In Luigi Pirandello’s Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author), six wandering “Characters” hijack an ongoing rehearsal of a play. By introducing “Characters”, that are divorced from the “Actors”, Pirandello, separates the actor who is performing, from the character he is representing. The strict division between the “Actors” and the “Characters” in Pirandello’s play then, is a conscious attempt at conflating reality and illusion. By doing so, Pirandello challenges traditional and comfortable assumptions about reality in the play. Using Lionel Abel’s explication on metatheatre, where he opines “the world is a projection of human consciousness” (61), it can be understood that the real world is akin to the fictional world in metatheatre because both are a product of human perception and imagination. More importantly, metatheatre is self-reflexive, it challenges and questions the validity of theatre as a medium to communicate and subvert pre-existing assumptions about the real world. Hence, by challenging comfortable assumptions about reality and illusion in the play, Pirandello is also challenging comfortable assumptions about reality and illusion outside of the play, in the real world. …show more content…
The conversation below between the “Father” and the “Manager” aptly describes the central tension between reality and illusion.
The Father: I don’t deny it. what I mean is the game, or play, of your art, which has to give, [...] a perfect illusion of reality.
The Manager: