Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello is a unique and passionate play in which the dynamics of theater are uprooted, deconstructed and questioned for their validity and soundness. integrity. In Pirandello's play we experience the art of “metatheatre”. Pirandello uses this technique to demonstrate the drawbacks of theatrical montage, enlighten his audience with thoughtful philosophical questions, and recognize the timelessness of art. To begin, the characters express their frustration with the producer when he begins to rewrite and change their stories. meet the demands of the theater. Pirandello focuses on this subject in Act II of the play. It begins with the producer addressing Prompter: “…try to summarize the lines…at least the most important ones” (Pirandello 1268). Pirandello shows the difficulty producers and directors have in respecting the original script during artistic translation. The producer's method discourages Father and they have the following argument: PRODUCER. You will need to give it a new name. FATHER. Amalia.PRODUCER. But that's your wife's real name, isn't it? We cannot use his real name. FATHER. I'm already starting to...how can I explain it...sounding fake, my own words sounding like someone else's. (Pirandello 1268-69)They continue to argue.FATHER. Don't we even have our own meaning?PRODUCER. No way ! Whatever your meaning, it is only material here… (Pirandello 1269)To a large extent, the transfer of art from paper to stage is at the mercy of the actors, director and producer. Their judgment will determine what is left out and how authentic the interpretation will be to the audience. Pirandello's producer claims that his actors will give shape, voice,...... middle of paper...... implying that we live an illusion and believe it is our reality; this is why we unconsciously disengage from our own reality. This profound thought challenges our conception of reality, just as the characters, in the final scene of the play, challenge the actors' and producer's conception of what is really happening in their theater. By the end of Pirandello's masterpiece, audiences who have entered this play in an attempt to escape their own lives are consistently informed that they, like the characters, can never truly escape their true realities.Works CitedPirandello, Luigi. Six characters in search of an author. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. Third, shorter edition. Flight. 2. Norton: New York, 2013.1250-1290. Print.Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, nd Web. February 18. 2014