Theatre is an art form that has always questioned its own nature. What is commonly referred to as “Theatre Within the Theatre” is a fascinating and complex field of exploration, which Jean-Pierre Martinez has delved into in several of his comedies.
1. Key Plays
“Theatre Within the Theatre” is one of the genres Jean-Pierre Martinez has explored extensively, always with humor, of course. He even addresses the concept as early as 2016 in his play Running on Empty :
Visitor – What if we wrote the story of a writer who’s lost his inspiration?
Writer – I see… A woman knocks on his door, claiming to be a journalist…
Visitor – Why not?
Writer – Theatre within the theatre… I swore I’d never sink that low…
All the themes and motifs of “Theatre Within the Theatre” are developed in Jean-Pierre Martinez’s plays, offering a reflection on the creative process while exploring all facets of humor: dramatic comedy in Running on Empty , farce in Backstage comedy, political comedy in Just a Moment Before the End of the World or Quarantine…
Just before the opening curtain of the premiere, the actors go through one final rehearsal. However, an unforeseen incident jeopardizes the start of the show. A cheerful farce about the small world of the theatre...
Mark and Peter are actors, who were once friends but haven’t seen each other for years after their friendship turned into a rivalry, both professionally and in their romantic lives. Now one of them has invited the other on the stage of a theatre to rebuild the friendship they lost with their youth. This attempt at a reconciliation will turn into a settling of scores before opening up the possibility of an unexpected collaboration.
Fred and Sam have always dreamed of participating in the Avignon Festival, and finally, that dream has come true. But in Avignon, …
It’s been seven years since a health crisis caused the closure of all theatres. Three individuals, presumed to be actors, step on a stage for an audition. Unless it’s a public reading. Or it might even be the show’s opening … The problem is that they don’t have the script. The author hasn’t written it yet. They’re going to have to improvise…
Three people who do not know each other are summoned to participate in a jury. At least, that's what they were told. But the place where they have been gathered is not a courtroom. They learn that they are there to decide together how to manage the consequences of an inevitable catastrophe that will strike the world in the very near future. Opinions diverge, and numerous twists and turns keep the debate alive. Throughout this immersive performance, the audience will also be called upon to express their opinions to guide them in their choices, so that they can make the best possible decision to face the worst imaginable situation.
Four strangers find themselves forcefully quarantined in what turns out to be an abandoned theater. Seated behind an imaginary two-way mirror, they are observed by another group of people (the audience). The allegedly contaminated strangers consider the situation. What virus are they contaminated with? What will happen to them? How and when will all this end? Little by little, we learn that this huis-clos takes place in a near future where Big Brother reigns supreme, and that the reason for this quarantine may not be entirely medically motivated.
Reality Show by Jean-Pierre Martinez The host of an obscure cable TV channel is tasked with promoting a politician. But the interview …
A journalist visits a playwright on the down and out for an interview that could launch his comeback. But in the world of theatre, appearances can be deceiving…
A theatre can also be the setting for funny stories where the theme... is the theatre itself. 28 very short scenes, each no longer than a page.
A couple has just bought the house of their dreams at a surprisingly low price. What could have happened in this house that caused it to remain unsold for so long? The previous owners died there under circumstances as dramatic as they were mysterious… A philosophical countdown about the tragicomic fate of humanity in general, and of the couple in particular.
The performers of a struggling theatre company are just minutes away from taking the stage to perform a play about Molière's final hours. However, nothing is ready, and more problems keep arising. To add to the chaos, the box office takings suddenly disappear. Now faced with a critical decision, should they cancel the performance, delivering the final blow to their theatre company already on the verge of bankruptcy? Or should they persevere and carry on with the play, no matter the challenges?
2. Recurring Themes and Motifs
2.1. Identity and Reality
A central theme of “Theatre Within the Theatre” is the exploration of characters’ identities and reality. The boundaries between reality and fiction become blurred, forcing the audience to question what is real and what is not.
Characters in Doubt
Characters playing roles within a play are often confronted with an identity crisis. They sometimes wonder who they really are and what their role is in the grand theatre of life.
Excerpt from Backstage comedy:
Gary – You’re all impostors! You’re all acting in a play!
Sanchez – We’re not real policemen, Chief?
Ramirez – What is this comedy, Curtain?
Gary – Don’t make a drama out of it…
Ramirez – Are you or are you not the real author of this unperformed play?
Gary – No, but I am the author of this farce we are currently performing!
This theme is also central to Briefs of the Stage, featuring short sketches with actors and writers as protagonists, exploring the many questions that preoccupy them in just a few lines.
