Transcription
You six characters in search of an author.
For those of you who are joining us for the first time, our entire operation, to include tonight's performance, is conducted from completely quarantined conditions. All rehearsals and all work done behind the scenes to present tonight's play was conducted with no face-to-face interactions.
It should be noted that all of our productions are plays that are either in the public domain or that we have obtained the rights to perform. We believe that as a theatre community, we have a responsibility to respect the rights of authors.
Players Planning Group—sorry, the Pandemic Players Community—solicits auditions and requests for volunteer help in that form. While the general public is invited to attend our virtual performances free of charge, donations are accepted to aid theatres in the Greater Baltimore area that have suffered economic impact from the COVID-19 situation. The Pandemic Players itself is completely self-funded; we supply our own equipment and fund our own server space.
Instead, we ask that our audience, if they are able to, to donate to a local theatre that needs help to still be there when normalcy returns to the world. Each week, our volunteers nominate and vote on a theatre to support with each new production. Tonight, we are raising money to support our friends at Fells Point Corner Theatre. They are a staple of Baltimore, presenting diverse, challenging, and entertaining theatre to their community through a combination of acclaimed contemporary plays, Baltimore premieres, and time-tested favorites, as well as the works of local playwrights. They are committed to creating and maintaining artistic spaces, which are welcome to all, and we are committed to doing what we can to help them maintain that space during this time.
While you are free to view tonight's performance, we ask that a donation be made, if possible. We recommend that a donation be made of $20, which is the average cost of a ticket to locally produced theater in the area, but we thank you for anything that you are willing to give.
To make donations easy, you can find a link on our public Facebook page, Pandemic Players, and we will have web links that we can make available during the YouTube stream to help you find out where to go. The Board of Pandemic Players extends a very heartfelt thank you to all tonight's performers, the volunteers, donors, and supporters for choosing to take part in this effort. Your actions help us to bring hope to the community tonight.
Everything will not be perfect. If it were perfect, we would all be onstage and we would not have to take any of the extraordinary measures that we've talked about to make sure that on this Saturday evening, live theater is still happening. But tonight, we do bring you a story— a story about stories, about what is real, what is construct, and the power of theater to find new ways to express ideas.
Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author.
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You are now entering Conference Pandemic online rehearsal for Mixing It Up. Please mute your microphone if observing.
Ah, I can't see! Let me turn on a light.
Ready? Come along, come along!
**Second Act and Mixing It Up.**
Leo Gala's house of curious room serving as a dining room and study.
I need a red room. Can you share your design screen, please?
Alright, table already laid and writing desk with books and papers. Bookshelves. Exit rear - Leo's bedroom. Exit left - kitchen.
The kitchen, you make your entrances and exits here.
Properties bays, door at the rear, and curtains.
When the curtain rises, Leo Gala, dressed in cook's cap and apron, is busy beating another egg.
Guido Van Sunny is seated and listening.
Excuse me, but must I absolutely wear a cook's cap?
I imagine so. It says so right here anyway.
But it's ridiculous.
Ridiculous?
Is it my fault if France won't send us any more good comedies and we're reduced to putting on Houdin's works, where nobody understands anything?
And we're the author—plays the fool with us all!
Yes, sir. You put on the cook's cap and beat eggs.
You suppose with all this beating business you're on an ordinary stage?
Get that out of your head!
You represent the shell of the eggs you are beating.
Not now, honey—mommy's in a Zoom rehearsal!
Silence!
Listen to my explanations, please: the empty form of reason without the fullness of instinct, which is blind.
You stand for reason; your wife is instinct.
It's a mixing up of the parts according to which you, who act your own part, become the puppet of yourself.
Do you understand?
I'm hanged if I do!
Neither do I. Let’s get on with it.
It's sure to be a glorious failure anyway.
But I say, please face your camera; otherwise, with the obtrusive dialogue and the public that won’t be able to hear you, the whole thing will go to hell.
Come on, come on!
Pardon, ma'am, may I close my window? There's a bit of a draught.
Yes, yes, of course.
Excuse me, ma'am. You know what?
Is it but these people are trying to enter the room?
I'm rehearsing, and you know perfectly well no one's allowed to come in during rehearsals.
Stop sharing screen! We’ll bring them in.
Who are you please and what do you want?
Well, as a matter of fact, we have come here in search of an author.
What author?
An author!
Any author, sir!
But there's no author here.
We're not rehearsing a new piece.
Is the better? So much the better!
We can be your new piece!
Oh, do you hear that? No!
Yes, but if the dog... if the author isn't here... unless you would be willing...
You're trying to be funny!
Well, no— for heaven's sake, what are you saying? We bring you a drama, sir!
We may be your fortune!
Will you oblige me by going away?
We haven't got time to waste with madmen.
Oh, sir, you know full well that life is full of infinite absurdities which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible since they are true!
I say that to reverse the ordinary process may well be considered a madness—that is to create credible situations in order that they may appear true.
But permit me to observe that if this be madness, it is the sole raison d'être of your profession, gentlemen!
So our profession seems to you one worthy of madmen, then?
Well, to make seem true that which isn't true without any need for jokes, as it were?
Isn't that your mission, gentlemen—to give life to fantastic characters on the stage?
But I would beg you to believe, my dear sir, that the profession of the comedian is a noble one.
If today, as things go, the playwrights give us stupid comedies to play and puppets to represent instead of men, remember that we are proud to have given life to immortal works.
