AMBIGUITIES OF THE SECOND PERSON IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE FICTION AND POETRY

JASON SCHNEIDERMAN

Let’s start with something that really happened. I was at a production of Bertold Brecht’s A Man’s a Man at a small theater in the East Village. During the first act, one of the actors ran off stage, followed by screaming, followed by a voice over the loudspeaker saying, “Hold your places. The play will continue shortly.” The play had begun with the soldiers breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience, and because the “stage manager” is an agent of fourth wall breaking in Thornton Wilder’s Skin of Our Teeth and Our Town (two plays I know quite well), I leaned over to my companion and whispered, “That is the first time I have ever heard a truly convincing Stage Manager in a play like this. This…

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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, March/April 2024

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