The Limits of Reality
“Theatre Within the Theatre” often blurs the boundaries between the fictional world and the real world. Spectators are invited to question what is true, creating a disturbing mirror effect.
The play Just a Moment Before the End of the World plays with the conventions of theatrical representation and ends as follows:
Alex – So, according to you, we’re in a theatre now?
Max – He’s done it all to us…
Fred – But come on, it’s impossible, all the theatres have been closed for years because of the pandemic.
Sam – Almost all of them, indeed. But some are resisting, unbeknownst to the health and police authorities.
Alex – So… we were in the middle of performing a play?
Sam – And the play is over. We’re going to applaud you, well, I hope so. You’ll go back to your dressing room, and then you can go home. Nobody is going to die. At least not today. The show is over.
Fred – So, you’re not a cop?
Max – Then… who are you?
Sam – I am the director.
Alex – So, all of this was fake…
Sam – No, it was fake, and it was the truth. It was theatre.
Max – But we’re not actors!
Sam – You were selected to participate in an improvised performance. All these people are spectators.
Fred – So, you’re the ones defying the law. All theatre performances are strictly forbidden.
Sam – I belong to a secret organization that is trying to clandestinely revive the once-thriving performing arts…
Alex – And where are we?
Sam – We are at the Theatre… (He’ll mention the name of the theatre where the play is being performed).
A pause.
Fred – The theatre… It’s been so long since we last went there…
Max – We don’t even remember what it was for.
Sam – Nothing… To reflect…
Max – Reflect on what?
Sam – On the meaning of life, for example…
Fred – It’s true that after all this, I think I’ll see life differently.
Sam – Whether we die in a month or thirty years, whether we die individually or all together, in the end, what does it change?
Fred – The question is what we want to do with the rest of our lives.
Max – The question? And what’s the right answer?
Sam – In theatre, there are no right answers. There are only good questions.
Alex – Regardless, we should never give up living out of fear of dying.
In the play Quarantine, four individuals unexpectedly find themselves placed in quarantine in what turns out to be an abandoned theatre. Behind an imaginary glass wall, people (the audience) observe them.
2.2. Artistic Creation: The Creative Process as Mise en Abyme
The process of artistic creation itself is often at the heart of “Theatre Within the Theatre.” Playwrights explore the challenges and joys of theatrical creation, offering a glimpse behind the scenes of the performing arts world.
The Creative Process as Mise en Abyme
Playwrights use the play-within-a-play structure to reflect the process of artistic creation. Actors rehearse, directors direct, and the audience watches it all, creating a fascinating meta-theatricality.
The Play Within the Play: L’Etoffe des Merveilles
In his free adaptation of Cervantes’ The Marvelous Puppet Show (El Retablo de las Maravillas), combined with other texts, Jean-Pierre Martinez offers a poetic, complex, and jubilant mise en abyme. An excerpt from the preface:
The Marvelous Puppet Show is a very short text. To further enrich the theatrical proposition, I prefaced the text with a prologue of my own, featuring Cervantes and incorporating an adaptation of a tale by Don Juan Manuel. I also added an epilogue where Don Quixote appears in the famous windmill episode. There is, in fact, an obvious inverted resonance between The Marvelous Puppet Show, which uses illusionism as a means for the outcast to swindle the bourgeois, and the fight against the windmills, which uses hallucinatory imagination as a way for the disillusioned and disgraced nobleman to escape a mediocre reality and achieve a heroic destiny. If life is a dream, as Calderón says, it is up to each of us to decide whether to accept that this dream is merely an alienating illusion, or to try to elevate it into a liberating vision. The writer, for his part, conjures up on the blank page, through the sheer magic of writing, the marvelous clouds Baudelaire speaks of, inspiring readers to lift their eyes to the sky. And allowing the author to attain eternity.
Rehearsing a Play Onstage
Backstage comedy begins with the rehearsal of a Russian drama titled The Day Just Before the Night. The mise en abyme evolves into a farce and a parody of the theatre world.
Breaking the Fourth Wall
The fourth wall is a theatrical concept representing an imaginary barrier between the stage and the audience. Breaking the fourth wall occurs when this barrier is removed, actors directly interact with the audience, or elements of the real world penetrate the play’s universe. Jean-Pierre Martinez has experimented with several forms of breaking the fourth wall in his plays:
Interaction with the audience and audience voting: The audience is invited to vote on whether the truth about the impending end of the world should be revealed. An ultimate twist unveils the truth in Just a Moment Before the End of the World.
Direct address to and participation from the audience: In Is There a Critic in the Audience?, the actors appeal to the spectators for help as they are tied up on stage.
