Metatheatrical Staging

Over the course of the RSC season of Spanish Golden Age plays, metatheatre emerged as a common element of all four productions, one that challenged and bolstered the company at all phases of the plays’ translation, rehearsal, and performance processes. Using the varieties of metatheatre established by Richard Hornby, this chapter shows how the RSC capitalized on the metatheatrical devices in the four plays, and in doing so made direct contact with their audiences, drawing them in by linking multiperspectivism endemic to Golden Age playwriting styles with an audience living in an age characterized by self-consciousness on and off the stage.