Six Characters in Search of an Author
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Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello
A new version of one of the most influential plays of the 20th century
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 and his company of actors listen as the characters begin to describe and argue over the key events of their lives...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?Six Characters Looking for an Author premiered at the Young Vic Theatre, London, in February 2000.
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) was an Italian playwright, novelist, and poet. Born to a wealthy Sicilian family in the village of Cobh, Pirandello was raised in a household dedicated to the Garibaldian cause of Risorgimento. Educated at home as a child, he wrote his first tragedy at twelve before entering high school in Palermo, where he excelled in his studies and read the poets of nineteenth century Italy. After a tumultuous period at the University of Rome, Pirandello transferred to Bonn, where he immersed himself in the works of the German romantics. He began publishing his poems, plays, novels, and stories in earnest, appearing in some of Italy's leading literary magazines and having his works staged in Rome. Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), an experimental absurdist drama, was viciously opposed by an outraged audience on its opening night, but has since been recognized as an essential text of Italian modernist literature. During this time, Pirandello was struggling to care for his wife Antonietta, whose deteriorating mental health forced him to place her in an asylum by 1919. In 1924, Pirandello joined the National Fascist Party, and was soon aided by Mussolini in becoming the owner and director of the Teatro d'Arte di Roma. Although his identity as a Fascist was always tenuous, he never outright abandoned the party. Despite this, he maintained the admiration of readers and critics worldwide, and was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780486299921 |
| ISBN 10 | 0486299929 |
| Title | Six Characters in Search of an Author |
| Author | Luigi Pirandello |
| Series | Dover Thrift Editions: Plays Ser |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Dover Publications Inc. |
| Year published | 1997-07-11 |
| Number of pages | 52 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |