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.