Swan Theatre (schizzo di De Witt)

Globe Theatre (ricostruzione)

Blackfriars, interno (ricostruzione)

Ritratto dei coniugi Arnolfini – Jan Van Eyck, 1434

Las Meninas – Diego Velázquez (1656)

Concetto di “frame teatrale” The definition of theatrical activity as such depends on the frame which the participants place around the event. The Theatrical frame is a product of a set of transactional conventions governing the participants’ expectations and their understanding of the kinds of reality involved in the performance. The theatre-goer will accept that an alternative and fictional reality is to be presented by individuals designated as the performers, and that his own role is to be that of a privileged ‘onlooker’. Da: K. Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (1980)

Stoppard on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) are more than just bit players in another play. There are certain things which they bring on with them, particularly the fact that they end up dead without really, as far as any textual evidence goes, knowing why. Hamlet’s assumptions that they were privy to Claudius’s plot is entirely gratuitous. As far as their involvement in Shakespeare’s text is concerned they are told very little about what is going on and much of what they are told isn’t true. So I see them much more clearly as a couple of bewildered innocents rather than a couple of henchmen, which is the usual way they are depicted in productions of Hamlet…” (Tom Stoppard interviewed by Gordon Giles, in Transatlantic Review, 29, 1968)

GUIL: Why is he mad?! ROS: I don't know! (Beat.) PLAYER: The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter. ROS (appalled): Good God! We're out of our depth here. PLAYER: No, no, no - he hasn't got a daughter - the old man thinks he's in love with his daughter. ROS: The old man is? PLAYER: Hamlet, in love with the old man's daughter, the old man thinks. ROS: Ha! It's beginning to make sense! Unrequited passion!

ROS: […] What have we got to go on? GUIL: We have been briefed. Hamlet's transformation. What do yourecollect? ROS: Well, he's changed, hasn't he? The exterior and inward man failsto resemble- GUIL: Draw him on to pleasures - glean what afflicts him. ROS: Something more than his father's death - GUIL: He's always talking about us - there aren't two people living whom he dotes on more than us. ROS: We cheer him up - find out what's the matter - GUIL: Exactly, it's the matter of asking the right questions and giving away as little as we can. It's a game. ROS: And then we can go? GUIL: And receive such thanks as fits a king's remembrance../.

ROS: I like the sound of that. What do you think he means by remembrance? GUIL: He doesn't forget his friends. ROS: Wouldn't you care to estimate? GUIL: Difficult to say, really - some kings tend to be amnesiac, others I suppose - the opposite, whatever that is... ROS: Yes - but - GUIL: Elephantine...? ROS: Not how long - how much? GUIL: Retentive - he's a very retentive king, a royal retainer... ROS: What are you playing at? GUIL: Words, words. They're all we have to go on. (Pause.)

René Magritte, La condition humaine (1935)

M.C. Escher Drawing Hands (1948)