Six Characters in Search of an Author
SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR
By Luigi Pirandello
Translated by Stephen Mulrine,Directed by Wyllie Longmore
The Lowry, Wed 31 October – Sat 10 November 2007 Press night: Wed 31 October, 7.45pm
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello, which inspired LS Lowry’s creativity, will be performed at The Lowry by local up and coming talent from Wed 31 Oct to Sat 10 Nov.
This drama was one of Lowry’s favourite plays and his portrait, Little Girl Seen From the Front and Back (1964) is said to be based on the young actress he saw in the play. It will be performed as part of The Lowry’s season of plays inspired by the surroundings, culture and history of Salford.
In this community production, which consists entirely of local people, the young girl is played by three local children, Isabel Connolly from Eccles, Joy Windle, aged 10, from Chorlton and Salford-born Helen Moore, aged 11.
By the time of his death in 1936, Pirandello had become one of the most influential playwrights of the twentieth century - paving the way for Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter amongst others. This, his most famous work, caused outrage at its première in 1921 but fascinated LS Lowry, who went to see it nine times. He said, “This play was different…it mesmerised me”.
Six Characters in Search of an Author was written in a burst of creative energy over five days in 1921 and was performed in England the following year. Pirandello described the play as ‘A play in the making’. The performance introduces a company of actors who have their rehearsal interrupted when a strange family arrives. Claiming to be characters from an unwritten play, they insist that they be given life and implore the company to record their tragedy.
LS Lowry himself was a great theatre-goer. He regularly attended the Edinburgh Festival and often went to the theatre in London, Manchester and Salford. On a trip to London to visit his friend and artist Sheila Fell, he went on the off chance to see Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and he was captivated.
Pirandello, one of the great European writers, was born in Kaos, a small village near Agrigento in Sicily, in 1867. His work has been translated into many languages and his plays performed all over the world. He was already well known as a novelist and critic before he received recognition as a playwright later in his career. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934 and died two years later in Rome.
Posted on Monday, 15 October 2007 under Press Community & Education Press