Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) is a metatheatrical drama by Luigi Pirandello. Viewed as an important work of absurdist literature, the play was a critical failure when it was first staged in Rome. Revised by its author and bolstered by successful performances in New York City, Six Characters in Search of an Author has been recognized as a pioneering examination of the nature of creativity, the relationship of the director and actors to the work of art, and the psychological stress associated with staging a theatrical production. While preparing to rehearse a new play by director Luigi Pirandello, a theatre company is interrupted with the arrival of six strangers on set. After a moment of frustration and confusion, the director is told that they are six unfinished characters whose story cannot be told without his intervention. The Father, Mother, Son, Stepdaughter, Boy, and Child refuse to leave, forcing the director to convince his actors to help them fulfill their wish. As the story begins to take shape, the characters exert more and more control over the set and the participation of the other actors, soon overtaking the director entirely. Strange and compelling, Six Characters in Search of an Author is a unique play which saw resistance from critics and theatergoers for one reason only: its methods forced them to question the nature of reality itself. This edition of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author is a classic work of Italian literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) was an Italian playwright, novelist, and poet. Born to a wealthy Sicilian family in the village of Cobh, Pirandello was raised in a household dedicated to the Garibaldian cause of Risorgimento. Educated at home as a child, he wrote his first tragedy at twelve before entering high school in Palermo, where he excelled in his studies and read the poets of nineteenth century Italy. After a tumultuous period at the University of Rome, Pirandello transferred to Bonn, where he immersed himself in the works of the German romantics. He began publishing his poems, plays, novels, and stories in earnest, appearing in some of Italy’s leading literary magazines and having his works staged in Rome. Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), an experimental absurdist drama, was viciously opposed by an outraged audience on its opening night, but has since been recognized as an essential text of Italian modernist literature. During this time, Pirandello was struggling to care for his wife Antonietta, whose deteriorating mental health forced him to place her in an asylum by 1919. In 1924, Pirandello joined the National Fascist Party, and was soon aided by Mussolini in becoming the owner and director of the Teatro d’Arte di Roma. Although his identity as a Fascist was always tenuous, he never outright abandoned the party. Despite this, he maintained the admiration of readers and critics worldwide, and was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature.
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