Metatheatricality in Shakespeare’s Time

Throughout the Merry Wives of Windsor, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford “act” quite often within the play. Even in Act IV, when Mistress Ford and Mistress Page dress Falstaff and make him appear to be Ford’s aunt and having him beaten, the audience knows the entire time that the wives are acting within the story and purposefully led the events to occur as they did. As a modern day audience, I find it quite surprising that metatheatricality has not changed much in the past few centuries. It is quite common within movies,shows, and plays for characters to “act” as a part of their story line. Since acting is a very evolved skill today, I wonder how metatheatricality in Skakespeare’s time was received. Were the illiterate able to understand what was going on in the way noble’s understood? How deep of an understanding did the actors have of their plays verses the audiences? I believe this form of enhanced thinking was a new and challenging event that brought amusement to a whole new level. Those that were able to understand when meatheatricality was taking place were probably having this sort of experience for the first time and felt that the plays were that much more intense.