Three Plays

Front matter

THREE PLAYS

BY

LUIGI PIRANDELLO

Prefatory Note

No apology is necessary for offering to American readers a play which critics, with singular unanimity, have called one of the most original productions seen on the modern stage. In less than a year's time, "" has won a distinguished place in the dramatic literature of the Western world, attracting audiences and engaging intellects far removed from the particular influences which made of it a season's sensation in Italy.

Yet the word "original" is not enough, unless we embrace under that characterization qualities far richer than those normally credited to the "trick" play. The "Six Characters" is something more than an unusually ingenious variation of the "play within a play." It is something more than a new twist given to the "dream character" made familiar by the contemporary Italian grotesques. It is a dramatization of the artistic process itself. In relation to the problem of reality and unreality which has engaged Pirandello in one way or another for more than twenty years.

I venture to insist upon this point as against those observers who have tried to see in the "Six Characters" an ironical satire of the commercial drama, as we know it today, mixed, more or less artificially, with a rather obvious philosophy of neo-idealism. No such mixture exists. The blend is organic. The object of Pirandello's bitter irony is not the stage-manager, nor the theatrical producer, nor even the dramatic critic: it is the dramatist; it is the artist; it is, in the end, life itself.

I suppose the human soul presents no mysteries to those who have been thoroughly grounded in the science of Freud. But in spite of psycho-analysis a few Hamlets still survive. Pirandello is one of them.

What are people really like? In the business of everyday life, nothing is commoner than the categorical judgment sweeping and assured in its affirmatives. But as we cut a little deeply into the living matter of the spirit, the problem becomes more complicated. Do we ever understand the whole motivation of an action—not in others only but even in ourselves?

Oh, yes, there are people who know. … The State knows, with its laws and its procedures. And society knows, with its conventions. And individuals know, with their formulas for conduct often cannily applied with reference to interest.—The ironical element, as everyone has noted, is fundamental in Pirandello!

Apart from works in his earlier manner (realistic pictures from Southern Italian life, including such gems as "Sicilian Limes"), Pirandello's most distinctive productions have dealt with this general theme. No one of them, indeed, exhausts it. And how could this be otherwise? Pirandello, approaching the sixties, to be sure, is nevertheless in spirit a man of the younger Italian generation, which, trained by Croce and Gentile, has "learned how to think." But however great his delight in playing with "actual idealism," he knows the difference between a drama and a philosophical dissertation. His plays are situations embodying conclusions simple, or indeed "obvious" in their convincingness. They must be taken as a whole—if one would look for a full statement of Pirandello*s "thought."

A "thought," moreover, which may or may not invite us to profound reflection. Enough for the lover of the theatre is the fact that Pirandello derives the most interesting dramatic possibilities from it. Sometimes it is the "reality" which society sees brought into contrast with the reality which action proves (Il piacere dell' onestà), Again, it is the "reality" which a man sees in himself thwarted by the reality which actually controls ("Ma non è una cosa seria") In "" {Così è, se vi pare) we have a general satire of the "cocksure," who, placed in the presence of reality and unreality, are unable to distinguish one from the other.

In the "Six Characters" it is the turn of the artist. Can art—creative art, where the spirit would seem most autonomous—itself determine reality? No, because once "a character is born, he acquires such an independence, even of his own author, that he can be imagined by everybody in situations where the author never dreamed of placing him, and so acquires a meaning which the author never thought of giving him." In this lies the great originality of this very original play—the discovery (so Italian, when one thinks of it, and so novel, as one compares it with the traditional rôle of the "artist" in the European play) that the laborious effort of artistic creation is itself a dramatic theme—so unruly, so assertive, is this thing called "life" ever rising to harass and defeat anyone who would interpret, crystallize, devitalize it.

And beyond the drama lies the poetry, a poetry of mysterious symbolism made up of terror, and rebellion, and pity, and human kindliness. Let us not miss the latter, especially, in the complex mood of all Pirandello's theatre.

