METATHEATRE in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Course : Approfondissement Shakespeare ; theatre, meta-theatre and pact of performance
Professor : F. MARCH
Student: Louize Zara Dierickx (Erasmus Belgium)

Course : Approfondissement Shakespeare ; theatre, meta-theatre and pact of performance
Professor : F. MARCH
Student: Louize Zara Dierickx (Erasmus Belgium)

INTRODUCTION

During the Elizabethan era meta-theatre was often used in plays to obtain the interest and participation (imagination) from the audience. Also Shakespeare used a lot of metaphors and references to theatre in his plays. In this research paper we will study the use of meta-theatre in Shakespeare’s famous play A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
First, the term ‘meta-theatre’ will be explained. Then, the period in which meta-theatre was an important aspect of theatre, also Shakespeare’s period, namely the Elizabethan Era, will be discussed. Finally, a number of specific scenes in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be analysed.
Midsummer night’s dream is a romantic comedy. The play has 2 levels: the human world, which takes place during the day, and the fairy world, which takes place at night. In the human world the story is about 4 young people, searching their way to true love, as well as about a theatre company, preparing a play for the coming wedding of the king and queen. At the fairy level, the fairy king and queen quarrel about their marriage. These two levels are combined by a love potion, which turns the whole story upside-down and gives it its humoristic touch.

(DEFINITIE META-THEATRE): http://books.google.fr/books?id=Y9McnoS7jCAC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=meta-theatre+lionel+abel+definition&source=bl&ots=A1VhKzd-HT&sig=uctr-WthzSsj0eZ5-urdYlE0o5Q&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=wUpzVMjCEo6TaPDQgKAN&ved=0CF4Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=meta-theatre%20lionel%20abel%20definition&f=false

For instance, Puck (Robin Goodfellow) Nick Bottom and the rest of their crew play an important role in this paper as they directly address the audience when commenting about the characters (‘in the real play’), they perform a play (play-within-a-play) and it often seems as they direct the ‘real play’.

METATHEATRE in the ELIZABETHAN ERA

Shakespeare is one, if not the most known, of the play writers who contributed to new approaches in theatre and to the prestigious character of theatre in the Elizabethan Era. Meta-theatre was one of the innovations Shakespeare used in his plays, in almost all of them, and which was also typical to the Elizabethan theatre in general. Further, it marks the modernity of theatre in this period; also called beginning of Modern Period. Therefore it is inevitable to study this topic in its context, The Elizabethan Era.
In the Elizabethan Era, namely the end of the 16th century and beginning 17th century, theatre became a flowering element of life in England. London was the centre of this developing theatre culture, were many theatre houses (The Globe, The Swan, Blackfriar’s,…) opened their doors to the public next to the river The Thames.
Theatre was very prestigious but at the same time open to all classes of the people. Play writers and playhouses became connected with political figures, who sponsored the production of the plays. This was a way for the politicians to use theatre to promote themselves and to control the themes being preformed in the playhouses (not to mock the politicians but to praise them). Also the status of the actor rose. As before they were put into jail, they became now more prestigious and connected to the noble people. Theatre knew in that way not many financial difficulties. On the other hand, the play writers were sometimes restricted in their creativity by the nobles and politicians (the sponsors), who ordered them to write a play about a topic they wanted and especially not to put their personality in a bad daylight. Of course, play writers found more subtle ways to show the audience the real story.
In this period, the theatre world banished mostly the religious topics, which were before most displayed, because of the difficulties with the religion wars in the 16th century, and was more concentrated on the social life. History plays, tragedies and comedies were the most popular among the genres.
The audience was very active and involved in these performances. The actors often asked this at the beginning of a play, during the prologue (transition from social reality to fiction). They directly addressed the spectator and told them simply to imagine, to play the game along, for the characters/props/costumes were sometimes unrealistic: male actors had to play a female role, when a scene was at night (but the performance was in broad daylight), when a character was supposed to be invisible… Without the spectator’s imagination the play could never be good. In this way the mind of the audience is called the ‘inner stage’. Not only their imagination made the audience alive but also their direct comments and critique during the performance. Sometimes this even resulted in a battle between audience and performance.
As was said, theatre was most popular in this time and implemented a set of new strategies. One of these innovations of the Elizabethan theatre, and more specifically used in Shakespearean theatre, is meta-theatre.

play within the play: duplication of the structure of the theatre , an audience on stage, everything is duplicated on stage mise-en-abîme: structural and thematic duplication (mirror of the subject matter) penetration of the theatre by the theatre: duplication of the character , f.ex change of identity

