Shark Heart: A Love Story

Metatheater is a discipline of theater that is self-aware in terms of form, actively encouraging audiences to pay attention to its theatrical nature in a number of ways. Metatheatrical elements have been integral parts of the dramatic tradition for thousands of years and can be found as far back as in the comedies and tragedies of ancient Greece. In the modern world, metatheater has its roots in the highly influential works of the English Renaissance, especially plays by William Shakespeare. Twentieth-century plays known for their metatheatrical contributions include Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966), Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (1938). The latter is referenced repeatedly throughout Shark Heart, as Lewis selects it as the school play for his last semester as a drama teacher.

Shark Heart employs many metatheatrical elements in addition to its many references to Our Town. The novel switches between a prose and script format, with some passages explicitly labeled as “scenes.” In the prose portions, Lewis desperately tries to finish writing a play that tells the story of his marriage and illness; whether the scripted scenes are excerpts of Lewis’s play is left to the reader’s interpretation. In addition, Shark Heart mimics the structure of Our Town by using a third-person omniscient narrator who confides in the reader with truths that characters themselves are unwilling to say, much like the Stage Manager in Our Town. In the third part of the book, the narrator even sets the scene for the reader:

Please find in the following pages a story of what it means to be part human, part animal. (That is, if meaning can be found in being, which will also be explored in some detail.) You should know that the forthcoming events are in no way examples of outright love and romanticism, but please feel free to interpret them however you wish. Unfortunately, due to hunger, not every creature will live. Those who do live to see tomorrow face a fierce battle with perpetual hollowness. Lastly, due to the inherent darkness of our setting, we’ll all have to be vigilant and aware (319).

These fourth-wall breaks are quintessentially metatheatrical, indicating to the reader that the book is aware of itself and of its own dramatic structure. The inclusion of readers as part of the “we” that will “have to be vigilant and aware” blurs the lines between the world of the novel and the extratextual world.

At the 2024 “A Novel Idea” community reading program capstone, hosted by the Deschutes Public Library, Habeck carried forward these metatheatrical principles, staging the Q&A portion of her talk with a library employee dressed in a shark costume. Humorous and self-aware, this production decision brought the human-shark hybrid concept of the book off the page and into the real world of her talk. The talk underscored that a metatheatrical sensibility is integral to Habeck’s voice as an author, flowing from her literary reference points into her self-presentation.