Theatre-Within-the-Theatre, or Time-Within-the-Time

Abstract

Of the many definitions of the play-within-the-play, let me quote a very general one, proposed by Manfred Pfister: “In a play-within-the-play one group of dramatic figures from the superordinate sequence performs a play (the subordinate sequences) to another group of figures.”¹ On the whole, this definition includes most of the instances of the scenic phenomenon called theatre-within-the-theatre or play-within-the-play, but not all. For instance, in Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, discussed in detail below, the performers (actors) in what at first sight appears to be the play-within-the-play, are not from the same world as the fictional spectators on the stage (who are two in number: a ghost and an allegorical figure). They belong to different ontology and are therefore separated not only by convention, but by the laws of physics, as presented in the play, and it seems that the play shows, in its macro-scale, a situation different from the “classical” theatre-withinthe-theatre convention. And yet, in the play, we find scenes, as in act IV, in which the convention is fully realized. In order to define the complexities of the theatrical situations in the play, one has to reconsider and redefine the traditional understanding of the convention. Again, time structures will appear indispensable in that procedure.