Pirandello: Six Characters in Search of an Author Essay

A theatre company is preparing to practice one of Pirandellos heartens, which no one understood when it was written and which makes flat less sense today ( coach, I). Before they argon able to begin, however, the Characters take part and explain who they be, and that the author that created them had not been able to finish their play, and that they were in expect of roundone who would serve well them by finishing the job.The director agrees, and the characters tell their story, demonstrating scenes that were to be played. Not long after the first scene is played, it appears that there is some disagreement between the Characters and the Company, regarding the direction that the scenes should take. The Characters argue that they way that the Company play their roles is not satisfying number enough, not true enough. Contrariwise, the theater director argues that some permission must be allowed for the physical and temporal restrictions that stage production puts on their e arth.The Characters insist on continuing their demonstration, culminating in the suicide of the Boy. The Company is horrified, some believing the child to be truly dead, others insisting that it was a trick. The get down replies to their questions with What do you mean, a trick? It is unfeignedity, reality, ladies and gentlemen Reality (Father, III). The Director, horrified and confused, calls for lights. When the lights kick in go into up, the Characters ar gone. Exasperated, the Director cries, Theyve cost me a whole day of descriptionDRAMATIC ELEMENTSPoint of Inciting Interest The Characters appear during rehearsal and reveal that they are seeking someone to tell their story. The director agrees to help.Major Crises*The Director realizes that the Characters are not actors looking to rehearse, and that they expect him to serve as their author and salve their play. After some discussion with the Father, he agrees to continue.*At several storeys during the play, the Director is confronted with situations in which the Characters are unhappy with the scenery or the look or performance of the actors, or the direction that the Director is giving. Each time, there ensues a discussion on the reality of what the Company is portrait, versus the reality of the Characters story. Each time, the Characters finally decide, reluctantly, to accept a less-than-perfect portrayal of their story. These crises have been condensed into one bullet point for conciseness.ClimaxThe Boy, demonstrating the final scene, shoots himself and dies.DenouementThe Company is horrified. The Father explains to them simply that this is reality, ladies and gentlemen The Director calls for lights and finds the Characters have gone. He then cancels the remaining rehearsal time and exits. reply/ANALYSISPirandello takes on quite a challenging question in Six Characters. This question, of how reality can be defined, goes all the way backward to Plato,with his Allegory of the Cave. While Piran dello does not function that question, perhaps an ultimate answer is impossible to conceive, he does take it to a different level, and leaves the audience thinking.This world-wide question, in Six Characters, takes on a great depth. We, the audience, are presented with twain realities, and are asked to define which is to a greater extent real of the two. On one side, we have the Company, composed of real people who create fabricated stories through their attain on the stage. However, Pirandello gives them absolutely no depth. It is clear that they are merely vessels for portraying this fiction, creating real stories in their shows, but they seem to have no real stories of their own.Contrariwise, the Characters, who are not real people, i.e. they have been created by some inglorious reference have a story, a life, that is much more real than those of the Company. Conflict ensues when the reality that is created by the Company does not acceptably align to the exacting standards of the Characters. The problem is that the Company must conform to the physical and temporal limitations inherent in stage productions, and sometimes they do not fully grasp the nature of the Character that they are portraying. This bothers the Characters, as they feel that it affects the reality of their story, to have it altered. But thats not the way it really happened, seems to be their continual complaint.The question that Pirandello presents to us, and leaves us to ponder at the supplant of the play, is Which is more real, the true reality of the fictional Characters, or the fictional reality of the real Company? Being a non-dualist, I would personally argue that they are both real, however that is only my opinion. One final item that I will present for consideration is the religious connotation of the creator-deity figure, the Author. It is interesting to note, than when the Author of the Characters work is referred to, it is always Author, not author. The Characters are s earching for an author to help them bring to life the story that was created by the Author. Perhaps Pirandello is drawing a subtle connection between the Characters quest, and our own search for truth. In the end of the play, the Characters vanish after completing their demonstration.Through their quest for self-definition, the Characters actually attain self-definition. Perhaps Pirandello is trying to say that, in a circular fashion, it is our valet de chambre quest to define ourselves that, in the end, defines us.