The three plays of Pirandello, here offered in translations that do not hope to be adequate, are famous specimens of the "new" theatre in Italy. The term "new" is much contested, not only in Italy but abroad. In using the word here it is not necessary to claim that this young, impulsive, fascinatingly boisterous after-the-war Italy Is doing things that no one else ever thought of doing. We remain on safe ground if we assert that Pirandello and his associates have broken the bounds set to the old fashioned "sentimental" Latin play.

The motivations of the "old" theatre were largely ethical in character, developing spiritual crises from the conflict oF impulses with a rigid framework of law and convention. Dramaric art was, so to speak, a department of geometry, dealing, with this or that projection or modification of the triangle. Husbands tearing their hair as wives proved unfaithful; disappointed lovers pining in eternal fidelity to mates beyond their social sphere; cuckolds heroically sheathing the stiletto in deference to a higher law of respectability; widows sending second-hand aspirants to suicide that the sacrament of marriage might remain inviolate:—such were the themes.

And there is no doubt, besides, that this "old" theatre produced works of great beauty and intenseness; since the will in conflict with impulse and triumphing over impulse always presents a subject entrancing in human interest and noble in moral implications.

But the potentialities of drama are more numerous than the permutations of three. The "new" theatre in Italy is "new" in this discovery at least.

" an equally strong and original variation of the insanity motive, is the first of two plays by Pirandello dealing with a special aspect of the problem of reality and unreality. The second, not yet given to the public, is Vestire gli ingnudi ("… And ye clothed me!"). In the former Pirandello studies a situation where an individual finds a world of unreality thrust upon him, voluntarily reassuming it later on, when tragedy springs from the deeper reality. In "And ye clothed me!" we have a girl who, to fill an empty life of no importance, creates a fiction for herself, only to find it torn violently from her and to be left in a naked reality that is, after all, so unreal.

These two plays indicate the present tendency of Pirandello's rapid production—a tendency that promises even richer results as this interesting author delves more extensively into the mysteries of individual psychology.

Henry IV., meanwhile, is before us. It can speak for itself.

All of Pirandello's plays are built for acting, and only incidentally for reading. We make this observation with "Right You Are" especially in mind, since that play, above all, is a test for the actor. It is typical of Pirandello for its rapidity, its harshness and its violence—the skill with which the tense tableau is drawn out of pure dialectic, pure "conversation." Moreover, it states a fundamental preoccupation of Pirandello in peculiarly lucid and striking fashion. Perhaps a better rendering of the title Così è (se vi pare) will occur to many. Ludwig Lewisohn (happily, I thought) suggested "As You Like It," no less. A possibility, quite in the spirit of Pirandello's title in general, would have been another Shakespearean reminiscence: "... and Thinking Makes It So." We have kept something approximating the literal, which would be: "So it is (if you think so)."

The text of the "Six Characters" is that of the translation designated by the author and which was used in the sensational productions of the play given in London and New York.

A. L.

Six Characters in Search of an Author

SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR

(Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore)

A COMEDY IN THE MAKING

by

LUIGI PIRANDELLO

translated by Edward Storer

Six Characters in Search of an Author Characters

The Father. The Mother. The Step-Daughter. The Son. The Boy. The Child. (The last two do not speak.) Madame Pace.

The Manager. Leading Lady. Leading Man. Second Lady. Lead. L'Ingenue. Juvenile Lead. Other Actors and Actresses. Property Man. Prompter. Machinist. Manager's Secretary. Door-Keeper. Scene-Shifters.

Daytime. The Stage of a Theatre.

Six Characters in Search of an Author Act I

N. B. The Comedy is without acts or scenes. The performance is interrupted once, without the curtain being lowered, when the manager and the chief characters withdraw to arrange the scenario. A second interruption of the action takes place when, by mistake, the stage hands let the curtain down.

The spectators will find the curtain raised and the stage as it usually is during the day time. It will be half dark, and empty, so that from the beginning the public may have the impression of an impromptu performance.

Prompter's box and a small table and chair for the manager.

Two other small tables and several chairs scattered about as during rehearsals.