Here, on these very words, exactly—perfectly—to living beings more alive than those who breathe and wear clothes.
Being less real perhaps, but truer!
No, I agree with you entirely.
What do you mean?
Before you said—
No, no, excuse me! I meant for you, sir, who were crying out that you had no time to lose with madmen, while no one better than yourself knows that nature uses the instrument of human fantasy in order to soothe her high creative purpose.
Very well, very well! But where does this take us?
Nowhere!
It is merely to show you that one is born to life in many forms, in many shapes—as a tree or as stone, as water as butterfly or as woman.
So one may also be born a character in a play.
So you and these other friends of yours have all been born characters?
Exactly!
And as alive as you see!
Well, I'm sorry, you laugh because we carry in us a drama as you can guess from this woman here veiled in black.
Oh, get away from here, please!
Clear out of here!
But for heaven's sake, turn them out!
No, no, look here weeks!
I'm here to work, you know! One cannot let oneself be made such a fool of!
I marvel at your incredulity, gentlemen!
Are you not accustomed to see the characters you created by an author spring to life in yourselves and face each other?
Just because there is no book which contains us, you refuse to believe that me!
We are six most interesting characters!
Ma'am, sidetracked!
However, yes, yes, that is the word in the sense that the author who created us alive no longer wished or was no longer able materially to put us in a work of art!
And that was a real crime, sir!
Because he who has had the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death; he cannot die.
The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die.
And to live forever, it does not even need to have extraordinary gifts or to be able to work wonders!
Who was Sancho Panza? Who was Don Abundio?
Yet they live eternally because live germs, as it were— they had the fortune to be—to find a [ __ ] dating matrix, a fantasy which could raise and nourish them, make them live forever!
That's quite alright, but what do you want here—all of you?
We want to live for eternity.
No, only for a moment in you.
You have no objection as far as that one is concerned!
Look here, look here—the comedy has to be made!
But if you and your actors are willing, we can soon concert it amongst ourselves.
What do you want—a concert?
We don't go in for concerts here!
Here we play comedies and dramas, exactly that is just why we have come to you!
And where is the book?
It is in us!
The drama is in us and we are the drama.
Well, we are impatient to play! Our inner passion drives us on!
This, my passion, sir!
If only you knew my passion for him!
You behave yourself in that fashion!
With your permission, gentlemen, I, who am two months orphan, will show you how I sing!
[Music]
Here, use all day, talk or to granny crawl!
Don't you change all this!
This isn't a café concert, you know!
Is she mad?
Mad?
She's worse than mad!
Worse, worse!
Listen, stage this drama for us at once!
Then you'll see that at a certain moment, I, when this little darling—here, isn't she a dear? Darling, darling! When this—when God suddenly takes this dear little child away from that poor mother there, and this imbecile here does the stupidest thing—like the fool he is—you will see me run away!
Yes, gentlemen, I shall be off!
But the moment hasn't arrived yet!
After what has taken place between him and me, I can't remain any longer in the society to have to witness the anguish of this mother here for that fool!
Look at him!
Look at him!
I can't remain any longer!
No, see how indifferent, how frigid he is!
Because he is the legitimate son, he despises me; he despises him; he despises this baby here because we are bastards!
And he doesn't want to recognize her as his mother!
She, who is the common mother of us all, he looks down upon her as if she were only the mother of us three bastards!
Wretch, who in the name of these little children, I beg you—oh God, quick, a job!
A chair for this poor widow, is she?
Okay, look at her!
No, stop it, please, then!
You know well I beg you, man, to prevent this man from carrying his plan—this is so lonesome to me.
I don't understand at all what is the situation.
Is this lady your wife?
Yes, gentlemen, my wife!
But how can she be a widow if you are alive?
Don't laugh, don't laugh like that!
For heaven's sake, her drama lies just here in this:
She has had a lover—a man who ought to be here.
No, no, fortunately for her, he is dead!
Two months ago, as I said, we are in mourning, as you see.
See? He isn't here, you see?
Not because he is dead; he isn't here.
Then look at her a moment and you will understand because her drama isn't a drama of the love of two men for whom she was incapable of feeling anything, except possibly a little gratitude!
Gratitude, not for me, but for the other!
She isn't a woman; she is a mother, and her drama, powerful, sir, I assure you, lies in a matter of that— in all these four children by which she has had by two men!
Hadn't you got the courage to say that?
I wanted them! It was his doing!
It was he who gave me the other man, who forced me to go away with him!
It isn't true!
Not true, isn't it?
No, it isn't true.
It just isn't true!
And what can you know about it?
It isn't true!
Don't believe it!
Do you know why she said so?
For that fellow there, she tortures herself, destroys herself on account of the neglect of that son there!
And she wants him to believe that if she abandoned him when he was only two years old, it would be because he made her do so!
He forced me to do it and I call God to witness it if it isn't true!
Ask him!
Ask him if it isn't true!
Let him speak!
You are not in the position to know anything about it!
I know you lived in peace and happiness with my father while he lived!
Can you deny it?
No, I don't deny it!
He was always full of affection and kindness for you!
It's true, isn't it?
Tell them!
Why don't you speak, you little fool?
Oh, leave the poor boy alone!
Why do you want me to make me appear ungrateful, daughter?
I don't want to offend your father!
I have answered him that I didn't abandon my house and my son through any fault of mine nor from any willful passion.
It is true, it was my doing!
