been this measure,
To mix profit with your pleasure...
And so presents quick comedy refined,
As best critics have designed;
The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth.
All gall and copperas from his ink he draineth,
Only a little salt remaineth,
Wherewith he'll rub your cheeks, till red, with laughter,
They shall look fresh a week after. (Volpone, Prologue.)

The Epilogue to many of Shakespeare's plays remind the audience that they've just watched a play, as does Volpone's last speech in Volpone, which is spoken directly to the audience.

The seasoning of a play, is the applause.
Now, though the Fox be punish'd by the laws,
He yet doth hope, there is no suffering due,
For any fact which he hath done 'gainst you;
If there be, censure him; here he doubtful stands:
If not, fare jovially, and clap your hands. (Volpone, act 5, scene 5.1)

In his book Drama, Metadrama and Perception, educator Richard Hornby regards metatheatre as "drama about drama." Hornby defines six categories of metadrama, which include the play-within-the-play, the ceremony within the play, role playing within the role, literary and real-life reference, and self-reference.

Hornby's expanded definition of metatheatre encompasses the soliloquies and "asides" in many plays, the "play-within-a-play" in Shakespeare's Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the courtroom scenes in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and in Jonson's Volpone, all of which remind the audience that they're watching a play. Rehearsal plays, plays set backstage, and plays about "real people" are also examples of metadrama.

Hamlet's "advice to the players" in Act 3, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Hamlet is clearly metatheatrical. An actor portraying Hamlet gives advice to other actors who portray the Players who will be the actors portraying the Players who are portraying other characters in the play-within-a-play, The Murder of Gonzago, which Hamlet has arranged to be presented at court.

Also consider that that the actors portraying the Players who are portraying the female characters in the A Murder of Gonzago are male actors. Nothing could be more metatheatrical than that.

In pretending that he's dying—and pretending later in the play that he actually died—Volpone exemplifies the role-playing-within-a-role that Hornby categorized in his definition of metadrama.

The courtroom scenes in Act 4 of Volpone comprise a play-within-a-play, containing their own characters, themes, and plot, and which is played out in within the larger framework of Volpone as a whole. A real-life courtroom trial is also a "ceremony," with its own rules, rituals, and traditions, and in this way Volpone also conforms to another of Hornby's categories of metadrama.

Jonson's Volpone, first performed in 1605, represents all of the attributes of metatheatre and metadrama as defined by Able and Hornby nearly four hundred years later.

Metatheatricality is represented in Volpone by the performances staged for the benefit of the other characters who want Volpone's wealth bequeathed to them. In Jonson's play, the performing characters talk about the performance they are staging for the other characters; they talk about the characteristics, success and failure of their in-play performance.

VOLPONE [to Mosca for doing such a good job in his performance with Corbaccio]
O, but thy working, and thy placing it!
     I cannot hold; good rascal, let me kiss thee:
     I never knew thee in so rare a humour. (I.1.1)

Metatheatricality is a type of metafiction. Metafiction was introduced as a concept in the mid- to late-twentieth century when it was at its height for a time (c. 1960-1980). Metafiction is a postmodernist conception.

Modernists believed that, following two world wars, people had lost connection with their essential humanity and with the essence of nature. They understandably felt so, since World Wars I and II ravaged the face of the planet and shocked the souls of humans with devastating new war technologies, strategies, and machines of death.

Yet modernists believed there was hope of reclaiming the human soul and re-creating the connection with Earth, even though it was torn to bits and both people and earth were uprooted. Postmodernists, on the other hand, who came later, felt there was no such hope. They felt people were domed to continue to be alienated from their humanity and disconnected from the scarred earth. They chose to cope with this two-fold alienation by turning to the unreal: if they can't talk about truth and reality because they are alienated from both and can't understand either, then they'll talk about what is unreal.

