S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922).
|
1923–4
|
New plays, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth (1923), The Life I Gave You (1923), and Each in His Own Way (1924) which develops the metatheatrical discourse initiated by Six Characters. Special Pirandello season in New York (1923–4) presents Six Characters, Henry IV, and As Before, Better Than Before. Adriano Tilgher’s discussion of the plays’ philosophical implications (1923). ‘Pirandellism’ becomes a byword. Government in danger of collapse after murder of Socialist deputy Matteotti (1924). P joins the Fascist party. Mussolini weathers the storm and builds totalitarian state.
Italo Svevo, Zeno’s Conscience (1923); Shaw, Saint Joan (1923); Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (1924).
|
|
1925–7
|
New edition of Six Characters (1925), revised in the light of Pitoëff’s production. Founds Arts Theatre of Rome with official state sponsorship. Writes and directs new plays, including Our Lord of the Ship (1925) and Diana and Tuda (1927). Increasingly involved with practical side of theatre as director and manager. Completion and publication of last novel, One, No One, One Hundred Thousand (1926). Passionate and probably unconsummated love for company’s leading young actress, Marta Abba.
Gide, The Counterfeiters (1925); Eugenio Montale, Cuttlefish Bones (1925); Proust, In Search of Lost Time (1927); Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927); Grazia Deledda awarded Nobel Prize (1926).
|
|
1928–9
|
New work includes the first two plays of the myth trilogy, The New Colony (1928) and Lazarus (1929). Despite successful tours abroad (England, France, Germany, Brazil, Argentina), the Arts Theatre is dissolved in 1928. P blames lack of adequate government support and will continue to resent Mussolini’s reluctance to fund a national theatre company. Member of Royal Academy of Italy (1929). Lateran Treaty (1929) settles relations between the Italian state and the Vatican.
Claudel, The Satin Slipper (1929); Alberto Moravia, The Time of Indifference (1929).
|
|
1930–3
|
Last play in metatheatre trilogy, Tonight We Improvise (1930) with satirical allusion to German director Max Reinhardt (‘Dr Hinkfuss’). As You Desire Me (1930) and Finding Oneself (1932), like the earlier Diana and Tuda, written with Marta Abba in mind. When Someone is Somebody (1933) reflects P’s own experience as a celebrated ageing artist. Travels widely (Paris, Lisbon, Prague, Los Angeles, Montevideo), but now resides in Germany where some of his plays receive their first performance.
Brecht, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930); O’Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra (1930).
|
|
1934–5
|
Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature (1934). The Fable of the Changeling Son (1934), opera by Malipiero with libretto by P, performed in Germany and Italy and quickly banned by both regimes. Publishes first and second parts of The Mountain Giants (1934), conceived as conclusion to myth trilogy. Still seeking state funding for a national theatre, makes fulsome speech in Mussolini’s presence supporting Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935).
|
|
1936
|
Marta Abba leaves for the United States. P dies 10 December in Rome and is cremated. His will forbids funeral ceremonies of any kind. Italian military help to Nationalists in Spanish Civil War.
|
|
1937
|
First performance of unfinished Mountain Giants, Florence, 5 June.
|
A Play in the Making
CHARACTERS
The Characters of the Play in the Making
The Father
The Mother
The Stepdaughter
The Son
The Young Boy (non-speaking)
The Little Girl (non-speaking)
Madame Pace
The Theatre Company
The Director
The Leading Lady
The Leading Man
The Second Actress
A Young Actor
A Young Actress
Other Actors and Actresses
The Stage Manager
The Prompter
The Property Man
The Technician
The Director’s Secretary
The Usher
Stagehands and Staff
The action takes place in daytime on the stage of a theatre. The play has no act or scene divisions, but the performance is interrupted twice: first when, with the curtain still up, the DIRECTOR and the FATHER withdraw to compose the scenario and the ACTORS clear the stage; second, when the TECHNICIAN lowers the curtain by mistake.
On entering the theatre, the audience finds the curtain raised and the stage as it is during the day, with neither wings nor scenery, empty and almost in darkness, so that right from the start the impression is that of an improvised performance.
Stairways, left and right, connect the stage with the auditorium. On the stage the cover has been removed from the PROMPTER’s box and lies next to the hatch. On the other side, downstage, for the DIRECTOR, a small table and an armchair with its back turned to the audience. Also downstage two more tables, one larger and one smaller, with several chairs, ready for use if needed in rehearsal, other chairs scattered right and left for the ACTORS; upstage, to one side, a half-hidden piano.
When the houselights go down, the TECHNICIAN, in dark blue overalls and with tool bag at his belt, enters through the stage door: from a corner at the back, he takes a few planks, comes forward, and kneels down to nail them together.
1 comment