undermining
of
naturalism,
problematic
as
it
is
to
define.
We
can
define the
narratologic qualities
of
the
'meta
theatrical',
or more
broadly,
of the
'meta-fictional'
in
these
terms:
lack
of closure and loss of authorial
control,
improvising,
over
plotting
as
well
as
under-plotting,
a
generally ?parodie,
playful,
excessive
or
deceptively
na?ve
style
of
writing?;2
narrative
struc
turing
that
conveys
a
?Chinese
box?
effect,3
and
a
play
with
the
different frames
or
narrative
levels
(metalepsis).4
1
By
?narratological
facts
?
I
mean
here the
quality
of
the
plot,
of
the
dramatic
action,
rather
than the
technical
analysis
of
the different
voices
and
viewpoints
ex
pressed
in
a text.
2
In
Waugh's
terms,
1984,
p.
2.
3 For
instance,
as listed
by Hornby
1986:
play-within-the-play,
ceremonies-within
the-play,
role-playing
within-the-role. Dobrov
2001
analyses
similar instantiations
of
'metatheatre' under ?surface
play?,
mise
en
ab?me and ?counterfact?.
4
Defined
by
Genette
1972, 2004.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 43/51
50
Chiara
Thumiger
It is interesting to notice that our ancient, Elizabethan and Ba
roque
examples
do
not
apply
here:
in
all
these
a
strong
sense
of
'a
story'
being
told,
of
beginning
and
end,
is
maintained:
the
events
going
on
are
important.
The
undermining
of the
plot
and the
over
coming
of
the
need for
-
or
the
possibility,
even
-
of
ca
story'
is
specific
to
the
twentieth-century.
A
quick
glance
at
our
examples
from
Beckett, Ionesco,
Pirandello
and
Genet
reveals
character
istically
weak,
nonsensical
and
static
plots,
where
no
beginning,
catastrophe
and
clear
conclusion
are
there
to
be
found,
and the
lack of a substance and a consistency in the story appears to be
a
fundamental motif
per
se.
In
Ionesco's
Rhinoceroses the themes
of
appearance,
outside
reality
and the
existence
of
a
world alto
gether
are
at
the
core
and invalidate
the
plot
from
the
start.
The
main event
-
the
invasion/epidemics
of
rhinoceroses
in
town
-
is
equal
to
a
hallucination
or a
detachment
from
reality
and the
plot
is
simply
a
description
of
the
various
(in)abilities
to
deal with
this
change.
In
Beckett's
Happy Days,
Endgame,
Waiting
for
Godot and
Krapp's
Last
Tape
we
find
the
representation
of
an
absurd and static
world,
where the
staff of
a
show
-
words, visibility,
communica
tion,
appearance,
motion,
time
-
are
withdrawn
and
the
ultimate
loneliness
of human
beings
is
left
to
speak
for itself
There
is
no
change
in
scenarios,
no
beginning
or
end: the
drama
appears
to
be
a
randomly
picked
segment
of
what,
one
would
think,
is
a
nonsen
sical
stream
of
empty
existence.
2.
.
6.
Features
of
characterisation
The
way
character
is
constructed
and
references
to
selfhood
can
also invite
a
reflection
on
the distance between audience and spec
tacle,
played,
as
it
is,
on
identification
and
the
staging
of
identities.
Abel
spoke
of
Hamlet
as
a
?metatheatrical
character))
in
his
being
characterised
by improvisation,
transparency,
fragility
and
?
dream
like
melancholy?.
More
generally,
metatheatrical characters
?show
themselves
to
be
aware
of
being
on
a
stage?;
their
?
dramatic
life
has
been
already
theatricalized,
but
they
do
not
know the
kind
of
plot
in
which
they
are
engaged)).1
There
are
difficulties,
again,
in
identifying
such
features
with
a
definite,
fixed
effect:
life
is
by
itself
theatricalised;
characters
by
definition
ignore
the
plot
they
are
en
1
As in
Rosenmeyer
2002,
p.