What a spectacle we are!
The audience this time, once in a way, let’s hear them out!
Listen: you are a cynical imbecile; I told you so already a hundred times!
He tries to make fun of me on account of this expression which I have found to excuse myself with!
Yes, frasi!
Frasi?
No!
Isn't everyone consoled when faced with a trouble or a fact he doesn't understand by a word—some simple word—which tells us nothing!
And yet calms us, even in the case of remorse; in fact, especially then!
Remorse that isn't true!
I've done more than use words to quieten the remorse!
And mean—yes, there was a bit of money too!
Yes, yes, a bit of money!
There, hundred lira he was about to offer me in payment!
Gentlemen, this is vile!
Vile!
There were there—in a pale blue envelope on a little mahogany table in the back of Madame Podrace's shop.
You know, madam Koch—a one of those ladies who attract poor girls of good family into their ateliers under the pretext of selling robes in Montauk—and he thinks he's bought the right to tyrannize over all of us with those hundred lire!
He was going to pay, but fortunately, note this, gentlemen, he had no chance of it!
It was a near thing, though, you know!
Shame, my daughter, shame!
Shame indeed; this is my revenge!
I am dying to live that scene; the room, I see it here in the window with little mantle's exposed there, the divan, the looking-glass screen, there in front of the window, the little mahogany table with the blue envelope containing 100 lire!
I see it!
I see it!
I could take hold of it!
But you, gentlemen, you ought to turn your backs now!
I almost knew, you know, but I don't blush; I leave that to him.
I don't understand this at all naturally enough.
I would ask you, sir, to exercise your authority a little here and let me speak before you believe all she is trying to blame me with!
Please let me explain.
Ah yes, explain it in your own way!
But don’t you see that the trouble lies here—in words!
Words!
Each one of us has within him a whole world of things: each man of us, his own special world!
And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter, the sense and value of things as I see them, while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the consumption of things each one of you has within himself?
We think we understand each other, but we never really do!
Look here, this woman takes all my pity for her as a specialty—a ferocious form of cruelty!
But you drove me away!
Oh you drunk!
Do you hear?
I drove her away; she believes I really send her away!
You know how to talk and I don't!
But believe me, ma'am, after he had married me, who knows why?
I was just a poor insignificant woman!
But good heavens, it was just for your humility that I married you!
I loved that simplicity in you!
You say she denies it; her mental deafness, believe me, it is phenomenal to the limit!
Just death, death!
Mentally, death!
Death to the point of desperation!
Yes, but ask him how his intelligence has helped us!
If we could see all the evil that may spring from good, what should we do?
Of course, of course!
But let's hear them out!
This is something quite new!
People who like that sort of thing, you must explain yourself quite clearly.
Very well then, listen: I had in my service a poor man, a clerk—a secretary of mine, full of devotion, who became friends with her; they understood one another, were kindred souls in fact, without however even the least suspicion of any evil existing.
They were incapable of even thinking it!
So he thought it for them!
That's not true!
I meant to do good to them and to myself!
I confess at the same time things had come to the point where I could not say a word to either of them without their making a mute appeal one to the other with their eyes!
I could see them silently asking each other how I was to be kept in countenance, how I was to be kept quiet!
And this, believe me, was just about enough of itself to keep me in a constant rage to exasperate me beyond measure!
And why didn't you send him away, then, this—that this secretary of yours—precisely what I did, sir!
And then I had to watch this poor woman drifting forlornly about the house like an animal without a master!
Like an animal one has taken in out of pity—ah yes, it's true about the son anyway!
He took my son!
He took him away from me—first of all!
But not from cruelty; I did it so that he should grow up healthy and strong by living in the country!
Best one can see; is it my fault he grew up like this?
I sent him to a wet nurse in the country—a peasant, as she did not seem strong enough, though she is of humble origin!
That was anyway the reason I married her; unpleasant as all this may be, but how can it be helped now, my mistake possibly?
But there we are!
All my life I have had these confounded aspirations toward certain moral sanity!
Oh please stop it, for heaven's sake!
I didn't moral sanity from him, if you please, the client of certain ateliers like that of Madame Posh!
A fool!
That is proof that I am a man!
This seeming contradiction, gentlemen, is the strongest proof that I stand here, a living man before you!
Why, it is just for this very incongruity of my nature that I have had to suffer what I have!
I could not live by the side of that woman any longer!
But, not so much for the bored she inspired in me, but as for the pity I felt for her!
And so he turned me out!
Well provided for!
Yes, I sent her to that man, gentlemen, to let her go free of me and to free himself!
Yes, I admit it, it was also a liberation for me!
But great evil has come from it!
I meant well!
What I did, I did it more for her sake than mine!
I swear it!
Did I ever lose sight of you until that other man carried you off to another town, an angry fool he was!
And all out of my pure interest in you, my pure interest, I repeat!
I watched with the tenderest concern the new family that grew up around her; she can bear witness to this!
Oh yes, that's true enough!
When I was a kid, so so high, you know, with plates over my shoulder and knickers longer than my skirts, I used to see him waiting outside the school for me to come out!
He came to see how I was growing up!
Oh, this is infamous, shameful!
No, why infamous?
Infamous?!
After she went away, my house suddenly seemed empty!
She was my Incubus!
But she filled my house!
I was like a dazed fly alone in the empty rooms!
This boy here was educated away from home, and when he came back, he grew up there!
When he came back, he seemed to be no more mine!
With no mother to stand between him and me, he grew up entirely for himself—on his own, apart—with no tie of intellect or affection binding him to me!
And then, strange but true, I was driven by curiosity at first and then by some tender sentiment toward her family, which had come into being through my own will.
The thought of her began to fill up—gradually fill up—the emptiness I felt all around me!
I wanted to know if she were happy and living out the simple daily duties of life.
I wanted to think of her as fortunate and unhappy because far away from the complicated terms and far away from the complicated torments of my spirit.
And so, to have proof of this, I used to watch that child coming out of school!
Yes, yes, it's true!
He used to follow me in the street and smiled at me, waved his hand like this!
I would look at him with interest, wondering who he might be.
I told my mother, who guessed at once!
Then she didn't want to send me back to school for some days, and when I finally went back, there he was, looking so ridiculous with a paper parcel in his hands!
He came close to me, caressed me, and drew out a fine straw hat from the parcel with a bouquet of flowers—all for me!
A bit discursive, this, you know!
Literature, literature, literature indeed!
This is life!
This is passion!
It may be, but it won't—
Well, I agree.
I mean this is only the part, the part leading up!
I—I don't expect it.
I don't suggest that this should be in the drama!
She, as you see, is no longer the flapper with plats down her back, showing below my skirt!
The drama is coming, sir!
Now something new—something complex, most interesting!
As soon as my father dies—yes, there was absolute misery for them!
They came back here unknown to me, through her stupidity!
No, it is true!
She can barely write her own name!
But she could anyhow have got her daughter to write to me that they were in need!
And how was I to divine all this sentiment in him?
That was exactly your mistake—never to have guessed any of my sentiments after so many years apart and all that had happened!
Was it my fault that fellow carried you away?
It happened quite suddenly, for he had obtained some job or other!
I could find no trace of them, and so not unnaturally, my interest in them dwindled!
But the drama culminated unforeseen and violent on their return when I was imperiled by my miserable flesh that still lives!
Oh, what misery!
What wretchedness is that of the man who is alone and yet disdains debasing liaisons— not old enough to do without women and not young enough to go and look for one without shame!
Misery!
No, it's worse than a misery!
It's a horror!
For no woman can any longer give him love!
And when a man feels this—oh, one ought to do without!
You say?
Oh yes, yes, I know.
Each of us appears before his fellows, is clothed in a certain dignity.
But every man knows what unconfessed will things asked within the secrecy of his own heart!
One gives way to the temptation only to rise from it again afterwards with a great eagerness to re-establish one's dignity!
As if it were a tombstone to place on the grave of one's shame—and the monument to hide and sign the memory of our weakness!
Everybody's in the same case!
Some folk haven't the courage to say certain things—that's all!
All appear to have the courage to do mouths, yes, but in secret!
Therefore, you want more courage to say these things?
Oh let a man but speak these things out, and folks at once label him a cynic!
Oh, but it isn't true; he is like all the others!
Better indeed because he isn't afraid to reveal within the light of intelligence the red shame of humanity—of human bestiality—on which most men close their eyes so as not to see it!
Woman, for example: look at her case!
She turns tantalizing, igniting glances on you; you sees her!
No sooner does she feel herself within your grasp than she closes her eyes!
It is the sign of her mission—the sign by which she says to man: "Line yourself—for I am blind!"
Sometimes she can no more—what she no longer feels—the need of hiding her shame of herself?
But dry-eyed and dispassionately, she sees only that of the man who has blinded himself!
Love, all these intellectual complications make me sick, disgust me!
All this philosophy that uncovers the beast in man and then seeks to save him—excuse him!
I can't stand it, ma'am!
When a man seeks to simplify life—beastly—throwing aside every relic of humanity, every chaste aspiration, every pure feeling—all sense of idolatry, duty, modesty, shame—then nothing is more revolting and nauseous than a certain kind of remorse!
Crocodile tears, that's what it is!
Let's come to the point!
This is only discussion.
Yes, very good, sir!
But a fact is like a sack which won't stand up when it is empty—in order that it may stand up, one has to put into it the reason and sentiment which have caused it to exist!
I couldn't possibly know that after the death of that man, that they decided to return here, that they were in misery and that she had gone to work as a modest—and added—shop of the type of that of Madame Poce—a real high-class modest, you must know, gentlemen—in appearance, she works for the leaders of the best society!
But she arranges matters so that these elegant ladies serve her purpose without prejudice to other ladies who are, well, only so-so!
You will believe me, gentlemen, that it never entered my mind that old hag had offered me work because she had an eye on my daughter!
Who?
Mama, do you know, ma’am, what that woman did to me?
When I brought her back the work, my mother had finished, she would point out to me that I had torn one of my frocks and she would give it back to mother to mend it!
Was I who paid for it always?
Well this poor creature here believed she was sacrificing herself for me and these two children here setting up at night sewing Madame Conscious' clothes!
And one day, you met there him?
Yes, ma'am, an old client—there's a scene for you to play!
So covered she—well, the mother arrived just then—almost no—in time—in time!
Unfortunately, I recognized her in time, and I took them back with me to my house!
You can imagine now her position and mine: she as you see her, and I who cannot look her in the face!
I'm sorry, how can I possibly be expected after that to be a modest young miss, a fit person to go with these confounded aspirations of a solid moral sanity?
See, for the drama lies all in this—in the conscience that I have, that each one of us has!
