Naked Masks: Five Plays
by Luigi Pirandello
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Presents six plays by the Nobel Prize winning dramatist.Tags
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An interesting exploration of psychology and human interactions. Many of these plays center around the idea of relativity, in terms of how different individuals will view the same event. A great deal of philosophical discussion, along with some madcap antics at times, and a huge dose of postmodernism make for interesting reading and things to think about when the reading is over. It is not necessary to agree with the idea of right you are if you think you are in order to enjoy these plays; in fact, it isn't certain that the author agrees with it; the ambiguity in these plays reaches a proportion seldom seen except in Beckett.
A seminal work in modern drama, and generally regarded as Pirandello's masterpiece, Six Characters in Search of an author is more thought provoking than entertaining (although I've never seen a live performance, and I imagine it works pretty well on stage). All of Pirandello's mature dramas explore the conflict between appearance and reality, and Six Characters adds an additional dimension by separating the "characters" from their author's concept (almost like a platonic "ideal" that is only vaguely understood by the author who puts the role on paper).
The other plays in this collection are less well known; as suggested above these plays all deal quite directly with appearances vs. reality (a central issue in theatre, obviously). Henry show more IV was my favorite. show less
The other plays in this collection are less well known; as suggested above these plays all deal quite directly with appearances vs. reality (a central issue in theatre, obviously). Henry show more IV was my favorite. show less
I give the five stars for It is sO (also called Right You Are, If You Think You Are) , a really brilliant Miss Phipps (that is, using the technique explained in "Miss Phipps Improvises" ) in which two contrasting possibilities are alternately supported.Besides, its very funny. Henry IV and Six Characters (despite the fame of the latter) I would rate 4, and I have no strong feeling for the other two plays.
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Author Information
738+ Works 13,712 Members
Born in Sicily, Pirandello attended the universities of Palermo, Rome, and Bonn. He obtained his doctorate in philology with a thesis on the dialect of his native town, Agrigento before settling in Rome to teach and write. In 1894, he married a Sicilian girl, Antonietta Portulano, who bore him three children before she went mad and afterwards show more provided the inspiration for many of his stories and plays. In all, Pirandello wrote 6 novels, some 250 short stories, and about 50 plays. It was a novel, Il fu Mattia Pascal (1904), that first brought him fame. Only in 1920, when he was past 50, did he turn seriously to playwriting. His first stage success had been a comedy, Liola (1917), written in the Agrigento dialect. It took its theme, if not its mood, from the Mandragola of Machiavelli (see Vols. 3 and 4). In 1921, Pirandello presented his most famous play Six Characters in Search of an Author. Here he seeks to confuse his spectators, who are forced into a paradox of reality and illusion when six "characters" search out the actors of a theatrical troupe to play out their inexorable story. The play exemplifies the Pirandellian conflict between art, which is unchanging and constant, and life, which is a continuous succession of mutations. Pirandello deliberately destroyed the traditional boundaries between audience and spectacle, reflecting the relativity and subjectivity of human existence. The play's unconventional format, which resulted in a riot, established Pirandello as Europe's leading avant-garde dramatist. The main body of Pirandello's plays falls into three overlapping categories, the first exploring the nature of the theater, the second the complexities of personality in the etymological or dramatic sense of the term, and the third rising to dramatic representation of the categorical imperatives of social, religious, and artistic community. Besides the world-famous Six Characters in Search of an Author (1918), his best plays in the three categories include Each in His Own Way (1924), It Is So (If You Think So) (1917), Henry IV (1922), The New Colony (1925), Lazarus, As You Desire Me (1930), and The Mountain Giants (1937), written after he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1934 and left incomplete. Pirandello is the forerunner of much modern theater and literature; among the figures who owe their roots to the innovations of Pirandello are Bertolt Brecht, Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Samuel Beckett (see Vol. 1). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Original publication date
- 1952 (English collection) (English collection)
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