SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR * HENRY IV * THE MOUNTAIN GIANTS
Pirandello ranks with Strindberg, Brecht, and Beckett as a seminal figure in modern drama. Innovative and influential, he broke decisively with the conventions of realist theatre to foreground the tensions between art and reality. In his best known play, six characters, imagined but then abandoned by their author, intrude on the rehearsals of a provincial theatre company in an attempt to play out their family drama. In the brilliant Henry IV, a young man believes himself to be the Holy
Roman Emperor; attempts to cure him of his delusion have disastrous consequences. The Mountain Giants is Pirandello's last, unfinished masterpiece, in which he moves towards the mythical, and make-believe and real life once more become entangled. The play reflects its author's growing anxiety about the
function of art under a fascist regime.
This new edition includes Pirandello's important Preface to Six Characters, an essential critical document for understanding the play that made him famous. Anthony Mortimer's lively and performable translations remain scrupulously faithful to the letter and spirit of the originals.
- ISBN10 1330004612
- ISBN13 9781330004616
- Publish Date 23 April 2018 (first published October 1969)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Forgotten Books
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 252
- Language English