We believe this conscience to be a single thing, but it is many-sided!
There is one for this person, another for that, diverse conscience—so we have this illusion of being one person, of having a personality that is unique in all our acts!
But it isn't true!
We perceive this when tragically, perhaps, in something we do!
We are, as it were, suspended, caught up in the air on a kind of hook; then we perceive that all of us was not in that act and that it would be an atrocious injustice to judge us by that action alone!
As if all our existence were summed up in that one deed!
Now do you understand the perfidy of this girl?
She surprised me in a place where she ought not to have known me, just as I could not—just as I could not exist for her!
And now she seeks to attach me to a reality such as I could never suppose I should have to assume for her—in a shameful and fleeting moment of my life.
I feel this above all else and the drama, you will see, acquires a tremendous value from this point!
Then there is the position of the others!
His—leave me alone!
I don't come into this!
What, you don't come into this?
I've got nothing to do with it and don't want to have!
Because you know well, I wasn't made to be mixed up with the rest of you!
We are only vulgar folk; he is a fine gentleman!
You may have noticed, madam manager, that I fix him every now and then with the look of scorn while he lowers his eyes for he knows the evil he's done me!
I— you—you I owe my life on the streets to you!
Did you or did you not deny us with your behavior?
I won't say the intimacy of home, but even that mere hospitality which makes guests feel out their ease!
We were intruders who had come to disturb the kingdom of your legitimacy!
I should like to have you witness not a manager certain scenes between him and me!
He says I have tyrannized over everyone, but it was just his behavior which made me insist on the reason for which I had to come into the house!
This reason he calls vile—in his house—with my mother, who is his mother too, an icon his mistress of the house!
It's easy for them to put me always in the wrong!
But imagine the position of a son whose fate it is to see arrive one day at his home a young woman of impudent bearing—a young woman who inquires for his father with whom he knows what business she has!
This young man has then to witness her return bolder than ever, accompanied by that child there!
He's obligated to watch her treat his father in an equivocal and confidential manner—she asks of money of him in a way that lets one suppose that he must give it to her!
Must do you understand because he has every obligation to do so, but I have, as a matter of fact, this obligation!
I owe it to your mother—and how should I know? When had I ever seen or heard of her?
One day, they arrived with her, that lad—that baby here!
And I am told this is your mother too!
You know, I divine from her manner why it is they have come home!
I'd rather not say what I feel and think about it; I shouldn't even care to confess to myself!
No action can therefore be hoped for me from this—you know this affair!
Believe me, not a manager!
I am an unrealized character, dramatically speaking!
And I find myself not at all at ease in this company; leave me out of it, I beg of you!
What is it?
Just because you are so?
How do you know what I’m like?
Where did you even bother your head about me?
I admit it now, I admit it!
But isn't that a situation in itself?
You know this aloofness of yours, which is so cruel to me and to your mother!
Who returns home and sees you almost for the first time grown-up, who doesn't recognize you but knows that you are her son!
You see, he says he doesn't come into the affair when really he is the hinge of the whole action!
Oh, look at that lag!
Which is almost always clinging to his mother, frightened and humiliated!
Well, it is on account of this fellow here, possibly his situation is the most painful of all!
You see, he feels as he feels himself a stranger more than others!
This poor chap feels mortified, humiliated, at being brought into a home, out of charity as it were!
He is the image of his father, hardly talks at all, humble and quiet!
Oh well cut him out!
You've no notion what a nuisance boys are on the stage!
Well, he disappears soon!
You know, and the baby too!
She is the first to vanish from the scene!
The drama consists finally in this—when that mother re-enters my house, her family born outside of it, and shall we say superimposed on the original—ends with the death of the little girl, the tragedy of the boy, and the flight of the elder daughter!
It cannot go on because it is foreign to its surroundings!
So, after much torment, we three remain: I, the mother, and the son!
Then owing to the disappearance of that extraneous family, we two find ourselves strange to one another!
We find we are living in an atmosphere of mortal desolation, which is the revenge, as he scornfully said, of the demon of experiment that unfortunately hides in me!
Sir, you see when faith is lacking, it becomes impossible to create certain states of happiness, for we lack the necessary humility!
Then gloriously we tried to substitute ourselves for this fate, creating thus for the rest of the world a reality which we believed after their fashion, while actually, it doesn't exist.
For each one of us has his own reality to be respected before God, even when it is harmful to one's very self!
There is something in what you say, I assure you!
All this interests me very much; I begin to think there's the stuff for a drama on this—not a bad drama!
Well, when you've got a character like me, had you be quiet?
It's new.
Hmm, yes, absolutely new!
You've got a nerve, though, I must say, to come here and just fling it at me like this!
You will understand, sir, born as we are for this stage!
Are you amateur actors then?
No, I say born for the stage because the nonsense you're an old hand, you know!
No, sir, no, we act that role for which we have been cast!
That role which we are given in life, and in my own case—passion itself— as usually happens—becomes a trifle theatrical when it is exalted!
Well, well, that'll do!
But you see, without an author, I could give you the address of an author if you like!
No, no, look here, no!
You must be the author!
What are you talking about?
Yes, yes, you!
Why not?
Because I've never been an author; that's why!
Well then, why not turn author now?
Everybody does it!
Oh, you don't want any special qualities!
Your task is made much easier by the fact that we are all here alive before you!
It won't do!
What?
When you see us live our drama—yes, that's alright!
