Theatre Within Theatre

Abstract

The article raises terminological questions relating to theatre within theatre, or the play within a play. This structure has been part of drama since the Renaissance (the oldest example is Fulgens and Lucrece by Henry Medwall, 1512–16), although it was studied theoretically by Joachim Voigt, Erich Proebster, Robert J. Nelson, Jörg H. Kokott and Manfred Schmeling only in the second half of the 20^th century. The main source of discrepancy is the difference posed by understanding a play within a play in either its wider or narrower sense. This syntagm binds to itself any perception of a play, not only that in the theatre. The author is in favor of limiting the term to the domain of theatre and replaces it with the meaning of theatrical play, which is shown as a performance in relation to everything else taking place on stage, so that as well as the real audience, other characters acting on stage can also view it. A play within a play is then formed by four elements: the primary, central or frame play, the play within a play or theatre within theatre, a fictional audience and real audience. Semiotically, the play within a play consists of the two independent systems of the primary play and the play within the play, which is integrated within it (with its own space, time, characters and acts), where the external communication system is projected into the internal one in which it is repeated. It establishes the term theatre within theatre as a label superior to reduced categories on both levels, that of the performed text (a performance within a performance, stage within stage, part within part) as well as the text of the play (a dramatic piece within a dramatic piece, a play within a play, a comedy within a tragedy and so on). The author proposes two labels for the naming of similar non-theatrical plays: playing roles, which is the playing of various assumed social roles and identities (Amphitryons by various authors, Moliere’s Tartuffe) and a spontaneous theatrical act, which is an act of a spectacle-like nature, which suddenly occurs at some social gathering (the duel between Hamlet and Laertes in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Jacinta’s dance in Pohujšanje v dolini šentflorjanski by Ivan Cankar).