SOURCE: "Fictional World and Dramatic Text: Václav Havel's Descent and Ascent," in Style, Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer, 1991, pp. 310-9.

In the following essay, Ambros examines the interplay of fictional constructs, representations of reality, and dialogue in The Garden Party.

Because the theory of fictional worlds concentrates primarily on narratology, work on drama is rare. The reason for this lack of interest lies in the very nature of the theater, which involves the audience's entering an "as if" world. This characteristic of a theater performance is attributed almost automatically to the text of drama. So, for instance, the construction of the dramatic world in the rendition of Keir Elam presupposes a spectator; it is more the world of theater than that of written drama which he has in mind. Moreover his elements of a fictional dramatic world, such as "a set of physical properties, a set of agents and...