“Write about what you know.”
Do playwrights stage plays within plays, and novelists write about the
writing life or embed layers of fictional books within books because that’s all
we know? Maybe, but it can also be an extremely useful
tool for creating drama (sorry for the pun), and addressing deep themes. One of the advantages of made-up stories over
exposition is that the author can address big questions of relationships,
philosophy, history, human nature, spirituality--all the “deep thoughts” that
separate us from the beasts-- through characters and a story the reader cares
about. Nobody wants to be clubbed in the
head with Enlightenment 101 lessons, but build a theme into the plot, and
you’ve got good writing. Layering
fiction or scripts with internal creative works creates infinite opportunities,
like the optical illusion of two facing mirrors. A writer can explore various themes without
having to stick to “realism.”
I have to mention Hamlet right up front as the most famous
play within a play, at least in English.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, commissions a group of players to perform a
script of his father’s murder to “out” the murderer, his stepfather. Was this all Hamlet was about, producing a
play? No, but the play within the play
allowed Shakespeare to expose human nature at its foulest.
In some scripts, the internal play production does occupy
center state (can’t help myself!). 1983’s To
Be or Not to Be by Mel Brooks takes place in Nazi Poland with actors as
Resistance fighters, and somehow, it’s hilarious. The
Last Metro, a François Truffaut classic starring Gerard Depardieu and
Catherine Deneuve, beautifully realizes the anguish and danger of Nazi occupied
Paris through the characters of a stage actress and her Jewish husband. In the novel Atonement, Ian McEwan manipulates the line between his authorial
voice and the voice of his author-heroine, tricking the reader (spoiler alert)
with alternatives to the “reality” of his own fictional plot.
Okay, backgrounding of the already famous of plots within
plots over, now to the mechanics of plays within plays. Up front, decide whether you are going to
write the internal play or are you going to use a famous one, say, of Shakespeare. Hamlet or
Romeo and Juliet, sure they’ve been spoofed
but there’s always a fresh take of Coriolanus
waiting to be written, isn’t there?
Comedic possibilities abound when bumbling troupes try to stage
elaborate productions. Modernizations of
Shakespeare are especially sought after by school theatre groups. The good news
is Shakespeare, dead more than 70 years, is in public domain.
Or, you can write your own internal drama, giving you
freedom to experiment. Romance or
jealousy can bloom between actors, murder and mayhem can ravage a theatre
company, the show must go on true grit can triumph over adversity (see above
World War II movies). You don’t even actually
have to write the internal play, it can all take place “off-stage” if your main
action takes behind the scenes. Crossing
the third wall is a neat trick, too. Go
for it, after all, all the world’s a stage.
