Six Characters in Search of an Author (Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore) is the most famous play of Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello. It premiered in Italy in 1921 and was first published in 1925. Luigi Pirandello (June 28, 1867 – December 10, 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. ... Luigi Pirandello (June 28, 1867 – December 10, 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Première

The play was staged in 1921 by the Compagnia di Dario Niccomedi at the Valle di Roma. It was a glamorous failure. The public split up into supporters and adversaries, the latter of whom shouted: "Asylum, Asylum!" The author, who was present at the representation with his daughter Lietta, was forced to almost literally run out of the theatre through a side exit in order to avoid the crowd of enemies. The same drama, however, was a great success when presented at Milan.

Plot

In Six Characters in Search of an Author, the audience is confronted with the unexpected arrival of six characters during the rehearsals for a play (incidentally, one of Pirandello's own) who insist on being given life, on being allowed to tell their story. Pirandello describes how this concept came about in the preface to the published work: an abortive attempt at a play which he gave up on after realising that "I have already afflicted my readers with hundreds and hundreds of stories. Why should I afflict them now by narrating the sad entanglements of these six unfortunates?" The characters, however, already extant in his mind were "creatures of my spirit, these six were already living a life which was their own and not mine any more, a life which it was not in my power any more to deny them."

Analysis

The play spends much time vividly demonstrating the limitations of the theatre as a medium of story-telling. Thus the play can be regarded as simply an exercise in the now much-explored realm of meta-theatre; however, it also delves into the larger questions of defining existence and hints at the responsibilities inherent in creativity. Serge Sudeikins poster for the Bat Theatre (1922). ... Meta-reference, a meta-fiction technique, is a situation in a form of media whereby fictional characters display an awareness that they are in a film, television show or book. ... This article or section may be confusing or unclear for some readers, and should be edited to rectify this. ... Look up Creativity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Adaptations

• 1976: PBS television adaptation directed by Stacy Keach (now available on DVD)
• 1992: BBC film adaptation directed by Bill Bryden.

1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... PBS re-directs here; for alternate uses see PBS (disambiguation) PBS logo The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 349 member TV stations in the United States. ... Stacy Keach (born June 2, 1941) is an American actor and narrator. ... DVD (Digital Versatile Disc, often incorrectly explained as Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ... William Campbell Rough (Bill) Bryden CBE (born 12 April 1942 in Greenock, Scotland) is a leading British stage director. ...

See also

• A Sensation Novel -- another play of the same genre from the 1870s
• Five Characters in Search of an Exit
• At Swim-Two-Birds

A Sensation Novel is a comic musical play in three acts (or volumes) written by librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Thomas German Reed. ... // Events and Trends Technology The invention of the telephone (1876) by Alexander Graham Bell. ... “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. ... At Swim-Two-Birds is a novel by Irish novelist Flann OBrien (one pen-name of Brian ONolan) published in 1939. ...

External links

• Online text of Six Characters in Search of an Author
• Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore, available freely at Project Gutenberg (In original Italian)