Six Characters in Search of an Author

“Ridiculous? Ridiculous? Is it my fault if France won’t send us any more good comedies, and we are reduced to putting on Pirandello’s works, where nobody understands anything, and where the author plays the fool with us all?”

The Manager’s reaction to performing a Luigi Pirandello play gives Pirandello himself an opportunity for self-aware satire. By referencing his reputation as a difficult-to-understand playwright, he prepares the audience for the absurdity of the work. The reference to the play’s author also acts as a metatheatrical distancing technique.

“It’s a mixing up of the parts, according to which you who act your own part become the puppet of yourself.”

The Manager’s explanation of the fictional Pirandello play’s characters doubles as a humorous summary of the thematic questions asked by the play. Whether it is the actors taking the parts of the characters or a character authoring the details of another character’s actions, all the characters of the play become puppets.

“Oh, sir, you know well that life is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true. [...] I say that to reverse the ordinary process may well be considered a madness: that is, to create credible situations, in order that they may appear true. But permit me to observe that if this be madness, it is the sole raison d’être of your profession, gentlemen.”

The Father positions life and theater as opposites. Life, because it is natural, is absurd but truthful. Theater is a process that favors credibility and order to create the appearance of truth. This ordering process, he argues, is the actual madness. His understanding of theater is at odds with that of the Manager’s. This conflict informs their disagreements about staging the characters’ drama throughout the rest of the play.