MIDSUMMERNIGHT’S DREAM: Analysis
A lot of meta-theatrical references can be found in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, though in this paper the corpus will be limited to a number of specific scenes: ACT 1, SCENE 2, ACT 2, SCENE 1, ACT 2, SCENE 2, ACT 3, ACT 4, SC 2, ACT 5, SC 1. The first occurrence of meta-theatre in this play can be found in act 1, scene 1. This is the moment when the theatre company first shows up on stage and can as a result be defined as a play-within-a-play (though in this scene it’s not really a play but the preparation of the performance).
In this scene this amateur company is rehearsing their play, which they will perform at the King’s and Queen’s wedding. They cast the different parts, discuss about how they will perform the play and talk about the difficulties that come along. Flute, one of the actors has to play Thisbe, a woman, but has a beard growing so will wear a mask. Snug will play the part of the lion. He can’t roar too terribly, otherwise they fear to be hanged: ‘An you should do it too terribly you would fright the Duchess and the ladies that they would shriek, and that were enough to hang us all’. The company clearly fears the reactions from the audience and wants to prevent punishments. Wanting to please the audience, is actually what they are already are trying in the ‘real’ play, and is therefore also a meta-theatrical technique. Theatre about theatre, this is obviously meta-theatre.
At the end of the first scene Quince The Carpenter says: ‘…for if we meet in the city we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known’. Thus, the company wants to rehearse in a private place, so the audience cannot know the play before the performance. This is again a meta-theatrical reference because it is contradictory, as the audience actually already knows how they will perform the play because of this scene. The audience already knows better. Next, in act 2, scene 1, we arrive in the fairy world with Oberon, the king of fairies, and Puck, his right-hand. Here the meta-theatrical references can be found in the fact that these 2 characters play the role of director. They direct the play in a certain sense because they manipulate the actions of the characters by their choice. They are in control of the characters and the storyline. Oberon is the director, he gives the commands, and Puck is the assistant-director who executes the action, being told by his master Oberon. In this scene Oberon tells Puck to put a love juice into the eyes of Titiana and into the eyes of ‘the Athenian man’, Demetrius. As a result, Titiana falls in love with Bottom and Lysander (Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius) falls in love with Helena. Further, Oberon and Puck are invisible for the other characters in this scene: ‘I am invisible, And I will overhear their conference’. As directors they watch from a distance and are invisible for the actors on stage. This event is a key moment in the play as it changes the rest of the storyline, for which Oberon and Puck are responsible. They can therefore be considered as directors of the story and this can be seen as a meta-theatrical technique.

If the audience are still unconvinced of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men’s professionalism, Puck speaks the epilogue, which serves as an apologia. There is explicit self-reference as Puck asks the audience, if dissatisfied, to give the play ‘No more yielding than a dream’,[15] referring to its title. This is pre-empted in Theseus’s more subtly metadramatic speech, where he dismisses the lovers’ story: ‘I never may believe / These antique fables nor these Fairy toys’.[16] So the lovers’ experience is evaluated as just another fiction within the play, as fictive as the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. The audience knows better than Theseus, and so his disbelief is ironic. Shakespeare suggests that imagination and the suspension of disbelief are required of Theseus in order for him to see more clearly. However, Theseus instead favours ‘cool reason’ and comprehension.[17] Hippolyta’s conclusion is more sophisticated, as she manages to combine both reason and imagination. She finds that that their minds are ‘transfigured so together’ is proof that the experience was something outside of themselves rather than separate internal imaginings.[18] As an overall estimation, ‘Strange and admirable’ hints at how Shakespeare would like his audience to receive the play as a whole.[19]

Metatheatre can tell us more about a character when the character is role-playing. Thus metatheatre ‘is an excellent means for delineating character, by showing not only who the character is, but who he wants to be’.[24] So an actor is in the role of a character in the role of something other than himself. Overt examples of this occur in the play-within-the-play. But more subtly, Shakespeare’s plays often present self-conscious characters with hidden agendas, who lie and manipulate others.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the situation is a different as the characters do not intentionally adopt roles but are subject to magic. At the beginning of the play, jealous of Hermia’s popularity, Helena wishes ‘to be to you translated’.[27] Their roles are reversed when Lysander and Demetrius both turn their affections to Helena. The men play the part of Helena’s suitor despite their ‘true’ selves. However, Helena does not believe that these roles have unwittingly been changed. She accuses all three of lying in order to mock her. In doing so, she falsely accuses the characters of acting: ‘Now I perceive they have conjoined all three / To fashion this false sport in spite of me’.[28] More than this, she grants Hermia the role of author and director, ‘Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn, / To follow me and praise my eyes and face?’[29]

Shakespeare’s plays also have ‘internal dramatist[s]’ who reflect Shakespeare’s authorial control of the play in the actions they take to direct events. One such example is Oberon as ‘king of Shadows’.[30] Here Shakespeare plays on the double sense of ‘shadows’ as ‘fairies’ and ‘actors’. This is therefore a metatheatrical reference to Oberon as the principle instigator of action in the play. He directly governs Puck and events that effect other characters: he instructs Puck to press the juice of the magic flower on Demetrius’s and Titania’s eyes, thus creating the comic events of the play.

In conclusion reflexivity in Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream adds depth of meaning to the plays by adding another dimension, a heightened sense of self-consciousness. Shakespeare’s attraction to metadrama reflects the theatricality in contemporary life and the duplicity in people’s behaviour. Through metadrama, we gain an insight into the intentions of characters, those that they aim to conceal from the others. Shakespeare also shows the process of composition that takes place behind a performance, and the social and political conditions in which these occur. By displaying troops of actors within his plays, he is not only able to discuss the politics of theatre without threat, but to display his plays as far superior in their professionalism and quality to those that have come before.

Conclusion

Bibliography:

SHAKESPEARE, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ed. Peter Holland, coll. Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (1994) 2008.

MAQUERLOT, Jean-Pierre. Playing within the play : towards a semiotics of metadrama and metatheatre, Montpellier: Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry, 1992.

CALDERWOOD, L. James. Shakespearean Metadrama‬: The Argument of the Play in Titus Andronicus, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, a Midsummer Night's Dream, and Richard II‬, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1971.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

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