Word: pirandello
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...whole truth and nothing but the truth. how often we hear these words, and how often people glibly swear to fulfil them! But can we ever determine truth that will be acceptable to everybody? No, said Luigi Pirandello...
...problem of reality vs. illusion, absolutism vs. relativism, the varying masks any person (the word "person" originally meant "mark") consciously or unconsciously presents to the rest of society--this is the theme that Pirandello turned to again and again and explored exhaustively from every conceivable point of view...
...explanation lies in the fact that, like the composer Rameau, Pirandello first turned to the stage at the age of 50, and there wrought his finest work. He had begun as a poet, and then gained renown as a novelist. So he had plenty of writing experience when he decided the theatre was his true metier...
Although written in only six days, Night You Are is a marvel of structural craftsmanship over and above its meaty and profound content. Time and again Pirandello leads his plot into seemingly impossible situations, only to wriggle out of them with twists of genius. And She play builds to one of the neatest and densest climaxes in all drama...
Right You Are and the other plays in which Pirandello presents many kinds of acute mental aberration all take on in added dimension when one recalls that Pirandello's own wife went insane. Advised not to commit her to a sanitarium, he patiently and resignedly stayed home and pampered her, to no avail. For years, day after day, he wrote while she founded violently on his studio door, screamed threats, and huried accusations of infidelity. She also turned on her daughter, who then tried to commit suicide. Such a household would have destroyed a lesser...