Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays [Paperback]

Luigi Pirandello's 1921 play "Six Characters in Search of an Author" ("Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore") has the deserved reputation of being the first existentialist drama and having a profound effect on later playwrights, especially those practitioners of the Theater of the Absurd such as Samuel Beckett ("Waiting for Godot"), Eugene Ionesco ("Rhinoceros"), and Jean Genet ("The Maids"). Pirandello's writing often focuses on elements of madness, illusion and isolation, all of which are inspired by the tragic aspects of his personal life in which his wife went insane and his daugther tried to commit suicide. In 1921 during a five week period Pirandello wrote his two acknowledged masterpieces, "Six Characters in Search of an Author" and "Henry IV." While "Six Characters" was successful when it opened in Rome it was also considered scandalous. However, it soon being performed in Milan, London, New York, and Germany.

The setting for "Six Characters in Search of an Author" is a rehearsal for a play (By Pirandello) that is interrupted by the arrival of six characters. Their leader, the father, tells the manager that they are looking for an author. It seems that the author who created them never finished their story and they are unrealized characters who have not yet been fully brought to life. The father insists that they are not real people but characters, and the manager and his cast can only laugh at the idea. But then they become intrigued by the bits and pieces of the story the six characters have to tell. The manager agrees to produce their story and become the author for whom they have been searching. He tries to stage the scene where the father meets the step-daughter in the dress shop but both characters insist that what the actors are doing is not realistic. The manager allows them to finish out the scene instead. This sets up the basic juxtaposition of "drama" and "reality" for the rest of the play, with the key scenes in the lives of these characters providing more questions than they answer about what happened and what it means. At the point when the manager can no longer tell the difference between acting and reality he becomes fed up with the entire thing and ends the rehearsal, providing an audience that has already been challenged by these changing notions of reality with an abrupt ending to the drama. There may or may not be a real story here, but the ultimate point of this play is that the tradition of reality in the theater no longer holds true.

The radical idea here is that there is an immutability of reality for these six characters. Because they are forms, forced into performing the actions for which they were imagined, there is an inherent conflict with life. This is why the son wants to escape but cannot leave the studio and must play his role, as must the Mother and the rest of the characters. This is just as true of all the other characters besides the six, although the others are less inclined to see the truth, or at least the reality, of their own situation until the end, when the final scene of the drama seeks to dissolve the "stage" reality completely. Where Pirandello succeeds in the end is in having it both ways, for we can interpret what we have seen as being reality or as being acting. Either way, you are left to the same conclusion.

"Henry IV" "("Enrico IV"), is a 1922 tragedy in three acts about a man who goes insane after being knocked off of a horse during a masquerade where he was dressed as the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV of Germany. For twenty years the man believes that he is the 11th century monarch and the play begins with Berthold, a new valet being taught everything he needs to know about the "king." Others arrive who want to cure Henry IV of his madness, but when he "recognizes" one of them, they become more despearate in their attempts to bring him back to sanity. Pirandello's twist is that Henry returned to sanity after a dozen years, at which point he realized he was more comfortable playing Henry than with dealing with a world that has changed. So for eight years he has pretended to be Henry IV and he will do anything to maintain the pretense. Piradnello's point is that madness is not wearing a mask, because everyone does, but rather it would be wearing a mask and not being aware of it.

"It Is So! (If You Think So!)" ("Così è, se vi pare!") is a 1917 three act play that also contrasts art and life to demonstrate that "truth" is a subjective and relative concept. Since no one has ever seen Signor Ponza's wife and her mother, Signora Frola, together. This curisoity becomes a pressing concern for Ponza's employer, Councillor Agazzi who wants to discover the truth. Ponza claims that his wife is really his second wife. His first wife died in an earthquake that destroyed all of the records that would prove this to be the case. He also claims that his wife pretends to be Signora Frola's daughter to humor the old lady, whom he claims in insane. Pirandello makes his point in the final scene, which refuses to resolve the matter and make the truth clear to the audience.

Usually "Six Characters" is the extent to which a student of drama and/or existentialism is introduced to Pirandello. But including these other two plays certainly develops his existentialist views in interesting ways, particular with regards to his dramatization of the problem of reality and unreality. Because of his great influence on modern theater, Pirandello was awareded the Noble Prize for Literature in 1934. Two years later, while in negotiations to appear in a film version of "Six Characters," he died.

As with Laurence Sterne's TRISTRAM SHANDY, Pirandello's 1921 masterpiece, SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR, was well ahead of its time. It confronts issues in the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, postmodernism (structuralism and deconstruction) as well as prefacing experimental theater, metatheater, and performance art. Pirandello's work is a nearly flawless play which breeches the topics of self-identity (a la Descartes), truth and illusion (before Albee), and aesthetics (questioning the legitimizing factor in Aristotle's theory of catharsis). Furthermore, it forces the audience--as too many works of art fail to do--to think without lapsing into philosophic didacticism. Highly recommended.

Pirandello had writer's block. Luisa felt sorry for him. "Just write whatever's in your head", she said, "That's what you're always telling me. Everyone who's ever written a play-- I suppose that leaves out the critics and the university professors--knows that YOU don't write the play, you let the CHARACTERS write the play. Here", she said, "have a glass of wine. It'll help relax you." Two days later, when he was done, Luigi took the manuscript over to Alphonse, the literature teacher. Alphonse declared, after scanning it, "You've written a masterpiece!" "Really?" said Pirandello, "I mean, of course!" Alphonse stood up and gestured grandly with his arms, saying "Ah, the metaphysical ramifications! Reality and the imagination! You've started Postmodernism!" So Luigi did a little dance and headed home to bed.