play within the play

[Mariel O'Neill-Karch]

=46irst, let me thank those who responded with such generosity to my request
for examples of modern plays =ABenclosing=BB other dramas.
 
Secondly, in response to Guillermo Verdecchia, I would like to add this :
In today's world, I feel we no longer have answers to the great questions,
either having ceased to believe in gods/God, or being unable to choose
among them. Theatre therefore cannot give a unified world view, but can
only present fragments of consciousness. These fragments, however, and this
is paradoxical, do partially reflect the state of the world.
 
Theatre itself has become a fragmented, multi-media, self-reflexive
experience. Guillermo Verdecchia's one-man show, Fronteras Americanas, is
an example of this fragmentation or, should I say multiplication, since the
play projects many voices, Canadian, British, Latin-American, against a
backdrop of slides, videos, =ABLa Bamba=BB, etc. in order to foreground
marginality and especially to underscore that we are all on the margins of
the New America. Theatre is not only the vehicle which allows Verdecchio to
foreground this marginality, it shows itself, though the fragmentation of
the main-stream devices it employs, as participating in our marginality.
Verdecchio, as the one-man orchestra I had the pleasure of seeing at the
Tarragon theatre, constantly and brilliantly underscored the theatricality
of his performance.
 
=46ronteras Americanas certainly does not present a =ABplay within a play=BB=
, but
it is a series of =ABperformances=BB, =ABvideos=BB, =ABsongs=BB, etc. within=
 a play.
 
I suppose what I am trying to say is that the kind of theatre I most
appreciate is that which exhibits its theatricality.
 
And what I am particularly interested in, at the moment, are those plays
which frame another play.
 
Mariel O'Neill-Karch
Department of French
University of Toronto