ABSTRACT
While the idea that “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” is nothing new, it is all the more important to revisit the meaning of this conceptual metaphor because the relationship between the cultural (symbolic) and natural (presymbolic) components of play remained unclear even to the outstanding cultural historians of the past. Thus, Johan Huizinga (2003/1938, pp. 5-6, 47), believed that “serious” play has biological roots whereas “nonserious” play, in particular that connected with laughter (apparently he did not regard it as play at all since it was of no interest to him), lacks such roots. The current state of knowledge shows that precisely the opposite is true.
