Is life a play?

when i was young, i read somewhere that god is in heaven laughing at us.
and from than on, there were times where i thought that life is a stage (as per Shakespeare)

i have always enjoyed watching plays, musicals, etc. Enjoyed that moment where i felt as it i was part of the story...
but recently, that feeling changed.

i was at esplanade watching a play, and instead of being part of the story, i could feel myself viewing the scene from the eye of a third person (or maybe second person). but the key point is, i wasnt in there (in the story) anymore...

and i thought to myself, is that how life is supposed to be?
from the Buddhism angle, once you realised the truth about suffering, you could be able to "withdraw"/distance yourself from it. and that felt like me, standing beyond the stage, looking at my life unfolding. looking with indifference.

from that play, i was able to pull myself outside of it, outside of my life. it is as if what i was seeing was there, but yet not there. i understood intuitively what i was learning (it's just harder to put it in words here), that your life is one major play where you think you are feeling and going through all those emotions and actions. but in reality, those are all false. those are the stage, where you think you are, but actually, you are off the stage.

you are on stage, "enjoying" the suffering because you think that is how life is/should be, but in reality, you are off the stage, only you do not know it yet.

or maybe you can see it as each lifetime being played out on stage, but the bigger purpose of your existence, or your wider existence, is that off stage

so do you wish to be on or off stage?