88
on
Abel
1963.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 44/51
On ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
51
gaged in; finally, 'knowing' is an elusive activity in the space that
separates
audience
and
spectacle,
as
we
have
seen.
The
representation
of
character,
in
fact,
works
in
specific
ways
in
such
a
space.
Though
characters
displaying
Hamletic features of
doubt,
impasse
and self-reflectiveness
are
inconceivable
for
ancient
tragedy,
the difference
is
surely
one
of overall
representation
of
self and
expectation
from
a
literary
character,
rather
than variation
in
degrees
of
'meta-theatricality'.1
Here
too,
our
twentieth-cen
tury
examples ought
to
be
singled
out.
As
was
the
case
for
nar
ratological elements, characters in Elizabethan and Baroque the
atre
remain
within
the
requirements
of traditional
construction,
fundamentally
informed
by
naturalism and human
plausibility.
From
Pirandello
onwards, however,
the
requirements
of
a
suppos
edly
'rounded'
character
are
challenged.2
In
his
Six
Characters,
in
Beckett's
plays,
in
Genet's
masks and
in
Lorca
or
Stoppard's
re
elaboration of
literary figures
we
see
a
systematic
undermining
of
humanistic
characterisation,
at
varying degrees,
whereby
the
very
concept
and
legitimacy
of character is
at
stake.
Identity
and
the
self
are
questioned
in
a
philosophical
sense,
urging
the audience
to
restrain from
identification, and,
in
fact,
making
identification
impossible.
The
'puppet-like'
characters
of
The
Balcony
expose
the
fictitiousness
of
their roles. The
bishop:
?Do
I
make
myself
clear,
mirror,
gilded
image,
ornate as
a
box
of
Mexican
cigars?
And
I
wish
to
be
bishop
in
solitude,
for
appearance
alone...
?;
the
judge:
?look
here:
you've
got
to
be
a
model thief
if
I
have
to
be
a
model
judge.
1
True,
much
has
been
written
about
the
relationship
between the
Shakespear
ean
Hamlet and the
tragic
Orestes,
starting
from
Murray's
1914
essay,
and
continuing
with the Freudian
interpretation
of the
relationship
between
son
and father
figure
in
both
myths.
We
cannot
explore
the
connection
here
(see
however
Paduano
2007
for
a
subtle and
updated
discussion).
What
concerns
us
here is the
characterisation
of
the
tragic
Orestes
and
that
of the
Shakespearean
hero
:
though
impasse
and
doubt
characterises the
Euripidean
Orestes
too
(in
Electro,
and
Orestes)
the
focus of the
psy
chology
and
inaction
of
the Danish hero
in
not
imaginable
in
ancient
drama:
in
Pad
uano's words
?Shakespeare
...
gives
dramatic substance
to
the
shadows of
subjective
phantasmagoria
?,
which
in
Euripides
was
but
a
hint
(2007,
41)?
2
Again,
I
do
not
wish
to
sum
up
twentieth-century
theatre
in
a
rigid
formula:
just
as
Brecht's
'metatheatre'
is
deeply
different
from
that of
Pirandello
or
the
Absurdists
in
other
respects,
so
there
are
examples
of 'metatheatrical'
twentieth-century
charac
terisation
which
are
'rounded'
and
naturalistic
(most
notably,
Thornton Wilder's
Our
Town,
1937,
where
a
stage-director
introduces each of
the three
acts,
and the life of
individual characters
unfolding
over a
period
of thirteen
years).
All the
same,
it is fair
to
say
that
most
twentieth
century
'metatheatrical'
works
depart
from
naturalism
in
the
representation
of
characters,
as
much
as
they
do
shrink
away
from consistent
and
self-enclosed
plots.
