To Be or Not to Be Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon as a Characterin the Theatrical Mirror of Zumel and Cappuccio. A Metadramatic Inquiryinto Historical Parody and Scenic Autofiction

Abstract

This article offers a comparative exploration of two theatrical works that cast William Shakespeare not as author, but as character: Guillermo Shakspeare (1853), a four-act drama with a prologue by Enrique Zumel, and  Shakespea Re di Napoli (1994) by Ruggero Cappuccio. Through textual, performative, and symbolic analysis, the study examines how both playwrights reimagine the Bard as a cultural, political, and metatheatrical mirror. Shakespeare emerges not merely as the maker of fictions, but as a living fiction himself—one that exposes the folds of power, identity, and theatre as acts of creation and historical invention. The article unveils a Shakespeare in transit: from myth to embodied myth, from creator to created, from logos to flesh on stage.