Metatheatre

Monday 10th October - Lesson

Full Log: https://youtu.be/_SE-5lMN3Ik

I find the idea of metatheatre quite an interesting one, as by drawing the audience's attention to the fact that you are characters in a play and are just 'playing your part', you stop the piece being as realistic and believable. However, when you break the fourth wall in this way, especially in Antigone, it has a different effect on the audience. Instead of distancing them from the action of the play, I think it makes the audience more emotionally involved in what is going on and creates a sense of hopelessness because it emphasises the inevitability of Antigone's tragedy and what the prologue warned the audience about at the very start of the play. Jean Anouilh has used this very skilfully to his advantage and makes the audience empathise with the characters more, for example at one point in the play Creon says to Antigone "I've got the villain's part and you're cast as the heroine... but don't try to push it too far". This makes it seem as though Creon especially is fighting against the character he has been cast and doesn't want to hurt Antigone. He tries to warn her about what he will have to do if she doesn't change her mind and this adds to the sense of unease in the audience because it further blurs the line between where the real person (the actor) ends and where the character begins and reflects what the Prologue did at the start of the play, making it seem as though what happens in the play actually happens to the actors too.