But you want someone to write it?
No, no!
Someone to take it down, possibly, while we play it scene by scene!
No, it will be enough to sketch it out at first and then try it over!
Well, I'm almost tempted; it's a bit of an idea—one might have a shot at it!
Of course, you'll see what seems will come out of it!
I could give you one that once I juvie—it tempts me!
I'd like to have a go at it!
Let's try it out!
Come with me to my office!
You all are at liberty for a bit, but don't stop out of the theatre for long!
In a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes— all back here again!
We'll see what can be done!
Who knows if we don't get something really extraordinary out of it?
There's no doubt in it!
There's no doubt about it!
Um, they had better come with us, hadn’t they?
Yes, yes, come on, come on—be punctual!
Please, she's serious!
What the devil does he want to do?
His rank madness; she really expects to knock up a drama in five minutes like the improvisers!
She thinks I'm going to take part in a joke like this!
I'm out of it!
Anyway, I should like to know who they are!
Are you suppose Mad Men are Rascals and she takes them seriously!
Vanity!
She fancies herself as an author already—it's absolutely unheard of!
If the stage has come to this, well, I'm rather a joke; well, we'll see what comes of it!
What's going to happen next?
I am sending everyone to their designated break rooms for their designated.
Thanks, hello and welcome back with me in the Patronage break room!
This is the break room where we discuss patronage!
Now, here at the Pandemic Players, we do not require any funds for operation; we are entirely self-funded!
But tonight we are presenting Six Characters in Search of an Author in support of our friends at Fells Point Corner Theatre.
If you could, we ask you to help them out as they are a brick-and-mortar theater company in Baltimore—the staple of their community—and they are looking to make sure that they are able to continue to pay their bills and to return to operation as soon as they are able to!
We understand that this pandemic is presenting a difficult situation to several theater companies in the Baltimore community.
And we also understand that as we work towards getting our communities back up to normal, that theaters are going to be one of the industries that are going to be hardest hit.
So if you can, we ask that you make a donation to our friends at Fells Point Corner Theatre!
We have a direct link in the description page on our YouTube feed, and as I understand, several of you may be watching over a Roku device or some other streaming device on your television.
If you go to our Pandemic to find a direct link that is going to take you directly to where you can help support our friends at Fells Point Corner Theatre!
Again, we ask for a donation of twenty.
We know that several people like to give more than that, and we also understand that several people are in a situation where they may not be able to donate at this time.
If you are in that situation, we recommend that you, at the very least, support that Theatre Company on social media and let them know that they are going to be supported when they come back up into operation!
And I think for a theater company to know that they are going to have their seats filled with a loving community that they have been able to develop around them would mean the world!
So at this point, we're going to just pause for a quick second for those who would like to make a donation to do so!
Of course, it is intermission, and what do we do at intermission but we probably fill our wineglass, the same as we would do on any other Saturday night at the theatre!
So we're going to pause to give you a second to do that!
And a warning to those of you with Amazon brand devices, I'm about to make them go absolutely bananas if you have them connected to your lights at home because here we like to flicker the lights at the end of intermission, which I will be doing in my own home right now!
Alexa, turn off basement!
Alexa, turn on basement!
Alexa, turn off basement!
Alexa, turn on basement!
And with that, we present the second and third acts of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author!
Nonsense, nonsense!
Do it yourselves!
I'm not going to mix myself up in this mess!
Come on, Rosetta, let’s run!
My little darling, you're frightened, aren't you?
You don't know where we are!
To you, what is the stage?
It's a place, baby, you know where people play it!
Being serious—a place where they act comedies!
We've got to act a comedy now, dead serious, you know!
And you learn that also, little one!
Oh darling, darling, what a horrid comedy you've got to play!
What a wretched part they found for you!
Garden, a fountain.
Look, just suppose, kitty, it's here where you say—why right here in the middle!
It's all pretense, you know; that's the trouble, my pet!
It's all make-believe here!
It's better to imagine it, though, because if they fix it up for you, it'll only be painted cardboard!
Painted cardboard? For the rockery, the water, the plants?
But I think a baby like this one would sooner have a make-believe fountain than a real one so she could play with it!
Good joke!
It'll be for the others but for you—laughs—not quite such a joke!
Yoo-hoo! A real baby, dear!
And really play by the real fountain, this big and green and beautiful with ever so many bamboos around it that are reflected in the water and a whole lot of little ducks swimming about!
No, no, your mother doesn't bother about you on account of that wretch of a son there!
I'm in the devil of a temper and that's for that lad!
What have you got there?
What are you hiding?
A gun!
Where did you get this, idiot?
If I’d been in your place, instead of killing myself, I could have shot one of these two or both of them—father and son!
Come on!
Come on, Junior, come here for a minute!
We've arranged everything, it's all fixed up!
If you please, young lady, there are one or two points to settle still.
Will you come along?
What's the good if you've arranged everything?
Ooh, this is fine, it's fine!
And to think I can't even get away!
Isn't it my punishment?
The worst of all!
My God, why are you so cruel?
Isn't it enough for one person to support all this torment?
Must you then insist on others seeing it also?
They want to put it on the stage?
If there was at least a reason for it!
He thinks he's got the meaning of it all, just as if each one of us, in every circumstance in life, couldn't find his own explanation of it!
He complains he was discovered in a place where he ought not to have been seen—in a moment of his life which he ought to remain hidden!
And kept out of reach of that conversation, which has to maintain for other people!
