205:, fears her humiliation in the theatres of Rome in plays staged to ridicule her, she says: "And I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness in the posture of a whore". While the actor is not necessarily engaged at this point in the direct address of the audience, the reality of the male performer beneath the female character is openly, and comically, acknowledged (qualifying in important ways, supported further in the scene and the play as a whole, the tragic act of her imminent suicide). Metatheatricality of this kind is found in most plays of that period.
307:
audience members and asks them to think of the play as only a dream if it has offended. This relates to the way Bottom rationalizes his experience in the forest as only a dream. These metatheatrical layers suggest that we all inhabit the roles of observer and observed on the worldly stage and that it's possible to dismiss strange experiences as dreams.
360:"Breaking the fourth wall" is any instance in which this performance convention, having been adopted more generally in the drama, is disregarded. The temporary suspension of the convention in this way draws attention to its use in the rest of the performance. This act of drawing attention to a play's performance conventions is metatheatrical.
443:, whom he considers to be the prototypical, metatheatrical, self-referring character. Don Quixote looks for situations of which he wants to be a part, not waiting for life to oblige, but replacing reality with imagination when the world is lacking in his desires. The character is aware of his own theatricality. Khalil-Ghibran's
344:
arch. When a scene is set indoors and three of the walls of its room are presented onstage, the "fourth" of them would run along the line dividing the room from the auditorium (technically called the "proscenium"). The fourth wall is thus an invisible, imagined wall that separates the actors from the
306:
closely parallels
Lysander and Hermia's story, which suggests theirs could have ended tragically. Then Puck, who has broken the fourth wall multiple times to share asides with the audience, steps outside of the action of the play to address the audience directly. His final speech bids farewell to the
164:, characters often adopt a downstage position in close contact with the audience and comment on the actions of others sarcastically or critically, while the other actors assume the convention that the first remains unheard and unseen while so doing. Following the work of Robert Weimann and others,
286:
a year or two earlier on the same stage. Apart from the dramatic linking of the character of Hamlet with the murderer Brutus (foreshadowing Hamlet's murder of
Polonius later in the play), the audience's awareness of the identities of the actors and their previous roles is comically referenced.
425:
employs metatheatrical techniques whereby a makeshift play centered on the vampire legend is viewed from the angle of a spectator who records in his diary the setting and preparations as well as the sequence of the actors' soliloquies interspersed with personal notes on the development of the
363:
A similar effect of metareference is achieved when the performance convention of avoiding direct contact with the camera, generally used by actors in a television drama or film, is temporarily suspended. The phrase "breaking the fourth wall" is used to describe such effects in those media.
438:
in 1963 and has since entered common critical usage. Abel described metatheatre as reflecting comedy and tragedy, at the same time, where the audience can laugh at the protagonist while feeling empathetic simultaneously. Abel relates it to the character of
280:") moment. Within its original performance context, however, there is a more specific, metatheatrical reference. Historians assume that Hamlet and Polonius were played by the same actors who had played the roles mentioned in Shakespeare's
84:
time and place of the drama (the fictional world) and the time and place of its theatrical presentation (the reality of the theatre event); plays-within-plays (or masques, spectacles, or other forms of performance within the drama);
113:
or other situations in which one or several characters observe another or others, such that the former relate to the behaviour of the latter as if it were a staged performance for their benefit.
392:
more generally, metareference in the form of metatheatricality comes to play a far more central and significant role in the modernist theatre, particularly in the work of
72:); expression of an awareness of the presence of the audience (whether they are addressed directly or not); an acknowledgement of the fact that the people performing are
144:
2,500 years ago. One major purpose of this metatheatricality was to keep the spectators away from utter involvement or belief in the development of the plot presented.
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audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes, the actors act as if they cannot. In this sense, the "fourth wall" is a convention of
184:
is localised within the drama such that its characters are absorbed in its fiction and unaware of the presence of the audience; while the
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is a neutral space in close contact with the spectators that exists on the boundary between the fiction and the audience's reality.
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cross breeds the term with the Greek prefix as before, but the poetic undertones covey the familiar feeling of awareness.
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If the only significance of this exchange lay in its reference to characters within another play, it might be called a
678:
657:
635:
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Shakespeare and the
Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function.
353:. It can be created regardless of the presence of any actual walls in the set, or the physical arrangement of the
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William Shakespeare. The New Cambridge Shakespeare Ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1-71.
