Six Characters in Search of an Author

by Pirandello, Luigi

• ISBN13: 9780413772688
• ISBN10: 0413772683
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-03-04
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

Summary

Six people arrive in a theatre during rehearsals for a play. But they are not ordinary people. They are the characters of a play that has not yet been written. Trapped inside a traumatic event from which they long to escape, they desperately need a writer to complete their story and release them. Intrigued by their situation, the director invites them to act out the key events of their lives ...; Pirandello's best-known play and one of the most extraordinary and mysterious plays of the 20th century , Six Characters speaks directly to an age of uncertainty: where do we come from, where are we going, how do we become what we want to be?

Author Biography

Pirandello, born in Sicily in 1867, was a well-known novelist and critic before he achieved international recognition as a playwright. His plays include The Rules of the Game, Six Characters, Henry IV and The Man with the Flower in his Mouth. He was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934 and died in Rome in 1936.

Table of Contents

Luigi Pirandello 1867-1936	p. v
Plot	p. xiv
Commentary
The evolution from realism	p. xxiii
The poetics of Pirandellism	p. xxxiii
Humour, cruelty and compassion	p. xlvii
Characters and characterisation	p. lvii
Writing and performance history	p. lxix
Further Reading	p. lxxxi
Translator's Note	p. lxxxiv
Six Characters in Search of an Author	p. 1
Notes	p. 77
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