What about my case?
Haven't I had to reveal what Knowshon arts to ever reveal how mother and father live and are man and wife for themselves—quite apart from the idea of father and mother—which we give them?
When this idea is revealed, our life is then linked to only one point—that to that man and that woman!
Such a shame!
It should shame them!
Come on, come on, ladies and gentlemen!
Hey, you there, properties?
Yes, ma'am!
Fix up the white parlour with the floral decorations—two wings and a drop with a door will do.
Hurry up!
Sharing my screen now!
Just have a look and see if you have a sofa or a divan in the wardrobe!
There's the green one!
No, no! Green won't do!
It was yellow, ornamented with flowers, very large and most comfortable!
There isn't one like that!
It doesn't matter; use the one we've got!
Doesn't matter; it's most important!
We're only trying it now!
Please, don't interfere!
See if we've got a shop window—a long narrow wish!
And a little table!
The little mahogany table for the pale blue envelope!
There's a little gilt one; that'll do fine!
A mirror and screen—we must have a screen!
Otherwise, how can I manage?
That's all right, miss; we've got any amount of them, don't worry!
We want some clothes pegs too, don't we?
Yes, several, several!
See how many we've got and bring them all!
Alright!
Look here, this is the outline of the scenes, act by act!
Now I'm going to ask you to do something out of the ordinary—take it down in shorthand!
Hey, well, can you touch type?
Yes, little good!
You follow the scenes as we play them and try to get the points down, at any rate the most important ones!
Clear the stage—properties, come over here and listen attentively!
But excuse me, we don't worry; you won't have to improvise!
What have we to do then?
Right now, nothing for the moment!
You just watch and listen!
Everybody will get his part written out afterwards!
It's present!
We're going to try the thing as best we can!
They're going to act now!
We?
What do you mean?
If you please!
Buy a rehearsal—a rehearsal for them!
Well, but since we are the characters—
Alright, characters then if you insist on calling yourself such!
But here, my dear sir, the characters don't act—the actors do the acting!
And characters are there in the book when there is a book!
I won't contradict you, but excuse me, the actors aren't the characters they want to be!
They pretend to be, don't they?
Now, if these gentlemen here are fortunate enough to have us alive before them—oh, this is grand!
You want to come before the public yourselves—then as we are?
I can assure you, it would be a magnificent spectacle!
What's the use of us here, anyway?
Then you're not going to pretend that you can act?
Makes me laugh; you see, they are laughing at the notion!
But by the way, I must cast the parts; that won't be difficult to cast themselves!
Oh, Janu, you play the mother!
Must find her a name!
Amalia, sir!
But that's the real name of your wife!
You don't to call her by a real name!
Why ever not?
If it is her name!
I'm still perhaps—if that lady!
Impossible; I see this woman here as Amalia!
But do what you like!
I don't know what to say to you already; I begin to hear my own words ring false as if they had another sound!
Don't you worry about it; it'll be our job to find the right tones!
And as for a name, if you want Amalia, Amalia it shall be!
If you don't like it, we'll find another!
For the moment though, we'll call the characters this way—Juvenal, lead!
You are the son!
Leading lady, you naturally are the stepdaughter!
What?
What? That woman there ever dared to laugh at me?
I insist upon being treated with respect; otherwise, I go away!
No, no, excuse me, I'm not laughing at you!
You ought to feel honored to be played by that woman there!
I wasn't speaking of you; you know I was speaking of myself!
Whom I can't see in you at all—that is all!
I don't know, but you aren't the least like me!
Not true!
Here's the point!
Look here, sir, our temperaments, our souls!
Temperament, soul?
Be hanged!
Do you suppose the spirit of the peace is in you?
Nothing of the kind!
What, haven't we our own temperaments, our own souls?
Not at all!
Your soul, or whatever you like to call it, takes shape here!
The actor gives body and form to it: voice and gesture!
And my actors, I may tell you, I've given expression to much more lofty material than this little drama of yours which may or may not hold up on the stage!
But if it does, the merit of it, believe me, will be due to my actors!
I don't dare contradict you, sir, but believe me, it is a terrible suffering for us, who are as we are with these bodies of ours, these features, to see—
Good heavens, the makeup will remedy all of that, man!
The makeup?
Look maybe, but the voice—the gestures!
Now look here—on the stage you as yourself cannot exist!
The actor here acts you and that's an injury!
No, I understand, and now I think I see why our author, who conceived us as we are, all alive, didn't want to put us on the stage!
After all, I haven't the least desire to offend your actors—far from it!
But when I think that I am to be acted by—I don't know whom, by me—if you've no objection, honored, I assure you, sir?
Hmm, but still I must say that tri—I our—this gentleman may, with all his good will and wonderful art, absorb me into himself!
Oh shucks, this wonderful art, withdraw that!
Please, the performance he will give, even doing his best with makeup to look like me, it will certainly be a rat difficult!
Exactly, it will be difficult to act me as I really am!
The effect will be rather—and well apart from the makeup according—according to how he supposes I am as he senses me, if he does sense me!
Not, as I inside of myself feel myself to be!
It seems to me, then, that account should be taken of this by everyone whose duty it may be to come to criticize us!
Kevin's the man starting to think about the critics now!
Let them say what they like; it's up to us to put on the play if we can!
Come on, come on!
Is the stage set?
Stand back, stand back!
Let me see!
Let's not lose any more time!
