Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello

Six Characters in Search of an Author:

Why the Play Was Worth Reading After All

I must admit that reading Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello turned out to be a rather trying ordeal. The brief foreword in the textbook warned me that I was about to be introduced to “the self-conscious, reflexive theater of modernism”, adding that the author [Pirandello] expressed a particular “existentialist interest in consciousness” (201). Since I have never considered myself a fan or either modernism or existentialism (or, for that matter, anything that ends with an “ism”), I was mentally preparing for some long, tedious and boring philosophical musings. However, halfway through reading the play, I found myself more intrigued than I originally expected. Instead of long, elaborate monologues or endless, morbidly contemplative insights I found a rather lively dialogues and briskly moving action. Encouraged, I read on. Even though I was quite confused by the plot (or rather, the lack thereof), I was hoping that eventually the author (and I) would arrive at some sort of logical and sensible conclusion. I other words, I was hoping that by the time I get to the end, things would “reveal themselves” and my confusion would be lifted. Alas, after reading the last sentence of the play, I felt disappointed. With a certain note of surprise I noticed that I also felt rather angry: after all, I spent more than an hour of my time reading this piece but the author has failed to tell me what the play was about! I honestly felt some sort of “righteous indignation” and I suddenly remembered reading in the introduction that when the play was first performed in Rome, “the audience booed, yelled ‘madhouse’, and mobbed