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
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52
Chiara
Thumiger
Ifyou're a fake thief, Ibecome a fake judge ?; and so on. At the end
of
Ionesco's
Rhinoceroses,
the
main
character
is
lost
in
a
game
of
reflecting
mirrors,
hanging
pictures
and rhinoceroses' heads:
?peo
pie
who
hang
on
to
their
individuality always
come
to
a
bad
end ?;
in
Endgame,
characters
are
self-referentially
aware
of their
nature
as
'stories',
Clov
and
Hamm:
?Oh,
by
the
way, your
story??
?What
story??
?the
one
you've
been
telling yourself
all
your
...
days?.
?Ah
you
mean
my
chronicle??
?That's the
one?.
In
Waiting
for
Godot,
Vladimir and
Estragone
react
thus
to
Pozzo's
cries for
help:
?But
at this place, at thismoment of time, all mankind is us, whether
we
like
it
or
not.
Let
us
make the
most
of
it,
before
it
is
too
late
Let
us
represent
worthily
for
once
the
foul
brood
to
which
a
cruel
fate
consigned
us
What do
you
say?
[...]
It
is
true
thatwhen with
folded
arms
we
weigh
the
pros
and
cons we are
no
less
a
credit
to
our
species...?.
In
these
twentieth-century
characters
we
also
notice
a
general
poverty
of
substance,
sometimes achieved
through
a
frivolous
abundance of
detail
(the
empty
idiosyncrasy
of Beckett's
human
ity,
the
care
for
appearance
in
Genet's
actors
of the
Balcony).
This
rarefied
rendering
of the human
is
a
reaction
to
the
naturalistic
acting
and characterisation
which
was
the
rule
in
nineteenth-cen
tury
theatre.
In
Pirandello and
Absurdist authors
this refusal
of
naturalistic
representation
has
an
existentialist
thrust
-
what
is
at
stake
is
the
very
substance
of the human
self,
which
appears
in
creasingly
elusive and
estranged.
This
same
reaction
takes
a
differ
ent
philosophical
direction
in
Brecht's
loathing
of
the
individual,
as
it
is
denounced
that
?...our
age groans
too
heavily
under
the
weight
of this child of the sixteenth
century
that the nineteenth
fed tomonstrous size ...we are
anonymous
forces.
Individuality
is
an
arabesque
we
have
discarded.
All
the
ominous
events
we
have
been
witnessing
in
the
last twelve
years
are
nothing
but
a
very
awk
ward and
longwinded
way
of
burying
the
concept
of
the
European
individual
in
the
grave
ithas
dug
for itself?.1 Brecht's
intent
was
to
achieve
a
super-moral,
objective
representation
more
true to
hu
manity,
and
capable
of
urging
serious
engagement
and
a
scrutiny
of identification
in
the
audience.
In
the
playwrights
of Absurdism
the
outcome
is
a
more
radical
giving
up
of
the
possibility
of
repre
sentation itself. The root of the two ishowever common, as spelt
1
Hofmannstahl
on
Brecht,
prologue
to
Baal's first
representation
in
Vienna
(1926).
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 46/51
On
ancient
and modern
(meta)theatres
53
out by Artaud, a disenchantment with psychologism and the abil
ity
of words
themselves
to
exhaust the truth
on
human
nature:
?we
must
admit
theatre's
sphere
is
physical
and
plastic,
not
psy
chological?;
and
?any
true
feeling
cannot
in
reality
be
expressed.
To
do
so
is
to
betray
it.To
express
it,
however,
is
to
conceal
it.
True
expression
conceals
what
it
exhibits...
?.1
3.
Conclusions
We
have
argued
that 'metatheatre'
as
an
unquestioned
critical
item
does not do
justice
to the
fluidity
and
liminality
which are inherent
in
the theatrical
experience.
We
have
then
explored
how 'theatre'
is
a
diverse
experience, occupying
different
spaces
and
being
con
stantly
redefined
in
terms
of the
relationship
between audience
and
spectacle, through
history;
from
one
genre
to
the
other;
even
from
one
performance
to
the other.