The actors and actresses of the company enter from the back of the stage: first one, then another, then two together: nine or ten in all. They are about to rehearse a Pirandello play: Mixing It Up. Some of the company move off towards their dressing rooms. The prompter who has the "book" under his arm, is waiting for the manager in order to begin the rehearsal.

The actors and actresses, some standing, some sitting, chat and smoke. One perhaps reads a paper; another cons his part.

Finally, the Manager enters and goes to the table prepared for him. His secretary brings him his mail, through which he glances. The prompter takes his seat, turns on a light, and opens the "book."

The Manager (throwing a letter down on the table). I can't see (to Property Man). Let's have a little light, please!

Property Man. Yes sir, yes, at once (a light comes down on to the stage).

The Manager (clapping his hands). Come along! Come along! Second act of "Mixing it Up" (sits down).

(The actors and actresses go from the front of the stage to the wings, all except the three who are to begin the rehearsal).

The Prompter (reading the "book"). "Leo Gala's house. A curious room serving as dining-room and study."

The Manager (to Property Man). Fix up the old red room.

Property Man (noting it down). Red set. All right!

The Prompter (continuing to read from the "book"). "Table already laid and writing desk with books and papers. Book-shelves. Exit rear to Leo's bedroom. Exit left to kitchen. Principal exit to right."

The Manager (energetically). Well, you understand: The principal exit over there; here, the kitchen. (Turning to actor who is to play the part of Socrates). You make your entrances and exits here. (To Property Man) The baize doors at the rear, and curtains.

Property Man (noting it down). Right oh!

Prompter (reading as before). "When the curtain rises, Leo Gala, dressed in cook's cap and apron is busy beating an egg in a cup. Philip, also dressed as a cook, is beating another egg. Guido Venanzi is seated and listening."

Leading Man (to manager). Excuse me, but must I absolutely wear a cook's cap?

The Manager (annoyed). I imagine so. It says so there anyway (pointing to the "book").

Leading Man. But it's ridiculous!

The Manager (jumping up in a rage). 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 actors grin. The Manager goes to Leading Man and shouts). Yes sir, you put on the cook's cap and beat eggs. Do you suppose that with all this egg-beating business you are on an ordinary stage? Get that out of your head. You represent the shell of the eggs you are beating! (Laughter and comments among the actors). Silence! and listen to my explanations, please! (To Leading Man): "The empty form of reason without the fullness of instinct, which is blind."—You stand for reason, your wife is instinct. It's a mixing up of the parts, according to which you who act your own part become the puppet of yourself. Do you understand?

Leading Man. I'm hanged if I do.

The Manager. Neither do I. But let's get on with it. It's sure to be a glorious failure anyway. (Confidentially): But I say, please face three-quarters. Otherwise, what with the abstruseness of the dialogue, and the public that won't be able to hear you, the whole thing will go to hell. Come on! come on!

Prompter. Pardon sir, may I get into my box? There's a bit of a draught.

The Manager. Yes, yes, of course!

At this point, the door-keeper has entered from the stage door and advances towards the manager's table, taking off his braided cap. During this manoeuvre, the Six Characters enter, and stop by the door at back of stage, so that when the door-keeper is about to announce their coming to the Manager, they are already on the stage. A tenuous light surrounds them, almost as if irradiated by them—the faint breath of their fantastic reality.

This light will disappear when they come forward towards the actors. They preserve, however, something of the dream lightness in which they seem almost suspended; but this does not detract from the essential reality of their forms and expressions.

He who is known as The Father is a man of about 50: hair, reddish in colour, thin at the temples; he is not bald, however; thick moustaches, falling over his still fresh mouth, which often opens in an empty and uncertain smile. He is fattish, pale; with an especially wide forehead. He has blue, oval-shaped eyes, very clear and piercing. Wears light trousers and a dark jacket. He is alternatively mellifluous and violent in his manner.

The Mother seems crushed and terrified as if by an intolerable weight of shame and abasement. She is dressed in modest black and wears a thick widow's veil of crêpe. When she lifts this, she reveals a wax-like face. She always keeps her eyes downcast.

