The reality of our world has, throughout history, often come into question. What purpose do our lives serve? Why do we work and raise families, build homes and form friendships only to die and, eventually, be forgotten? Is this all an act without a foundation in reality or is there an underlying truth? These philosophical questions are difficult if not impossible to answer, but, in order to simplify the incomprehensible, we can turn to what we know. Drama is familiar and, if we are to grasp our world, we may think of it as a theatre. In fact, our world may be a theatre. After all, what is real? Perhaps we are all actors under one great Director, entering the stage that is the world so that we may perform our roles only to exit again with our dying breath.

This concept of the world as theatre is a recurring theme throughout art and literature. Several playwrights such as Lope de Vega, Calderon, Shakespeare, and Georg Buchner and artist Charles-Louis Muller have explored the notion of theatrum mundi in their works. Buchner, Vega, and Muller, utilize the theatricality of politics in support of the broader thesis of the world as theatre. Each lived and composed their works during times of great political excitement: Vega during the reign of Phillip III in the seventeenth century, a wasteful king who concerned himself only with private affairs, a man out of touch with the lower class, and Muller and Buchner, during the early nineteenth century a time of great disparity between the rulers and the people of Germany. Perhaps because each was aware of impending political change, all three chose to focus on the theatricality of revolution.

Vega further narrows his theme from the theatricality of revolution to the political activities of ancient Rome. In a time when Caesars were constantly vying for the title of emperor and Rome was experiencing political upheaval -most notably in the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Senate floor-, the theatricality of revolution was extremely evident. Vega uses the emperor Diocletian as a representation of Roman political theatre, and spends nearly the entire first half of his play describing the rise of Diocletian to power.

Diocletian, in Acting Is Believing, is an actor like any other. He may play a wide range of roles in his life- from son of a slave to Roman emperor- but he Is always only acting. The actors of Roman politics, Caesars like Diocletian, pursued the lead role of emperor, performing for the Senate audience, and claiming a divine right to the throne. Most wished to become more than lead actors and claimed, in fact, that they were assistant directors. They believed that they were manifestations of the gods, able to Interpret the directions of the omnipotent and relay those commands to the other less significant actors- the people of Rome. In portraying the politicians of ancient Rome as performers and its entire political system as a drama, Vega attempts to Increase our awareness of the theatricality of reality.

Buchner, a revolutionary activist in his own time, like Vega and Muller, correlated politics and theatre. He focused on one of the most infamous revolutionary periods in history: the reign of Terror. The French Revolution was a drama in itself with the reversal of roles (royalists and revolutionaries), and an ever present Goddess of Chance Fortuna, or wheel of fortune. In Danton's Death Buchner utilizes these theatrical elements, but also goes further and questions the reality of our existence, proposing that we are merely actors having no real control over our destinies. He emphasizes that, though power changes hands from the aristocrats to the Girondists, and later the Hebertists and finally the Jacobins, nothing is really accomplished: the poor remain poor and the powerful are corrupt.

Buchner shows us in Danton's Death, as Muller does in The Roll Call of the Last Victims, not only the events which take place during his play, but he also alludes to those preceding it and foreshadows events to come. The hard-left Hebertists are liquidated off stage on the first day (24 March 1794) of Danton's Death, the soft-left Dantonists on the last day (5 April), and the demise of Robespierre and the Jacobins (28 July) is foreshadowed throughout the play (Reddick 210). Each of these factions appeared and was displaced by a new power. Since they were always allowed to rise only so high before being thrust once again Into despair the great political forces of the French Revolution were confined by the wheel of fortune, fulfilling the dramatic principle of Fortuna.

Fortuna also applies to the reversal of roles during the Terror. The aristocrats were replaced, but the poor remained poor and the revolutionaries became the new oppressors. As Robespierre inquires In Danton's Death (1.3) We may well ask: have the people been robbed or have we grasped the golden hands of the kings, when we see these marquises and barons of the Revolution marrying rich wives, gambling, keeping servants and wearing expensive clothes? And Barere brings the hypocrisy of the Terror to light when he states that "the world would have to be turned upside down if the so-called scoundrels are to be hanged by the so-called righteous people."

Buchner demonstrates, In conjunction with the reversal of roles, the fact that nothing really changed with the revolution. Through this he implies that the drama or life continues, never heeding to the cries of the people. As stated by the third citizen (1.2), they have killed the aristocrats, the Veto, the Girondists, but they (the poor) "go barefoot and freeze the same as before."

Buchner expands his thesis to Include the world as theatre and life as a play. He creates a commentary on both the consistent roles we all play and the cycle of life, entering, performing, and quitting the stage. He echoes the unchanging nature of politics with the monotony of everyday life. Danton (11.1) states "It's very boring, always putting on the shirt first and the pants over it and going to bed at night and crawling out again In the morning- there's never any hope that it will ever be any different." Camille echoes Danton's displeasure at the roles we must play every day of our lives and asks his companions to stop acting. He asserts, "we ought to take the masks off for once", and says "Sleeping, digesting, making children- that's what we all do: all other things are merely variations in different keys on the same theme. Is that why we stand on tiptoe and make faces... Why are you holding your napkins in front of your faces? Just scream and whine as it suits you."(IV.5)

Danton not only comments on the monotony of day to day life, but also on the elusive explanation for our existence. He wishes to understand why, if life is a cycle and "we can whimper In the grave as well as in the cradle" (IV.5), we live at all. He proposes that we are always acting and says of death (11.1) "As long as they can walk offstage nimbly and can make nice gestures and hear the audience clap as they exit. That's very proper and suits us well- we're always on stage, even if were finally stabbed to death In earnest." And of fate, or Fortuna, he insists (11.5), "We are puppets, our strings are pulled by unknown forces, ourselves are nothing, nothing!" All of these are evidence of Danton's philosophy of life. He sees existence as futile and is reluctant even to Influence his own fate because he believes he is not in control. Danton allows Fortuna to command his life not necessarily because he wants to, but because he feels there is no alternative.

Charles-Louis Muller in his painting The Roll Call of the Last Victims theatrically portrays the final days In the French Conciergerie. The elements of this artwork are a microcosm of politics as theatre and in turn support the greater thesis of the world as theatre. Muller, as director, manipulates staging and lighting, and, though this work depicts only one moment (as was the European artistic tradition), it also alludes to what has already happened and what is to come just as a drama would process through time. Muller, as the sole composer of this drama, must assume the responsibility of not only director but writer as well, and he includes a play within a play, a reversal of roles, and a creation of sympathy for his actors. With his guidance and creative efforts Muller creates in The Roll Call of the Last Victims a drama on canvas.

Staging and lighting are an essential part of Muller's work. The man seated downstage and center in the painting is the lead actor in this play. He is the focal point of the work and is more brightly depicted than others around him because his story is the one which Muller wishes to highlight. This part of the painting is a portrait of a man named Andre Chenier (Matthias 2). Chenier, a neoclassical poet and journalist and victim of the Terror, through Muller's evident sympathy with the royalists, is depicted as a secular martyr.

The grouping and lighting of those surrounding the lead actor are also important. In crowd scenes of any play a director must establish smaller groups within the crowd. Muller shows his audience a mother with her baby, a hysterical woman being comforted by a priest, and man whose wife has fainted and whose daughter clings to him after his name is called. Muller does take some "poetic license" in order to increase catharsis- a cleansing of the passions achieved through pity (the victims do not deserve their fate) and fear (the audience, or viewer, could be in the actors' situation)- and pathos for the royalists in The Roll Call of the Last Victims. No babies were actually killed, and women who could prove their pregnancy were not executed until after delivery. The painting is also unrealistic in that men and women were never held together in revolutionary prisons (Matthias 1). (Buchner similarly takes liberty with historical facts In Danton's Death by portraying Thomas Paine as an atheist, rather than a deist, and completely fabricating the suicides of Julie Danton and Lucile Desmoulins In order to create pathos for the Dantonists (Reddick 213-14).) Those whom Muller wishes the audience to focus upon are placed under enhanced lighting. The woman who is rising from her chair alter hearing her name and the hand of the man pointing to her, for example, are emphasized by a spotlight.

The action in The Roll Call of the Last Victims is also dramatic. Although at first glance this work may seem to portray only a scene or a moment of a play, it is really accomplishing much more. We can determine what has happened and what will happen to the woman standing In the cart upstage through clues in the painting. The overturned straw-bottom chair and the expression on Chenier's face Imply that she had been sitting downstage next to him when her name was called. We also see that she has been loaded into a cart and from this we are able to infer that she is headed for the guillotine. So, while capturing one moment, Muller accomplishes not only a present but a history and a fate.

As writer of his drama, Muller draws upon history and literature to create a play within a play. The straw-bottomed chair is a reference to Alfred de Vigny's novel Stello (1832) (Matthias 2). This novel, well-known to educated people of Muller's time and undoubtedly read by him, was inspired by Chenier's life and death and may have contributed to the success of The Roll Call of the Last Victims. The chapter entitled "The Straw-bottomed Chair" was a reflection on one of these chairs, concerning those who had sat in it and "how they had passed on". The inclusion of the chair may have been intended to further the viewer's reflection on the life and death of Chenier (Matthias 2). This chair, however, is not an exclusive reference to the lead actor but also to a play within a play practiced by the prisoners in the Conciergerie.

The royalists decided to go to their deaths nobly, and to accomplish this they turned to Roman history. In order to affect a brave and respectable demise, the prisoners needed to put on an act. To rehearse this act, each prisoner would stand on a straw-bottomed chair as if it were a scaffold and each would become an actor ready to rehearse for their final performance. This morbid play allowed the royalists to be brave actors In the face of the horrific guillotine, and its rehearsal serves as a play within a play.

In composing his drama Muller considers sympathy and reversal of roles. He exposes the irony and hypocrisy of the revolutionaries as they assume the roles of the nobles. Their abandonment of the pursuit of democracy as a result of Innate human greed and self-satisfaction, epitomizes the adage "absolute power corrupts absolutely". The nobles are conversely reduced to prisoners. Muller wishes his audience to sympathize with them: he creates pathos for the nobles through his inclusion of a baby, a priest, and a very old woman in the crowd scene, and contempt for the revolutionaries by revealing the cockiness in their posture and dress and cruelty in their unflinching removal of a man from his wife and daughter.

Muller creates a drama in his painting The Roll Call of the Last Victims. He does so as both writer and director of his play. The final days of the French Revolution as experienced from the prisoners point of view are captured on the stage set in Muller's work. He manipulates staging and lighting, portrays a past, present, and future for his drama, utilizes a play within a play, and elicits sympathy from the audience. The Roll Call of the Last Victims is a carefully executed and vivid theatrical representation of the royalists' last hour. It serves as a microcosm of the theatricality of revolution and, on a greater plane, the drama of politics and, even more generally, the world as theatre.

The myriad of plays and paintings with the theatricality of the world as their subject indicate that the drama of our lives is a recurring theme throughout art and literature. This fascination with the questionable reality of our world is a common phenomenon. Who among us has not felt at one point or another that their life was all an act, that they were just fulfilling a role? Perhaps because it is so difficult for us to determine our purpose in life and our reason for being, it is easier to think of life in terms of something familiar and tangible like theatre. If we think of ourselves as actors under one all-powerful Director, we may think of our lives as assigned roles. When we know that the Director, who is both audience and critic, waits in the wings ready to evaluate our performance when we exit the stage, we may find purpose in our roles because of His standards for evaluation and in turn understand the reason for our existence.

Works Consulted

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities London: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Schmidt, Henry. "Introduction" and "Glossary." Danton's Death. New York: Continuum Publishing Company.
	1966.
Reddick John. "Introduction" and "Notes." Danton's Death. London: Penguin Books, 1993.
Vega, Lope do. Acting Is Believing Trans. Michael D. McGaha. Texas: Trinity University Press, 1966.
McGaha, Michael. "Introduction." Acting Is Believing Texas: Trinity University Press, 1966.