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to the
Athenian nobles, who openly comment on the performance as it unfolds. The storyline of
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than "breaking the fourth wall" occur in plays by many of the realist playwrights, including
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with the Greek prefix "meta—", which implies "a level beyond" the subject that it qualifies.
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they are playing); an element whose meaning depends on the difference between the
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Metatheatrical devices may include: direct address to the audience (especially in
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or performance space, or the actors' distance from or proximity to the audience.
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Metatheatricality has been a dimension of drama ever since its invention in the
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in particular made frequent use of it (though examples can also be found in
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645:. London: Cranbury; Mississauga: Associated University Press.
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Aspects of a play that draw attention to its nature as a play
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It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
652:
Baltimore and London: The Johns
Hopkins University Press.
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Intelligence and
Metadrama in the Early Modern Theatre.
614:
Metadrama and the
Informer in Shakespeare and Jonson.
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That I did my lord, and was accounted a good actor.
176:(relating to "location" and "place", borrowed from
227:My lord, you played once i'th'university, you say.
665:
607:Tragedy and Metatheatre: Essays on Dramatic Form
290:Another example from Shakespeare is in Act V of
116:The words "metatheatre" and "metadrama" combine
336:". The metaphor suggests a relationship to the
212:, there occurs the following exchange between
49:, or to the circumstances of its performance.
53:is an example of a metatheatrical device.
180:) to describe this performance effect—the
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600:Metatheatre: A New View of Dramatic Form.
328:led to the development of a performance
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609:. New York: Holmes y Meier Publishers.
626:Edwards, Philip. 1985. Introduction.
434:The term "metatheatre" was coined by
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41:that draw attention to its nature as
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643:Drama, Metadrama, and Perception
418:With the People from the Bridge
372:Instances of metatheatricality
320:In the modern era, the rise of
296:. The rude mechanicals present
33:, and the closely related term
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97:, and the frequently employed
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1:
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246:. I was killed i'th'Capitol.
199:in act five of Shakespeare's
93:, theatre, dramatic writing,
37:, describes the aspects of a
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162:early modern English theatre
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623:Edinburgh University Press.
616:Edinburgh University Press.
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10:
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592:
51:"Breaking the Fourth Wall"
628:Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
293:A Midsummer Night's Dream
679:Metafictional techniques
648:Weimann, Robert. 1978.
641:Hornby, Richard. 1986.
237:And what did you enact?
128:In the history of drama
103:all the world's a stage
415:In more recent times,
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76:(and not actually the
605:Abel, Lionel. 2003 .
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684:Self-reflexive plays
619:Angus, Bill. 2018.
612:Angus, Bill. 2016.
598:Abel, Lionel. 1963.
538:Story-within-a-story
202:Antony and Cleopatra
156:Early modern theatre
146:Ancient Greek comedy
109:); scenes involving
101:according to which "
412:, and many others.
567:Edwards (1985, 5).
548:Verfremdungseffekt
533:Show-within-a-show
430:Origin of the term
398:Vsevolod Meyerhold
303:Pyramus and Thisbe
298:Pyramus and Thisbe
191:When the defeated
674:Literary concepts
576:Abel 2003, p.172.
382:August Strindberg
349:, rather than of
195:, performed by a
16:(Redirected from
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355:theatre building
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267:(3.2.95–100).
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503:Metafiction
473:Frame story
468:Fourth wall
441:Don Quixote
436:Lionel Abel
334:fourth wall
82:represented
58:soliloquies
31:Metatheatre
668:Categories
555:References
388:. As with
351:set design
342:proscenium
330:convention
326:naturalism
250:killed me.
240:Polonius:
230:Polonius:
197:boy player
139:theatre of
87:references
78:characters
493:Meta-joke
478:Induction
390:modernism
368:Modernism
340:behind a
193:Cleopatra
70:epilogues
66:prologues
35:metadrama
523:Prologue
508:Metafilm
463:Epilogue
451:See also
260:—
253:Hamlet:
235:Hamlet:
218:Polonius
99:metaphor
593:Sources
322:realism
150:tragedy
118:theatre
47:theatre
656:
634:
384:, and
347:acting
264:Hamlet
248:Brutus
214:Hamlet
210:Hamlet
186:platea
174:platea
91:acting
74:actors
68:, and
62:asides
483:Meta-
458:Aside
374:other
276:(or "
182:locus
170:locus
122:drama
43:drama
654:ISBN
632:ISBN
324:and
216:and
172:and
39:play
421:by
208:In
160:In
152:).
120:or
105:" (
89:to
45:or
670::
408:,
404:,
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660:.
638:.
20:)
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