Collected Plays: Volume Two

by Luigi Pirandello, Robert Rietty (Editor), Henry Reed (Translator)

Six Characters in Search of an Author
All for the Best
Clothe the Naked
Limes from Sicily

This is the second volume of a collected edition of the plays of Luigi Pirandello, one of the major playwrights of the early 20th century. Six Characters in Search of an Author is Pirandello's best known work. The reality of the theater and the unreality of life cross over as the dramatist steps in and out of the framework of stage convention. In All for the Best the principle character discovers that his daughter is illegitimate and that he is the only one not to have known. Clothe the Naked is another study of the nature of reality and unreality in the loneliness of the principle character and the fictitious existence she creates for herself. Limes from Sicily is Pirandello's first produced play that movingly captures the nostalgia of Sicilians in exile.

Genres: Italy

230 pages, Paperback

First published November 24, 1988

About the author

Luigi Pirandello; Agrigento (28 June 1867 – Rome 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays.

He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art"

Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd.

Reviews

[Lila · Rating 4 out of 5]

This English translation tries to be closer to the Italian melodramatic. It claims that other translators didn't speak Italian, but farmed out the basic translation into English, then reworked it. This collection includes Six Characters, All for the Best, Clothe the Naked, and Limes from Sicily.

[Maurine Tritch · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I read this because I remember reading Six Characters in Search of an Author in college; it came up recently and I wanted to read it again. (Once I started, nothing was familiar. Had I ever read it? Or just wanted to?) The library had only a compilation so I decided to read all the plays.

I love character pieces and this gave me character in spades. The plots are actually the weakest part, these are character dramas that revolve around one central mystery. The plays unfold like a Sherlock Holmes story, where you are buffeted towards one assumption, then that is whisked away to leave you leaning another direction. Which may or may not be correct either as you lurch from one supposition to another, and finally to completion. Sort of. Pirandello doesn't believe in happily ever after, nor stark tragedy. It's always in some gray area.

I liked the plays, they were enjoyable reads and were vividly painted. I think I just wanted more: more mystery, more scope, some subplot. The circuitous route Pirandello uses to get to the truth is masterful, like in the best novels; but there wasn't any framework to display it except in Six Characters.

Six Characters in Search of an Author is really in a class by itself, it goes to a extremely dark place especially given the period it was written. And part of the genius of it is how skillfully Pirandello gets around the mores of appropriateness for his time.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six Characters in Search of an Author **** – This is the play on which Pirandello’ reputation stands. It is, though, different than his other works that I’ve read. The play-outside-a-play/meta-theatre is groundbreaking. (Though not unheard of – see Knight of the Burning Pestle circa. 1607.)

Personally, I liked the idea of the play, but not the execution. The characters’ “play-outside-the-play” has too many elements of a sensational melodrama --it could have been more compelling and commented more on the play overall. Instead it was a sordid and highly improbable family melodrama. What's compelling is not the action or idea of the play, but the darkly lurid story. (I guess there was supposed to be the shock factor of the story.)

Yet this is still a powerful play and the discussion of character and reality and speech make it fascinating to read/watch.

Clothe the Naked *** – In this Ibsenesque play, the search for truth torments a young women and leads to her death. It’s an interesting play with Pirandello’s overflowing prose, but it lacks the surreal qualities of his better works. It is more explicit and sexually charged than the typical Ibsen play, but it otherwise shares many of the same qualities of Ibsen's social dramas.