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The discussion clarifies how metatheatrical moments arise when theatrical representation is paired with self-reflexive commentary, shifting attention from the signified to the processes of theatrical signification. It contrasts two critical approaches: one focusing on baroque play-within-the-play techniques and another emphasizing discursive strategies of theatrical self-representation and dramatized critical reception. The argument then tests this framework against diverse case studies and cross-cultural circulation.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/discovering-utopia-drama-on-drama-in-contemporary-british-theatre/397339/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/discovering-utopia-drama-on-drama-in-contemporary-british-theatre/397339.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Mabel","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-09-26",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the text claim metatheatrical practice is not marginal?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Because theatre is always a metacommunication: performances present a communication to an audience and can shift attention to the theatrical signification process itself. The metatheatrical moment therefore combines representation with running self-reflexive commentary rather than remaining peripheral.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does the article characterize the “metatheatre” moment?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It is formed by combining representation with simultaneous auto- or self-reflexion on that representation. The result is an organic fusion where staging and self-staging produce an ongoing commentary on theatrical means.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What are the two main critical options discussed, and how do they differ?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"One option focuses on the signification of the baroque play-within-the-play, treating it as a systematic metatheatrical technique. The second recommends a full analysis of discursive means of theatrical self-representation, mapping how reflexion turns plays into dramatized critical history or reception.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},397339,1790649609,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},7971474920318,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/74000ee537e6b0ca360?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1788430171632181674","# Discovering Utopia:Drama on dramain contemporary British theatre\n\nJohan CALLENSFree University of Brussels(VUB)  \nNICOLE BOIREAU,ed.Drama on Drama.Dimensions of Theatricality on theContemporary British Stage.London:Macmillan;New York:St.Martin'sPress,1997.ISBN0-333-66972-X(GB),0-312-16541-2(USA).  \nNicole Boireau's Drama on Drama is the first collection of essays onreflexive theatre to come out in many years.The phenomenon's impliedmarginality,though,is one of the first misconceptions cleared away.I hesitateto call it a genre,because,as Patrice Pavis clarifies in the most recent editionof his Dictionnaire du Théatre(1996),\"metatheatricality is a fundamentalcharacteristic of any theatrical communication”(204;my transl.).It istherefore slightly misleading that the critic includes \"metatheatre\"in histhematic index as an entry under the heading of “genres and forms”as well asof \"semiology.\"Insofar as theatre always is a metacommunication —thecommunication to a public of a communication between performers(Osolsobe)—it may indeed at any time shift that public's attention from thesignified to the theatrical signification process and its means (performers,set,text,.…;the creators'attitudes and perspective or approach,theirpreparation,..).The metatheatrical moment,then,is constituted by combiningthe representation with a simultaneous auto-or self-reflexion on thatrepresentation,a running commentary organically fusing staging with self-staging.  \nThis metatheatrical practice is anything but marginal,though its theorizationunfortunately still is.All too often,critical discussions limit themselves to  \nJohan Callens  \nthematic studies of the theatricality of everyday life(Goffman),staying clear ofany serious structural description or discourse analysis.  \nThe first option,Pavis claims,only elaborates on the signification of thebaroque play-within-the-play,a systematic but quite specific (if not limited)metatheatrical technique.This form has been amply documented (e.g.byGeorges Forestier)though its implications can still be muddled.Thus Pavispresents the baroque theatre's framing or doubling of the illusion as a self-cancelling pseudo-mathematical operation,causing the external level to gainin reality,as if the illusion of an illusion equals reality(365).Lionel Abel,who seems to have coined the term《metatheatre》(1963),puts things againinto perspective by reminding us that any insistence upon the reality of theillusion amounts to an assertion about the illusoriness of reality,whether thebaroque frame or the world at large.Abel's paradoxical formulation explainsaway the apparent contradiction between Pavis's correct enough deductionthat the play-within-the-play is \"a form of antitheatre,\"doing away with,“denegating”theatrical illusion in favour of a theatricalized reality,whilealso being \"un jeu de surillusion,\"stepping up that illusion.  \nThe second critical option Pavis recommends more heartily —a full-blown analysis of the discursive means of theatrical self-represenation---opens up largely unexplored territory,which the present volume maps onlysketchily,though scholars like Manfred Schmeling(1982)and RichardHornby(1986)have made significant incursions into it.Arguing thatmetatheatrical reflexion transforms plays into a kind of dramatized criticalhistory or reception (of specific texts,larger traditions or the very principleof theatre itself),the first has provided a survey of metatheatre's changingfunctions and meanings from the Renaissance onwards.Drawing more onphenomenology,the second has complemented Schmeling's survey with amore extended taxonomy of metadramatic devices,all of them fulfillingwith a vengeance,so to speak,what Hornby considers drama's aestheticessence as an historically and culturally determined means of perceiving,  \ni.e.interpreting and understanding reality.  \nGiven the complexity and dissemination of her subject it is no wonder thatBoireau has tried to limit the field to the contemporary era and the Britishstage","cbCaiaqNV9kdc6Yt","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiaqNV9kdc6Yt","pdf",458597,11,"English","# Discovering Utopia: Drama on Drama in Contemporary British Theatre\n## Metatheatricality as a core feature of theatrical communication\n## Limits of thematic approaches to everyday theatricality\n## Two critical options: baroque play-within-the-play vs discursive self-representation\n## Mapping metatheatre’s functions and the contemporary focus on the British stage\n## Complications from cross-national and cross-linguistic case studies","[{\"question\":\"Why does the text claim metatheatrical practice is not marginal?\",\"answer\":\"Because theatre is always a metacommunication: performances present a communication to an audience and can shift attention to the theatrical signification process itself. The metatheatrical moment therefore combines representation with running self-reflexive commentary rather than remaining peripheral.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article characterize the “metatheatre” moment?\",\"answer\":\"It is formed by combining representation with simultaneous auto- or self-reflexion on that representation. The result is an organic fusion where staging and self-staging produce an ongoing commentary on theatrical means.\"},{\"question\":\"What are the two main critical options discussed, and how do they differ?\",\"answer\":\"One option focuses on the signification of the baroque play-within-the-play, treating it as a systematic metatheatrical technique. The second recommends a full analysis of discursive means of theatrical self-representation, mapping how reflexion turns plays into dramatized critical history or reception.\"}]","Discovering Utopia - Drama on Drama in Contemporary British Theatre | PDF",1790461151,17]