The Step-Daughter, is dashing, almost impudent, beautiful. She wears mourning too, but with great elegance. She shows contempt for the timid half-frightened manner of the wretched Boy (14 years old, and also dressed in black); on the other hand, she displays a lively tenderness for her little sister. The Child (about four), who is dressed in white, with a black silk sash at the waist.

The Son (22) tall, severe in his attitude of contempt for The Father, supercilious and indifferent to the Mother. He looks as if he had come on the stage against his will.

Door-keeper (cap in hand). Excuse me, sir …

The Manager (rudely). Eh? What is it?

Door-keeper (timidly). These people are asking for you, sir.

The Manager (furious). I am rehearsing, and you know perfectly well no one's allowed to come in during rehearsals! (Turning to the Characters): Who are you, please? What do you want?

The Father (coming forward a little, followed by the others who seem embarrassed). As a matter of fact … we have come here in search of an author …

The Manager (half angry, half amazed). An author? What author?

The Father. Any author, sir.

The Manager. But there's no author here. We are not rehearsing a new piece.

The Step-Daughter (vivaciously). So much the better, so much the better! We can be your new piece.

An Actor (coming forward from the others). Oh, do you hear that?

The Father (to Step-Daughter). Yes, but if the author isn't here … (To Manager) … unless you would be willing …

The Manager. You are trying to be funny.

The Father. No, for Heaven's sake, what are you saying? We bring you a drama, sir.

The Step-Daughter. We may be your fortune.

The Manager. Will you oblige me by going away? We haven't time to waste with mad people.

The Father (mellifluously). 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.

The Manager. What the devil is he talking about?

The Father. 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 actors look hurt and preplexed).

The Manager (getting up and looking at him). So our profession seems to you one worthy of madmen then?

The Father. Well, to make seem true that which isn't true … without any need … for a joke as it were … Isn't that your mission, gentlemen: to give life to fantastic characters on the stage?

The Manager (interpreting the rising anger of the Company). But I would beg you to believe, my dear sir, that the profession of the comedian is a noble one. If today, as things go, the playwrights give us stupid comedies to play and puppets to represent instead of men, remember we are proud to have given life to immortal works here on these very boards! (The actors, satisfied, applaud their Manager).

The Father (interrupting furiously). Exactly, perfectly, to living beings more alive than those who breathe and wear clothes: beings less real perhaps, but truer! I agree with you entirely. (The actors look at one another in amazement).

The Manager. But what do you mean? Before, you said …

The Father. No, excuse me, I meant it for you, sir, who were crying out that you had no time to lose with madmen, while no one better than yourself knows that nature uses the instrument of human fantasy in order to pursue her high creative purpose.

The Manager. Very well,—but where does all this take us?

The Father. Nowhere! It is merely to show you that one is born to life in many forms, in many shapes, as tree, or as stone, as water, as butterfly, or as woman. So one may also be born a character in a play.

The Manager (with feigned comic dismay). So you and these other friends of yours have been born characters?

The Father. Exactly, and alive as you see! (Manager and actors burst out laughing).

The Father (hurt). I am sorry you laugh, because we carry in us a drama, as you can guess from this woman here veiled in black.

The Manager (losing patience at last and almost indignant). Oh, chuck it! Get away please! Clear out of here! (to Property Man), For Heaven's sake, turn them out!

The Father (resisting). No, no, look here, we …

The Manager (roaring). We come here to work, you know.

Leading Actor. One cannot let oneself be made such a fool of.

The Father (determined, coming forward), I marvel at your incredulity, gentlemen. Are you not accustomed to see the characters created by an author spring to life in yourselves and face each other? Just because there is no "book" (pointing to the Prompter s box) which contains us, you refuse to believe …

The Step-Daughter (advances towards Manager, smiling and coquettish). Believe me, we are really six most interesting characters, sir; side-tracked however.

