Modern Drama Essay.

Aaron Lim Si Ru
Asst Prof. Daniel Keith Jernigan
HL 306: Modern Drama
6 December 2010

Pirandello’s Endless Hall of Mirrors.

In the course of our study of Modern Drama, we have attempted to answer the question of whether Realism was conceptually unsound. Certainly, numerous points have been made that Realism is somewhat lacking in its portrayal of reality. While I agree with that, I think we need to understand while Realism strives to be as accurate as it can in its portrayal of reality with its adherence to sets and presenting society warts and all; it is ultimately a representation of reality. We cannot conflate Realism with reality and demand that Realism accurately depicts real life as it is ultimately confined to the conventions of the stage. Realism, in my opinion is merely a perspective taken by theatre seeking to understand the world. As Shakespeare famously said “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players”, Pirandello exemplifies this quote by suggesting through his Six Characters that our reality, the reality of our existence that we are so secure in, one that we so fastidiously construct around ourselves, could very well be an illusion (2.7.139-140). Pirandello in Six Characters in Search of an Author explore the possibility that reality could be no different from artifice, since we dictate reality according to our understanding of it.

Realism as mentioned earlier is a form of representation; it is a means for us to understand the world and ourselves by functioning as a mirror of reality. Realism merely attempts to replicate the world as accurately as it can on stage albeit it is lacking in some respects but no form of theatre can replicate real life exactly as it is, simply because it is bound by certain conventions of the stage. Hence, for theatre to be useful and drama to take effect, Realist theatre specifically targets the warts of society via the melodrama and scandals of our lives. While it may not be an exact representation, the dramatic tensions and effects achieved are what we can commiserate with in real life; Realism thus achieves its effect when the audience achieves catharsis from the performance. Therefore, I conclude that Realism is not inaccurate in its portrayal of reality, it is merely superficial akin to taking freeze frame shots of reality and only the ‘best’ photos which are the scandals and melodramatic elements of our lives are chosen to represent reality as a whole. Indeed the Son informs the Producer “of the absurdity of his Company’s attempting to recreate his family drama”: “Not even the smallest reflection of ourselves is to be found in you… Do you think it’s possible for us to exist confronted by a mirror, which is not content to freeze us in the image of our own expression, but flings back at us an unrecognizable image of ourselves” (Sogliuzzo 227, Pirandello, “Six Characters in Search of an Author”). The Son is essentially commenting on inability of Realism as a mirror to reflect reality: “the image of the subject imitated in the other renders that likeness grotesque” (SparkNotes Editors). When presented with our own faults in the mirror of the stage, we revile the vileness presented to us of ourselves; because it is presented on stage separated by the 4th wall, hence, we deny all likeness to ourselves, condemned to living a life of denial before the mirror. Pirandello thus attempts to shatter our reverie as we rot away before the mirror that is Realism.

The way which Pirandello explicitly challenges the boundaries between acting and being is not to expose the theatrically unsound concept of realism but rather to delve deeper than the level of representation which Realism was confined at. If Realism were like taking a picture of real life, then Pirandellian Anti-Realism would be like taking a picture of a picture by means of his Metadrama. Yet, even that term ‘Metadrama’ is rather confining, it isn’t merely a play within a play. If it were simply that, then the 4th wall would still be intact; the audience is still separated from the ‘reality of the stage’ surely they will be aware that theatre itself is an artificial construct. The audience would still be secure in their Reality of the world because the play within the play is bound to the ‘reality of the stage’. The self referential nature of the production is presented before the audience, the way the ‘reality of the stage’ interacts with the ‘reality of the play within a play’. Through this, the audience draws parallels from their Reality with that of the ‘reality of the stage’. Therefore, by the above argument, Metadrama is an attempt at representing Reality as well, but of course Pirandello didn’t just stop at that. In Sogliuzzo’s words, while it reveals his “convictions regarding human personality, the play ultimately concerns itself with a philosophical question, the distinctions between life and art” (226). Pirandello complicates this distinction by staging the staging of a play within a play. The play begins by presenting the inner workings of the theatrical process on stage. However, instead of proceeding to present a rehearsal of Pirandello’s Mixing it Up, the Six Characters enter with “a tenuous light… a faint breath of their fantastic reality” these characters possess “a reality of their own, independent of their author” (Pirandello, “Six Characters in Search of an Author”, Illiano 2). The fact that Pirandello specifically uses a Door Keeper to usher in these Six Characters must mean that they are not to be conflated with the crew and actors. Pirandello raises a poignant question here: if they appear uninvited, not as audience, not as actors and crew, then where do they come from? Sure enough the characters proclaim their own reality like “to living beings more alive than those [cast & crew] who breathe and wear clothes: beings less real perhaps, but truer” (Pirandello, “Six Characters in Search of an Author”).

These characters are literally meant as they are written to be: fantastical characters given life, just as the story of a book is real, their existence as characters must be as well, whether or not they are contained within a book. This brings to light an unanswerable question that Illiano strives to answer: are the characters more real than the actors? The answer to this question will depend on our understanding of what is real. If ‘reale’ is understood as that which is “physical, having a body” therefore, “only the actors have physical substance, possess bodies, and are therefore, real” (Illiano 4). However, if ‘reale’ is understood “in the philosophical sense of pertinent to res itself, and therefore substantial and everlasting” the characters are then more real than the actors (Illiano 4). The ambivalence of the whole play centers on this duplicitous question, we would be caught in the same dilemma even if we turn the question around and ask: are the actors more real than the characters? Again there is no answer simply because people are both physically consistent as well as mutable and perishable, in Illiano’s words “it is an insoluble dichotomy” (4-5). However, this dichotomy was one that Pirandello never attempted to answer, it was a moot question besides its “artistic purpose” (Illiano 5). Pirandello himself “says that the creatures of his inspiration, once conceived, achieve a complete autonomy” therefore, for the purposes of this essay, I will attempt to argue that the characters are real with a reality that is separate from the audience and the actors (Illiano 5-6).

