Word: pirandellian
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...Mulford's Pirandellian-like staging, after drawing attention to the artificial nature of theater, eventually becomes gratuitous, most notably when members of the tech crew walk across the stage in mid-scene...
...GARRY SHANDLING'S SHOW (Showtime). Now in its second year, Shandling's Pirandellian prank -- a show about doing a show -- has become television's smartest satire of itself...
...Director Michael Hampe's staging was conventional until the climax. When the Commendatore dragged the unrepentant Don to perdition, the Iberian setting vanished to reveal a cosmic firmament, quenching the earthly fires of lust in a metaphysical supernova of destruction. The normally bubbly postlude took place on a desolate, Pirandellian stage, on which six characters wandered in search of a composer. That composer, of course, was Mozart, and in Salzburg he is never very far away...
...That's what. Signs of dramatic hubris are all over the place. Kopit realized whose shadow he was working under, and early in his play he dismissed Dr. Strangelove's significance to the present-day nuclear situation. He tries to add some Pirandellian interest to the issue by writing End of the World as a play about writing a play on the arms race--incidentally turning the playwright into a heroic comedian a la Neil Simon. Flailing madly for dramatic interest, Kopit scatters references to detective fiction, academia and Beltway culture that are not nearly so hip as kopit thinks...
WATCHING THE A.R.T. actors play themselves is, of course, amusing. They toss out references to Brother Blue and Brattle Street, to Harvard professors, Yale graduates, and to old mainstage productions. In true Pirandellian fashion, much of the action derives from improvisation. The dialogue is uneven--some jokes work, others fall flat. Occasionally the references seem designed to pander to A.R.T. subscribers, but on the whole, the company projects the sense of actors at work...