The Father. Yes, that is the word! (To Manager all at once): in the sense, that is, that the author who created us alive no longer wished, or was no longer able, materially to put us into a work of art. And this was a real crime, sir; because he who has had the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. He cannot die. The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die. And to live for ever, it does not need to have extraordinary gifts or to be able to work wonders. Who was Sancho Panza? Who was Don Abbondio? Yet they live eternally because—live germs as they were—they had the fortune to find a fecundating matrix, a fantasy which could raise and nourish them; make them live for ever!

The Manager. That is quite all right. But what do you want here, all of you?

The Father. We want to live.

The Manager (ironically). For Eternity?

The Father. No, sir, only for a moment … in you.

An Actor. Just listen to him!

Leading Lady. They want to live, in us …

Juvenile Lead (pointing to the Step-Daughter). I've no objection, as far as that one is concerned!

The Father. Look here! look here! The comedy has to be made. (To the Manager): But if you and your actors are willing, we can soon concert it among ourselves.

The Manager (annoyed). But what do you want to concert? We don't go in for concerts here. Here we play dramas and comedies!

The Father. Exactly! That is just why we have come to you.

The Manager. And where is the "book"?

The Father. It is in us! (The actors laugh). The drama is in us, and we are the drama. We are impatient to play it. Our inner passion drives us on to this.

The Step-Daughter (disdainful, alluring, treacherous, full of impudence). My passion, sir! Ah, if you only knew! My passion for him! (Points to the Father and makes a pretence of embracing him. Then she breaks out into a loud laugh).

The Father (angrily). Behave yourself! And please don't laugh in that fashion.

The Step-Daughter. With your permission, gentlemen, I, who am a two months' orphan, will show you how I can dance and sing.

(Sings and then dances Prenez garde a Tchou-Thin-Tchou).

Les chinois sont un peuple malin, De Shangaî à Pekin, Ils ont mis des écriteux partout : Prenez garde à Tchou-Thin-Tchou.

Actors and Actresses. Bravo! Well done! Tip-top!

The Manager. Silence! This isn't a café concert, you know! (Turning to the Father in consternation): Is she mad?

The Father. Mad? No, she's worse than mad.

The Step-Daughter (to Manager). Worse? Worse? Listen! Stage this drama for us at once! Then you will see that at a certain moment I … when this little darling here … (Takes the Child by the hand and leads her to the Manager): Isn't she a dear? (Takes her up and kisses her). Darling! Darling! (Puts her down again and adds feelingly): Well, when God suddenly takes this dear little child away from that poor mother there; and this imbecile here (seizing hold of the Boy roughly and pushing him forward) does the stupidest things, like the fool he is, you will see me run away. Yes, gentleman, I shall be off. But the moment hasn't arrived yet. After what has taken place between him and me (indicates the Father with a horrible wink), I can't remain any longer in this society, to have to witness the anguish of this mother here for that fool … (indicates the Son). Look at him! Look at him! See how indifferent, how frigid he is, because he is the legitimate son. He despises me, despises him (pointing to the Boy), despises this baby here; because … we are bastards (goes to the Mother and embraces her). And he doesn't want to recognize her as his mother—she who is the common mother of us all. He looks down upon her as if she were only the mother of us three bastards. Wretch! (She says all this very rapidly, excitedly. At the word "bastards" she raises her voice, and almost spits out the final "Wretch!").

The Mother (to the Manager, in anguish). In the name of these two little children, I beg you … (She grows faint and is about to fall). Oh God!

The Father (coming forward to support her as do some of the actors). Quick a chair, a chair for this poor widow!

The Actors. Is it true? Has she really fainted?

The Manager. Quick, a chair! Here!

(One of the actors brings a chair, the others proffer assistance. The Mother tries to prevent the Father from lifting the veil which covers her face).

The Father. Look at her! Look at her!

The Mother. No, no; stop it please!

The Father (raising her veil). Let them see you!

The Mother (rising and covering her face with her hands, in desperation). I beg you, sir, to prevent this man from carrying out his plan which is loathsome to me.

The Manager (dumbfounded). I don't understand at all. What is the situation? Is this lady your wife? (to the Father).

The Father. Yes, gentlemen: my wife!

The Manager. But how can she be a widow if you are alive? (The actors find relief for their astonishment in a loud laugh).