The unreal they talk about in their fiction is the unreality within their fiction. Their stories have unreal characters, unreal plots, unreal settings, unreal conflicts, so they chose to turn their attention to pointing out various aspects of these unrealities. Metafiction is fiction which addresses its own fictionality: minor example, "Did you catch the foreshadowing there? Because I wouldn't want to be in his position with this conflict brewing."

You can see from this definition of metafiction that it is out of place to talk about Jonson's play as metafiction. Though Jonson was peeved with the cultural weaknesses of his day, there was no sense of human alienation from self and world, nor was there any desperate attempt to find connection with truth and reality.

Yet, if the idea of metatheatricality is taken in its broadest sense, it appears in Volpone in the interior performance put on as a way of swindling and duping those who wished to swindle and dupe Volpone.

Volpone has no family to leave his wealth to, only his trusted servants, like Mosca, to whom he gives great gifts. Socialites come bringing him gifts of wealth in hopes he will bequeath all to them. Volpone and his servants deceive them by putting on a charade to make them think he is in his last days to encourage their gift giving.

VOLPONE
 I have no wife, no parent, child, ally,
     To give my substance to; but whom I make
     Must be my heir: ...
     This draws new clients daily, to my house, ...
     That bring me presents, send me plate, coin, jewels,
[...]
VOLPONE
     let him enter.
     Now, my fain'd cough, my pthisic, and my gout,
     My apoplexy, palsy, and catarrhs, ...
     Wherein, this three year, I have milk'd their hopes. (I.1.i)

Metatheatre (or metadrama) is a type of play, or part of a play, that draws attention to itself as a play. Plays which are metatheatrical or contain aspects of metatheatre break down the concept of the imaginary "fourth wall" through which an audiences watches a play, and they compromise the "willing suspension of disbelief" that the audience experiences while watching a play.

The soliloquies and "asides" in Shakespeare's and other playwright's plays are metatheatrical, as are the "play-within-a-play" in Hamlet, the courtroom scenes in The Merchant of Venice and in Ben Jonson's Volpone, and the stand-up comedy routine of Launce (and his dog, Crab) in Two Gentlemen of Verona, all of which remind the audience that they're watching a play.

The Chorus in Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, and other Shakespeare plays, and the Prologue in Volpone and Jonson's Every Man In His Humor speak directly to the audience and invite the audience into the world of the play as a play. Epilogues remind the audience that they've just watched a play.

Courtroom scenes, particularly, like the ones in Volpone, remind the audience that they're watching a play. Courtroom scenes are small dramas (or comedies) in their own right, with their own characters, themes, and plot, and are played out in within the larger framework of the play as a whole.

In the courtroom scene in Volpone, the heightened elements of tragicomedy force viewers out of the scene, creating metatheater. The audience can both feel empathy and sadness at the plight of a character and laugh at what is happening to them, creating a jarring disconnect and disrupting the cohesion of the scene.

On the one hand, it is possible to see the immense humor as Volpone stands back as Mosca unleashes his strategy against him. Volpone, it appears, has been outfoxed by his servant, who is obviously far cleverer and more devious than he ever imagined. Volpone has shown himself to be far more intelligent than the other characters he tricks and deceives, so it gives the audience great pleasure and is a source of great humor to see Volpone tricked in turn.

However, on the other hand, this scene also helps expose the rather pitiful position of Volpone. He has placed all his eggs in one basket, and now that Mosca has turned against him, he must either accept being whipped and losing his wealth or revealing who he really is and taking his punishment. He therefore determines to reveal who he is:

I must be resolute;
The fox shall here uncase.

Volpone reveals himself with the words "I am Volpone" after divesting himself of his disguise. Yet the audience wonders whether Volpone has any sense of who he really is. They have seen him act a variety of different figures and, therefore, any sense of Volpone's own identity has become diluted, if not lost all together. Tragedy is present here alongside the comedy because of the speculation of the audience concerning Volpone's real self. Finally, when he strips himself of all pretense and all disguise, what is left over for a character who has assumed an endless procession of disguises?