Six Characters in Search of an Author

An original and beautifully written book on changing perspectives in the art of theater. Through a study of nine plays--Oedipus Rex, Bérénice, Tristan und Isolde, Hamlet, Ghosts, The Cherry Orchard, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Noah, Murder in the Cathedral--the author shows how all playwrights seek to "hold the mirror up to nature" and how in this respect the art of drama is always the same, varying only with the philosophical and aesthetic concepts of each age. The Idea of a Theater will delight both readers with a special interest in drama and those who read drama as a source of insight into man's nature and man's changing ideas of himself.

Six Characters in Search of an Author is a dramatic contraption through which Pirandello contemplates the reality of unreality by means of a deconstruction of theatrical illusion. The play contemplates the way theatrical illusion is created, how people respond to it, and the authoritative role of imagination in the formulation and formation of reality. The play considers the paradox that truth can be represented through fiction, that fiction, consequently, may have as much authority as truth, being the means of truth's representation, and that truth, consequently, may be hard to pin down. Seven, not six, characters have gotten loose from a drama that its author abandoned, but not from their roles in that drama. They interrupt a rehearsal by a group of actors staging a comedy by Pirandello, not the one we are watching, and no part of which is ever shown, and attempt to realize themselves through a staging of the unfinished story of which they are parts and, in this process, assert the superiority of their reality over that of the players.

"Integral Drama" critically explores modern drama in the context of Indian aesthetics described in the "Natyashastra" and the vast, new interdisciplinary field of consciousness studies. It also focuses on how Indian theatre aesthetics has influenced modern drama theories and practice, and the extent to which this has promoted the development of higher consciousness in actors and audience. According to Indian aesthetics, "rasa" or aesthetic rapture is refers to bliss innate in the Self that manifests even in the absence of external sources of happiness. Overall, this book explores the relation between modern theatre and higher states of mind and demonstrates that one of the key purposes of theatre is to help the spectator experience the pure consciousness event described in consciousness studies by theorists such as Anna Bonshek, Ken Wilber, Robert K. C. Forman, Jonathan Shear, Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe, Ralph Yarrow and others. "Integral Drama" will appeal not only to drama theorists but also to teachers and students of acting, as well as an educated general audience interested in understanding the aesthetic experience of theatre. "Integral Drama," moreover, can be used as a textbook for acting and drama theory classes and would also appeal to university and public libraries. The book serves as a bridge between the ideas and experiences long understood through Indian philosophy and the many questions raised by modern theatre studies.

This collection of essays, drawn from scholarship over the last forty years, explores the drama of four of the most influential proponents of modernism in European Drama: Ibsen, Strindberg, Pirandello, and Beckett. Although there are other dramatists who also contributed to Modernism, these four illustrate widely different and contrasting aspects to the movement. Since discussions of Modernism are generally restricted to poetry, novels, or the fine arts (painting, sculpture), examining theatre from this perspective covers new ground. The choice of these four dramatists as the subjects of the volume reflects the large percentage of essays dealing with their work published by Modern Drama, the leading scholarly journal in the field, which in turn is a measure of the centrality of these particular playwrights in critical discourse. The essays here have been selected to cover the main elements of the work of each of the four dramatists, with the aim of creating a useful teaching tool for university courses. Since some of the essays selected go back to the 1960s, while others are very contemporary, this volume also offers a perspective on the historical development of critical theory.

The article provides information on the absurdism and metatheatre play "Six Characters in Search of an Author" by Italian dramatist Luigi Pirandello. Topics discussed include content synopsis of the play, symbols and motifs in the play, and historical, societal and religious context of the play. It also mentions the family and career background of Pirandello.