10 Out Of 12 Analysis

In online video games, the word meta easily translates to “Most Effective Tactic Available”; in theatre, however, the word metatheatre does not have the same concrete definition. According to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, metatheatre is defined as a drama that is self-aware of its existence as a play and not reality (Pelligrini). Even so, many scholars like the literary critic Terry Eagleton have been ruminating about what exactly the term means. Anne Washburn’s play-within-a-play, 10 Out of 12, tries to take on the concept of metatheatre by looking at postmodernism in a theatrical light. 10 Out of 12, which the Theatre and Performance Studies (TAPS) presented on March 2018 at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC),

For instance, when his co-worker Jake comes back late from their break, Paul immediately berates him, saying, “You don’t lose track of time. You are punctual to the moment… Punctilious. Polite. Correct” (63). When the stage manager advises Paul to leave since he is not supposed to be onstage for the current scene, Paul criticizes the play itself, saying, “I’m offstage, where I am able to give [the play] my full attention. In all of its vague and sloppy glory. If ‘glory’ is the word I most want to use. Which actually it isn’t” (64). Paul’s meticulous desire for perfection – both in his co-workers’ timeliness and acting – creates distance between Paul and the other (more postmodern)

His constant display of flowery speech, for example, is reminiscent of past history. One of the more prevalent scenes that parody Paul’s elaborate speech is when he becomes captivated by his hands, saying, “They are large hands. There is something broad about them, almost the hands of a labourer, hammish. But not. Ham. Hands” (Washburn 51). In the scene, he starts of being poetic and modernist, but later breaks it with a comedic and parodic comment about hammish hands. By parodying the past, 10 Out of 12 goes against “the canon of modern drama” (Carlson 510; Banes and Caroll). In doing so, 10 Out of 12 opts for harmony between modernism and