Actors planted among the audience: In Is There an author in the Audience?, an actor interacts with the audience before selecting a “spectator” to come on stage, who turns out to be a hidden actor and, ultimately, the play’s author. Similarly, in The Performance Is Not Canceled, two characters are named “Spectator” and “Spectatrix.”
The audience space as part of the stage: In Is There a Pilot in the Audience?, the play begins and ends with a mise en abyme. Midway through, an actor crosses the audience as if walking through an airplane, addressing the spectators as if they were passengers.
The Challenges and Joys of Creation
“Theatre Within the Theatre” can be a way for playwrights to express the challenges and rewards of artistic creation. Conflicts, failures, and triumphs are often depicted. The play Running on Empty revolves around the central theme of a playwright struggling with a lack of inspiration.
2.3. Metatheatre: A Reflection on Theatre as an Art Form
Theatre as a Reflection of Life
Metatheatre questions the boundary between reality and fiction, inviting the audience to reflect on the distinction between the world on stage and the real world. This theme is central to the play Just a Moment Before the End of the World.
The Staging of Dramatic Art
Plays within plays offer an opportunity to critique, parody, or celebrate theatre as an art form. Playwrights often challenge theatrical conventions.
The Playwrights
The character of Molière is an endless source of inspiration for playwrights. Jean-Pierre Martinez presents an original interpretation in The Performance Is Not Canceled.
The Actors
Rivalries between actors take center stage in the play Heads or Tails.
The Critics
Plays focusing on theatre critics are rare. The play Is There a Critic in the Audience? reflects on the responsibility of critics toward the commitment of a young theatre troupe. Previously, Backstage Comedy featured a theatre critic, Agatha Ripper, from Teledrama, whose lines are particularly sharp:
“Oh no, you can’t possibly cancel! I had already written my review to get a head start…
The Theatre Space
In Quarantine and Is There a Critic in the Audience? , Jean-Pierre Martinez explores the role of live theatre during and after the pandemic, as well as the survival of performance spaces in the aftermath of such crises.
A Theme Rooted in Theatrical Tradition
The idea of placing a play within another play dates back to antiquity. Greek plays, such as Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, already contained metatheatrical elements. However, it was much later that the genre truly found its place in Western theatre.
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: The Play Within the Play
Shakespeare masterfully employed “Theatre Within the Theatre” in Hamlet (published in 1603). The famous scene of The Mousetrap (or “The Murder of Gonzago”) is a play performed by the characters within the larger play.
Life Is a Dream by Calderón (1635)
This play reflects on illusion and reality, performance and dreams.
Corneille’s The Liar (L’Illusion comique, 1635)
The Liar relies heavily on the motif of theatre within the theatre and layers multiple levels of representation.
Full text available on Libre Théâtre.
Molière’s The Impromptu of Versailles (1663)
In The Impromptu of Versailles, Molière stages the actors of the Palais-Royal troupe rehearsing his latest creation just hours before performing it for the king. This offers him the opportunity to showcase his skills as an imitator by parodying the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, pay homage to his troupe (or gently mock them), criticize playwrights preparing plays against him, and explain the essence of comedy.
Full text available on Libre Théâtre.
Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921)
Pirandello pushes the boundaries of theatrical reality in Six Characters in Search of an Author. The characters question their own existence, thus challenging audience expectations.
Jean Anouilh’s The Rehearsal (La Répétition ou l’Amour puni, 1950)
This play is set during a theatrical rehearsal, offering insight into the creative process.
Also see: Eurydice, Colombe, Don’t Wake Madame.
Other References
- Jean de Rotrou: The True Saint-Genest (Le Véritable Saint-Genest, 1646)
- William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1600)
- Pierre de Marivaux: The Island of Slaves (L’Île des esclaves, 1725)
The Actors in Good Faith (Les Acteurs de bonne foi, 1755) - Alfred de Musset: Lorenzaccio (1834)
You Never Can Tell (On ne badine pas avec l’amour, 1834) - Edmond Rostand: Cyrano de Bergerac (1897)
- Bertolt Brecht: The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1945)
- Jean Genet: The Maids (Les Bonnes, 1947)
- Jean-Paul Sartre: Kean (1953)
- Eugène Ionesco: The Impromptu of Alma (L’Impromptu de l’Alma, 1955)
- Jean Cocteau: The Impromptu of the Palais Royal (L’Impromptu du Palais Royal, 1962)
- Samuel Beckett: Catastrophe (1982)
- Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt: Frédérick or the Boulevard of Crime (Frédérick ou le boulevard du crime, 1998)
- Alexis Michalik: Edmond (2016)