The Father. Don't laugh! Don't laugh like that, for Heaven's sake. Her drama lies just here in this: she has had a lover, a man who ought to be here.

The Mother (with a cry). No! No!

The Step-Daughter. Fortunately for her, he is dead. Two months ago as I said. We are in mourning, as you see.

The Father. He isn't here you see, not because he is dead. He isn't here—look at her a moment and you will understand—because her drama isn't a drama of the love of two men for whom she was incapable of feeling anything except possibly a little gratitude—gratitude not for me but for the other. She isn't a woman, she is a mother, and her drama—powerful sir, I assure you—lies, as a matter of fact, all in these four children she has had by two men.

The Mother. I had them? Have you got the courage to say that I wanted them? (To the company). It was his doing. It was he who gave me that other man, who forced me to go away with him.

The Step-Daughter. It isn't true.

The Mother (startled). Not true, isn't it?

The Step-Daughter. No, it isn't true, it just isn't true.

The Mother. And what can you know about it?

The Step-Daughter. It isn't true. Don't believe it. (To Manager). Do you know why she says so? For that fellow there (indicates the Son). She tortures herself, destroys herself on account of the neglect of that son there; and she wants him to believe that if she abandoned him when he was only two years old, it was because he (indicates the Father) made her do so.

The Mother (vigorously). He forced me to it, and I call God to witness it (to the Manager). Ask him (in- dicates husband) if it isn't true. Let him speak. You (to daughter) are not in a position to know anything about it.

The Step-Daughter. I know you lived in peace and happiness with my father while he lived. Can you deny it?

The Mother. No, I don't deny it …

The Step-Daughter. He was always full of affection and kindness for you (to the Boy, angrily). It's true, isn't it? Tell them! Why don't you speak, you little fool?

The Mother. Leave the poor boy alone. Why do you want to make me appear ungrateful, daughter? I don't want to offend your father. I have answered him that I didn't abandon my house and my son through any fault of mine, nor from any wilful passion.

The Father. It is true. It was my doing.

Leading Man (to the Company). What a spectacle!

Leading Lady. We are the audience this time.

Juvenile Lead. For once, in a way.

The Manager (beginning to get really interested). Let's hear them out. Listen!

The Son. Oh yes, you're going to hear a fine bit now. He will talk to you of the Demon of Experiment.

The Father. You are a cynical imbecile. I've told you so already a hundred times (to the Manager). He tries to make fun of me on account of this expression which I have found to excuse myself with.

The Son (with disgust). Yes, phrases! phrases!

The Father. Phrases! Isn't everyone consoled when faced with a trouble or fact he doesn't understand, by a word, some simple word, which tells us nothing and yet calms us?

The Step-Daughter. Even in the case of remorse. In fact, especially then.

The Father. Remorse? No, that isn't true. I've done more than use words to quieten the remorse in me.

The Step-Daughter. Yes, there was a bit of money too. Yes, yes, a bit of money. There were the hundred lire he was about to offer me in payment, gentlemen … (sensation of horror among the actors).

The Son (to the Step-Daughter). This is vile.

The Step-Daughter. Vile? There they were in a pale blue envelope on a little mahogany table in the back of Madame Pace's shop. You know Madame Pace—one of those ladies who attract poor girls of good family into their ateliers, under the pretext of their selling robes et manteaux.

The Son. And he thinks he has bought the right to tyrannise over us all with those hundred lire he was going to pay; but which, fortunately—note this, gentlemen—he had no chance of paying.

The Step-Daughter. It was a near thing, though, you know! (laughs ironically).

The Mother (protesting.) Shame, my daughter, shame!

The Step-Daughter. Shame indeed! This is my revenge! I am dying to live that scene … The room … I see it … Here is the window with the mantles exposed, there the divan, the looking-glass, a screen, there in front of the window the little mahogany table with the blue envelope containing one hundred lire. I see it. I see it. I could take hold of it … But you, gentlemen, you ought to turn your backs now: I am almost nude, you know. But I don't blush: I leave that to him (indicating Father).