Summary
Highlights
The video introduces Luigi Pirandello's 'Six Characters in Search of an Author,' highlighting it as a pinnacle of Pirandellian metatheater and an expression of the life-form conflict from his essay 'L'Umorismo.' All of Pirandello's plays, including this one, are collected in 'Masks Bare,' a title that references the character Mattia Pascal losing his masks. The play premiered on May 9, 1921, at the Teatro Valle in Rome and was published the same year.
The play had a difficult genesis, undergoing three editions between 1921 and 1925, with the final edition including a preface. Pirandello conceived the idea around 1906, first exploring it in the short story 'Characters' where an author is visited by characters seeking to be written. This theme reemerges in 'The Tragedy of a Character' (1911) and 'Discussions with Characters' (1915). By 1917, Pirandello wrote to his son Stefano about being 'persecuted' by characters demanding their story be told, leading to the joint authorship of the 1925 preface.
The book is divided into three parts, not acts, a distinction Pirandello emphasized. The preface explains that Pirandello wrote the play to free himself from the 'nightmare' of six characters, accompanied by the enigmatic servant Fantasia, who demand their drama be staged. They seek an author who understands their pain and will not abandon them, echoing Pirandello's 1908 essay 'Illustrators, Actors, and Translators' which discusses the conflict between actor and character. The characters, especially the mother with 'fixed wax tears,' are given specific, symbolic masks.
The first part opens during a rehearsal of another Pirandello play, 'The Game of Roles.' The six characters—the Father, Mother, Stepdaughter, Son, Young Boy, and Little Girl—interrupt the rehearsal, proclaiming they are 'in search of an author.' They have no script, as their story is 'within' them. The Comic Director becomes captivated by their narrative, which reveals a complex family drama: the Father abandoned the Mother, who then had children (the Stepdaughter, Young Boy, and Little Girl) with his former secretary. After the secretary's death, the Mother and Stepdaughter work for Madame Pace, a brothel madam. In a twist of fate, the Father encounters the Stepdaughter at Madame Pace's establishment, unaware of her identity.
In the second part, the actors attempt to stage the characters' story. The characters demonstrate how their drama should be performed, particularly the scene at Madame Pace's. The Stepdaughter rebels against the lead actress's portrayal, feeling it doesn't capture her truth. The Father's actions, such as retrieving hats and coats, concretely evoke Madame Pace herself, who then materializes on stage, drawn by her objects. When the Stepdaughter and Madame Pace try to speak, the actors complain about their low voices, highlighting the falseness of theatrical representation versus the characters' lived reality. The Mother's intense distress leads the Comic Director to call for a curtain, which is misunderstood.
The third and final part sees the stage reconfigured. The characters protest the idea of their story being an 'illusion,' insisting it is a 'real tragedy.' The Father questions the Comic Director about the nature of his own reality, drawing parallels to Vitangelo Moscarda. The drama continues tragically as the Mother allows the Little Girl to drown in a garden basin, and the Young Boy commits suicide with a revolver. This plunges the stage into chaos, with actors debating whether the events are 'real' or 'fiction.' The Comic Director, frustrated, yells, 'Reality! Illusion! Go to hell, all of you!' The stage is bathed in light, then darkness, as the characters appear as shadows. This illustrates metatheater, where the drama of staging another drama becomes the play itself, exploring the conflicts between actors, characters, and author.
The play is a prime example of metatheater, a 'drama within a drama.' Pirandello identifies 'Six Characters in Search of an Author,' 'Each in His Own Way,' and 'Tonight We Improvise' as a trilogy of metatheater, showcasing conflicts between all elements of theater: actors, characters, author, and director. Pirandello criticizes conventional theater and seeks to overcome its classicist limitations, where the distinction between actor and character is blurred. His characters are 'reasonable,' reflecting on their drama, reality, and emotions, influenced by Stanislavski's method where actors 'relive' a character rather than just reproducing it.