Metatheatre
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The word ‘metatheatre’ was coined by Lionel Abel in 1963 and, although the term has entered into common critical usage, there is still much uncertainty over its proper definition, and what dramatic techniques might be included under its banner. Given its etymology (from the Greek prefix ‘meta’, which implies ‘a level beyond’ the subject that it qualifies), metatheatricality is generally agreed to be a device whereby a play comments on itself, drawing attention to the literal circumstances of its own production, such as the presence of the audience or the fact that the actors are actors, and/or the making explicit of the literary artifice behind the production. Some critics use the term to refer to any play which involves explicit ‘performative’ aspects, such as dancing, singing, or role-playing by onstage characters, even if these do not arise ‘from specifically metadramatic awareness’ ; whereas others condemn its use except in very specific circumstances, feeling that it is too often used to describe phenomena which are simply ‘theatrical’ rather than in any sense ‘meta’.
'Metatheatre' can also include the use of the play within a play, which provides an onstage microcosm of the theatrical situation, and such techniques as the use of parody and burlesque to draw attention to literary or theatrical conventions, and the use of the theatrum mundi trope.
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