Six Characters in Search of an Author

Tseng Jeng Lim says:

February 7, 2010 at 3:20 am

Six Characters in Search of an Author (1976) is an adaptation of Italian Writer – Luigi Pirandello’s famous play first performed in 1921. Directed by Stacy Keach, this televised “film of a play” was shot entirely in a studio with ample air time focused on the speech and expressivity of the characters of this film. The liveliness of the theatre was, however, diluted given the numerous movements of the camera and the constant shift in focus from one character to another.

Having watched the film, my immediate response coincides with the comments here in the sense that Pirandello was indeed toying with the idea of a “play within a play”. It is interesting to note that upon the mysterious appearance of the six characters, the roles of the manager and actors have been shifted to the role of an audience. The original actors, not wanting to be caught in the midst of the family tussle, were standing aside and listening as the story of the dysfunctional family unfolds. As the actors later tried to replicate the scenes in the Madam Pace’s shop, their acting were written off immediately by the characters for using the wrong tones and gestures.

Much of the film also dwells upon the subject of reality and illusion. Such is evident when The Father questioned the identity of the manager and actors in a sarcastic manner and his constant reiteration on the realism of the characters. On stage, the characters do indeed possess individual traits as the Father, Mother, Stepdaughter and Son each takes turn to reveal their side of the story and stands firm in putting their arguments across. Ironically, it is the actors who are “not real” as they failed in reenacting the scenes previously played by the authors. The Father further pointed out that, unlike a character, a man may well be “nobody” because of the hypocritical nature of human beings in which we conform ourselves to the society norms and in the process forgotten our very own identity.

All in all, I enjoyed watching this film given the occasional humor and unexpected tragic twist at the end of it. It would no doubt be classified as a “tragicomedy”, much akin to most Shakespeare’s works where deaths often occur to key characters at the end of the play. Also, I could not help but draw a societal relation to the way the Character Lady portrays herself in the 70s to a modern interpretation of Paris Hilton.