Awareness, reflection and imagination: how the metatheatrical explores the self and society in contemporary storytelling

ABSTRACTBuilding from the authors’ own experiment, the conception and creation of Watchlist (Vickery-Howe, Citation2020), this article interrogates metatheatricality in contemporary theatrical works: How Not To Make It In America (Steel, 2021) and Destroyer of Worlds (Lewis, 2015) and recent television series: Kidding (Holstein, 2018–2020), Landscapers (Sinclair, 2021) and Wakefield (Dunphy, 2021-). It will argue that these works represent a significant movement into alternative, meta-dramaturgies wherein the characters portrayed, and the worlds they inhabit, exist behind a porous and fragile fourth wall, through which they may wink at their audience – not so much stories within stories, but stories reflecting stories.KEYWORDS: MetatheatricalitytheatertelevisionformalismWatchlist Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).