Metatheatre

Metatheatre is a style which is self-aware of it being theatre, drawing attention to its nature as drama or theatre being aware of an audience and the fact that they are just actors. It is a self-conscious performance seen classically with plays within plays such as in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' or with a chorus commenting on the drama seen in our very own play, 'Antigone' by Jean Anouilh.

The prefix, 'meta' comes from the Greek term defined: Marked by change or transformation; later in time or development; behind, beyond; transcending, more comprehensive; above, upon or about.

Found a nice example in a joke: A rabbi, a priest and an imam go into a bar and order a drink. "What is this," asks the bartender; "a joke?" 

.........Haha......... Not metatheatre, but you get the idea, it's being aware of the form you are taking. Metatheatre challenges theatre's claim of being 'realistic' contrasting with ideas such as Stanislavski's which is being ultra-realistic through experiencing characters through your own experiences and emotions. It sharpens awareness of the unlikeliness of life to dramatic art or life's likeness to artificiality marking the boundaries conventional theatre would hide. It may be overly dramatic and theatrical, or break the sacred frame of the 'fourth wall' reaching out to the audience to draw them into the realm of the play. There are many examples of metatheatre in Antigone, especially from the part of the Chorus introduces the roles and the story. We emphasised the idea through inserting our own methods of metatheatre, the most notable being the beginning. In the stage directions it says, "At curtain rise all the characters are onstage, chatting, knitting, playing cards, and so on. The prologue emerges from the rest and comes forward to speak." This already has the idea of metatheatre, but we extended it by introducing the stage as an actor's rehearsal space as the cast enters in little groups, chatting about little things such as events of the previous night and stretching as if getting ready for an everyday rehearsal, then rehearsing fight sequences before Chorus starts casting us into parts. There are also very evident mentions, and hints at metatheatre within the actual text of the play, in the case of my own part within the section with Antigone, Creon makes several references to the role of hero hero and villain, "Alright, I've got the Villain's part and you've been cast as the heroine..." and a couple of other times also. I used this I guess to help the audience see that Creon's path is set and that he has no choice in the situation in the end but to have Antigone put to death, it was just casting. Another major moment we developed is when Antigone says "I don't want to [understand] I'm here to say no to you and to die." where we had Antigone break from character and go back to being the actress playing her, making the audience aware of the hardship Antigone is suffering and how hard it is to play her. Metatheatre really works well within the contexts of classical tragedy with the idea that fate determines that the hero will journey towards their eventual doom, suffering and causing suffering  in the meantime. It's a very dramatic idea with an audience knowing that the hero will eventually die, yet that in a way elevates how they feel as they know no matter what the action is, the hero will eventually die.