I've read that in one of Von Schlegel's avant-garde plays, the curtain rises to show the dimly-lit interior of a theater. There on the stage sit a group of people waiting for a curtain to rise. A ripple of amused laughter washes across the auditorium at the obvious irony of watching actors engage in the very activity which had occupied the audience only moments earlier. However, when this second curtain is lifted, it displays still another group sitting in front of yet another curtain. People begin to grow restless and uncertain, as if they had just been invited to bring sand to the beach. Finally, the third curtain rises, only to reveal a fourth -- prompting a few in the original audience to turn around in their seats to see whether, without realizing it, they too are sitting on a stage s…