Pirandello’s own theatre company, founded in 1925, then performed the play in Italian throughout the major cities of Europe and North and South America. The play would then see successful productions in London and New York in February and October of 1922, in Paris in 1923, and in Berlin and Vienna in 1924. Later that year, however, audiences and critics had assimilated the extraordinary idea and were enchanted by a remounted production in Milan. This concept was so startling it helped to incite a riot in the audience when the original production of the play was staged in Rome on May 10, 1921. Furthermore, these “ characters” claim that they are more “ real” than the actors who eventually want to portray them. These “ characters” have arrived on the stage to find an author themselves, someone who will give them the fullness of literary life that their original author has denied them. In what begins as a realistic play he introduces six figures who make the extraordinary claim that they are the incomplete but independent products of an artist’s imagination – “ characters” the artist abandoned when he couldn’t complete their story. With originality that was startling to his contemporaries, Pirandello introduced a striking and compelling dramatic situation that initially baffled but eventually dazzled audiences and critics alike. Six Characters in Search of an Author created Luigi Pirandello’s international reputation in the 1920s and is still the play by which he is most widely identified.

Themes and style – Critical overwiev – Criticism Six Characters in Search of an Author: Mathias Wiemann (left), Lucie Hoeflich (centre), Franziska Kinz (right), 1924 staging at the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin, directed by Max Reinhardt Introduction – Short summary – Characters analysis – Plot Summary In Italiano – Sei personaggi in cerca d’autoreĮn Español – Seis personajes en busca de autor Audio letture – In ordine di pubblicazione.

6 characters in search of an author