What is "metatheatre"

n. self-referential drama

The term "metatheatre", coined by Lionel Abel in 1963, has entered into common critical usage; however, there is still much uncertainty over its proper definition and what dramatic techniques might be included in its scope. Many scholars have studied its usage as a literary technique within great works of literature.

Abel described metatheatre as reflecting comedy and tragedy, at the same time, where the audience can laugh at the protagonist while feeling empathetic simultaneously. The technique reflects the world as an extension of human conscience, not accepting prescribed societal norms, but allowing for more imaginative variation, or a possible social change. Abel also relates the character of Don Quixote as the prototypical, metatheatrical, self-referring character. He looks for situations he wants to be a part of, not waiting for life, but replacing reality with imagination when the world is lacking in his desires. The character is aware of his own theatricality. Alva Ebersole adds to the idea of metatheatrical characters saying that the technique is an examination of characters within the broader scheme of life, in which they create their own desires and actions within society. He adds that role-playing derives from the character not accepting his societal role and creating his own role to change his destiny.

Andres Pérez-Simón traces back Abel’s idea of metatheatre to the early 1960s, when the prefix “meta” enjoyed popularity amongst art critics after Clement Greenberg’s theorizations on abstract painting, and to Roman Jakobson’s study "Linguistics and Poetics," first presented at the 1958 Indiana Conference on Style and published two years later in the proceedings Style in Language, edited by Thomas A. Sebeok. Pérez-Simón argues that Jakobson’s "metalinguistic" function descends, ultimately, from the Prague School.