不安を遊ぶ : Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Deadと眩暈

概要

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Transforming the fragmentary episodes of two minor characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet into a neatly crafted comedy, the Czech-born British dramatist Tom Stoppard demonstrates a vivid sense of metatheatricality by showing a mise-en-abyme structure and tragedians in his debut play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967; hereafter cited as R&G). Although self-reference is one of the notable features of Stoppardian dramas such as The Real Inspector Hound (1968), Travesties (1974), and The Real Thing (1982), R&G repeatedly uses these highly theatrical devices as a playful vehicle for having the audience waver in perceiving the exact limit between fiction and reality within this play. The central aim of this article is to examine such metatheatrical aspects of R&G with a reference to Man, Play and Games (Les jeux et les hommes, 1958) by the French sociologist Roger Caillois. It is well-known that Caillois presented four basic elements of games: agon (competition), alea (chance), mimicry (role-playing), and illinx (vertigo). Although very few have referred to Caillois's game study for analyzing R&G, this approach shall help us reveal that role-playings within this drama, which questions the stability of perception of the spectators, has a crucial function to cause temporal vertigos in their minds, and to make them share a sense of uncertainty with the unfortunate protagonists.
2013-03-31