SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR

By Luigi Pirandello

Performed at the Maskers Bassett Studio in 1978

THE CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY IN THE MAKING:-

THE ACTORS IN THE COMPANY:-

DAYTIME : THE STAGE OF A THEATRE

The play has neither acts nor scenes. Its performance will be interrupted twice : once when the Producer and the principal characters go away to write the script and the Actors leave the stage, and a second time when the Man on the Lights makes a mistake.

FOR THE MASKERS:-

Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello was born in Sicily on June 28th 1867, the son of a fairly wealthy mother and father. To avoid drawing attention to their unpopular pro-Garibaldi political beliefs, the family had withdrawn to their country estate, where Pirandello spent a comfortable childhood.

Clearly unsuitable for a career in commerce Pirandello studied at Rome and Bonn before accepting a post at a teachers college for women in Rome. His life was clouded by a series of melancholy events, including a desperately unhappy marriage, which clearly influenced his attitude to life. He believed that life.was rendered ridiculous by self-deception, by the creation of inner realities sporadically exposed as vain and illusory. Pirandello filled his writings with “bitter compassion for all those who fool themselves”.

He was a prolific writer and established an enviable reputation as a poet, dramatist and novelist, winning

the Nobel Prize for literature in 1934.

He died in Rome on December 10th 1936 and, in keeping with his distaste for the deceptions and illusions of life, he requested the simplest possible cremation and funeral.