Indeed, the stage is a unique place where one gives “life to immortal works”, yet when such works need no breathing of life to, holding an existence and reality unique unto them is quite a conundrum (Pirandello, “Six Characters in Search of an Author”). These Six Characters have already broken the 4th wall between the production of Mixing it Up and themselves, they have not however broken the 4th wall with the real audience; and that is the issue here. The fact that the Six Characters maintain that 4th wall between them and the audience means that both their realities, however real they both maybe, are different. Indeed the Leading Lady says: “We are the audience this time”; this further complicates the relationship between audience and the performance (Pirandello, “Six Characters in Search of an Author”). I’m inclined to believe that the actors and crew are the only performers left; the real audience is left watching on one side; the real Six Characters recounting their lives on the other. The stage is the focal point of this ‘mise en abyme’ where both realities touch upon the fantasy of the stage. Pirandello has essentially created a hall of mirrors on the stage, indeed any audience would be shocked to find that such a possibility might be extended to their supposedly immutable reality; that their preciously guarded reality might just be a single reflection in this infinity of mirrors. As Pirandello is aware that the stage is an artificial construct, the effect of the ‘mise en abyme’ creates an infinite amount of realities repeated unto itself and each one of them could be just as real. The performance, which the audience is observing could be a single one frame, and that they may be observed from another frame beyond their knowledge. Just as the reality on stage is an artificial construct that wasn’t bound within a book, it can also suggest that the audience is like the Six Characters: living characters unbound within a book, a construct of an unknown, unseen author.

As we struggle to grapple with the multiple frames of reference between the audience, the stage and the six characters, the Father further blurs the distinctions between these frames: “We act that rôle for which we have been cast, that rôle which we are given in life”, a line that could refer both to the audience and the actors (Pirandello, “Six Characters in Search of an Author”). Pirandello then accentuates this effect at the conclusion of Act 1 where the Manager agrees to the experiment and together with the Six Characters they go off stage, leaving the audience with the actors who had come to serve as the Six Characters’ audience. This disconcerting effect is further emphasized when the actors start to complain about the Manager’s breaking of theatrical conventions, the Leading Lady’s lines I imagine would be a clear reflection of the audience’s thoughts: “If he thinks I'm going to take part in a joke like this” (Pirandello, “Six Characters in Search of an Author”). The reality of the actor’s complaints, “the breaking of the frame and the staging of the scene within the audience would ratify what we saw as real” (SparkNotes Editors). As the events on stage draw closer to the audience’s reality “the real time pause, delimiting both the interruption of the action and the intermission, similarly attempts to fold stage reality into that of the audience” (SparkNotes Editors).

The ‘mise en abyme’ theme of the mirrors of reality climaxes in the final scene of Act 3 where the deaths of the Boy and Child occur and the distinctions between the staged and reality are challenged to its limits.

Some Actors. He's dead! Dead!
Other Actors. No, no, it's only make believe, it's only pretence!
The Father. [with a terrible cry]. Pretence? Reality, sir, reality!
The Manager. Pretence? Reality? (Pirandello, “Six Characters in Search of an
Author”)

Indeed, the abrupt ending of the play only makes it harder for the audience to decide between reality and illusion of the stage, in fact Pirandello himself suggests that there was no distinction to begin with. The Actors’ confusion amidst the general confusion reiterate once more the central thematic conflict of the play: “the contention over the reality on either side of the Actor/Character looking glass” this conflict is sealed within this insoluble dichotomy when the two possible ‘authors’ of the play enact a final mirroring act between reality and the pretence of the stage (SparkNotes Editors). The audience is inevitably left to take sides, to agree with the Father would be to ignore such a limiting distinction of reality; to agree with the Manager would be to cling on to such meaningless delineations; and like him allow oneself to be played a fool by Pirandello.

I do suppose reality is what we make out of it, be it opening our minds to further possibilities or shutting it off to remain safe in our illusion of reality; we are constantly in search of answers to the question of our reality, alas, it is the one question that constantly evades all our efforts at understanding. The irony therein is that we invent representations and illusions to bring us closer to that unfathomable reality, theatre in this case. Though I often wonder if we aren’t running around in circles caught in the loop of a ‘mise en abyme’. Pirandello’s thoughts are definitely not prescriptive to our understanding of reality, they merely raise possibilities, leaving it up to us to explore those possibilities beyond this play, pushing us to search for our own authors.
















Works Cited
Macrone, Michael. “All the world’s a stage.” Brush Up Your Shakespeare. Cader Company, 1990. eNotes.com. 2007. 4 Dec, 2010
Sogliuzzo, A. Richard. “The Uses of the Mask in “The Great God Brown” and “Six Characters in Search of an Author”.” Educational Theatre Journal 18.3 (1966): 224-229. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.
Illiano, Antonio. “Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author: A Comedy in the Making.” Italica 44.1 (1967): 1-12. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Six Characters in Search of an Author.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2010.
Pirandello, Luigi. Six Characters in Search of an Author. Trans. Edward Storer. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1922. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. .