We
have then
proposed
to
look
at
instances which
are
labelled
as
'metatheatrical'
by
scholar
ship
in
terms
of the
type
of
engagement
they
promote
between
audience
and
spectacle,
rather than
against
a
fixed critical
category,
'metatheatre', which appears to pose more problems than it solves.
We
have then sketched
a
'glossary'
of
audience-spectacle
interac
tion,
in
order
to
illustrate
some
recurrent
features
through
which
theatre
plays
with
the liminal
space
that
separates
the
public
from
the
staged
events
and from the
actors,
proposing
that
even
given
the
same
elements of
'glossary',
'syntactic'
variations
may
produce
very
diverse
results
in
the 'text'
(broadly
intended)
and
its
recep
tion.
1
Artaud
1938, pp. 52-53.
See
also
59:
?this
...
personalism
...
must
come to an
end.
No
more
personal
poems
befitting
those who write
them
more
than
those who
read
them.
Once and for
all,
enough
of these
displays
of
closed,
conceited,
personal
art...
?;
and Wilder
(1937),
against
contemporary
bourgeois
theatre:
?they
loaded the
stage
with
specific
objects,
because
every
concrete
object
on
the
stage
fixes
and
nar
rows
the
action
to
one moment in
time
and
place
...
no
great
age
in
the theatre
ever
attempted
to
capture
the audiences'
belief
through
this
kind
of
specification
and lo
calization
...
such
childish
attempts
to
be "real"?
(p.
xi).
These
voices,
and Artaud's
appeal
against
personalism
and
praise
of
conventional
theatre
cannot
help
but
re
mind,
and
repropose
to
us
Aristotle's
famous
(and
baffling)
remark
about theatrical
(tragic)
characterisation,
that
?
tragedy
is
mimesis
not
of
persons
[a
&
]
but
of
actions and life
[
a
e a
?
]?,
and
that
?the
goal
is
a
certain
kind
of action
[
a
],
not
a
qualitative
state
[
a
]
[determined
by]
characters
[
]?;
so
that,
all
in
all,
?
ithout
action there could
be
no
tragedy,
but without character
there
could
be'
(Poetics
145(^15-24);
and
that
?
poetry
is
more
philosophical
and
higher
than his
tory
?
for
just
that
reason,
that
it
relates
more
of the
universal,
while
history
?relates
particulars))
(Poetics
i45ib6-9).
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8/18/2019 Thumiger, C. (2009) on Ancient Ad Modern (Meta)Theatres Definitions and Practices_MD 63, Pp. 9-58
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thumiger-c-2009-on-ancient-ad-modern-metatheatres-definitions-and-practicesmd 47/51
54
Chiara
Thumiger
It is
always
unsafe to sum up 'ancient'
against
'modern ,a sup
posed
'simplicity'
and
clarity
of ancient
theatre
versus
a
'fin
de
si?
cle'
decadent,
disengaged
outlook
as
specific
to
contemporary
pro
ductions.
Some
of the
diversity
within modern
Western
theatrical
experiences
have become
apparent
in
the
course
of this article.
Broadly,
however,
we can
claim that
one
of the distinctive
char
acteristics
of
ancient
theatre
is its
organic
unity,
its
integration
of
landscape
and
stage,
of
festival and
representation,
of
actors
and
chorus.
In
this
context,
the
on-looking
audience
is
urged
to
find
communal responses to the events they are faced with, which tend
to
represent
the
universally
human,
rather than the
idiosyncrati
cally
personal.
At
the other end
of the
spectrum,
the
very
'private'
shock that 'metatheatre'
in
Beckett
or
Ionesco
delivers
appeals
in
stead
to
the
neurosis
of the
modern
on-looker,
who
suspects
the
absurdity
of the world
and,
most
importantly,
relates
to
literary
tradition
only
in
the
isolation of the education
s/he has
received,
and tends
to
enjoy
theatre
mostly
as one
individual's
experience.1
King's
College
London
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