Is it all right as it is now?
Let’s tell you the truth: I—I don't recognize the scene!
My dear lady, you can't possibly suppose that we can construct that shop of Madame Posh piece by piece here!
You said a white room with flowered wallpaper, didn't you?
Yes, well then, the furniture, right more or less!
Bring that little table a bit further forward and go and find an envelope!
Is possible, a pale blue one, and give it to that gentleman—a plain one, below yes!
Once ready, everyone, first scene—the young lady!
No, no, you must wait!
I meant her; you just watch how I shall play it, how I shall live it!
I shall live it—although you may be sure as soon as I begin!
Ladies and gentlemen, if you please—no more useless discussions!
Scene one—the lady with Madame Patchi!
Oh, Madame Poce, where is she?
But she isn't with us, sir!
Then what the devil's to be done?
But she is alive too!
Yes, but where is she?
One minute!
One minute!
Let me speak!
If these ladies would be so good as to give me their hats for a moment—hats?
Huh?
What did he say?
What are you going to do with the ladies’ hats?
Oh nothing; I just want to put them on these pegs for a moment!
And if one of the ladies would be so kind theirs to take off her mantle—only the mantle—would be so kind, would you?
Yes, exactly, so just put them there—exactly just like that!
On show!
May we ask why?
Well, I'll tell you—who knows if by arranging the stage for her, she does not come here herself attracted by the very articles of her trade?
Look!
Look, there she is!
There she is!
Ah, it's she!
I said so, didn't I?
There she is!
What sort of going to happen next?
Where did she come from?
I've been holding her in reserve, I guess!
Yes, excuse me all of you—why are you so anxious to destroy in the name of a vulgar commonplace sense of truth this reality which comes to birth attracted and formed by the magic of the stage itself?
Which indeed has more right to live here than you, since it is much truer than you, if you don't mind my saying so!
Which is the actress among you who is to play Madame Pacce?
Well, here is Madame watching herself!
And you will allow, I fancy, that the actress who answers will be less true than this woman here who is herself in person!
You see, my daughter recognized her and went over to her at once!
And now you're going to witness the scene!
Well, what does she say?
One can't hear a word!
Louder!
You're muted!
Louder, please!
Louder!
What are you talking about?
These aren't matters which can be shouted at the top of one's voice!
If I have spoken them out loud, it was to shame him and have my revenge!
But for my ailments—quite a different matter!
Indeed, indeed!
But in here, you know, people have got to make themselves heard, my dear!
Even we who are on the stage can't hear you!
What will it be when the public's in the theatre?
And anyway, you can very well speak up now amongst yourself since we shan't be present to listen to you!
As we are now, you've got to pretend to be alone in a room at the back of a shop where no one can hear you!
What do you mean?
No, there's someone who will hear us if she speaks out loud!
What have you got?
Someone else to spring on us now?
No, no, sir, she's alluding to me!
I've got to be here, there!
Behind that door in waiting, and Madame hotcha knows it!
In fact, if you will allow me, I'll go there at once so I can be quite ready!
No, no, wait!
We must observe the conventions of the theater before you’re ready!
No, get on, get on at once!
I'm just dying, I tell you to access scene if he's ready!
I'm more than ready!
But my dear young lady, first of all, we must have the scene between you and this lady, you understand!
Good heavens, she's been telling me what you know already—that mama's work is badly done again, that the materials are ruined, and that if I want her to continue to help us in our misery, I must be patient!
Yes indeed, sir!
I know, one to take advantage of her!
I'm no one to be a heart!
She talks like that, sir!
Yes, yes, that's the way she talks!
Too much half-Italian!
Most comical!
It is enough, seems a very polite gentleman!
Laugh at me when I try my best to speak English, of course!
Let her talk like that!
Just what we want!
Talk just like that, madam, if you please!
The effect will be certain, exactly what was needed to put a little comic relief on the crudity of the situation!
Of course, she talks like that!
Magnificent, magnificent!
Certainly, when certain suggestions are made to one in a language of that kind, the effect in certain sense, it seems almost a joke!
One feels inclined to laugh when one hears her talk about an old Signora who went to talk that nicely with you!
Nice old sin you are, madam!
Oh, not so old, am I dear?
And that's so old!
And even if you know, I like it!
He wants to make any scandals; you don't sit down!
No, Robin, take that woman out of my sight!
It is impossible for my mother to remain here—
They can’t be here together!
And for this reason, you see, that woman was not there with us when we came!
If they are on together, the whole thing is given inevitably, as you see!
It doesn't matter; this is only a rough sketch just to get an idea of the various points of the scene!
Even!
Come on, not on!
Come on!
No, no, Grazia, I'm not to do anything with your mother present!
Nonsense!
Introduce this old senior who wants to talk nicely to me!
We've got to do this scene one way or another, haven't we?
Come on, you can go!
Ah, yes, I go away!
I go away, certainly!
Now you make your entry!
No, you need to go over there!
Come here!
Let’s suppose you’ve already come in like that.
Yes, I'm here with head bowed—oh modest like!
Come on, out with your voice!
Say good morning, miss, in that peculiar tone, that special one!
Excuse me, but are you the manager or—
Get on with it, man!
Go down there to the back of the stage!
You needn’t go off—then come right forward here!
Ready?
Ready, just right now!
Good afternoon, miss!
Good afternoon!
Ah, but oh I say, this is not the first time you have come here, is it?
No, sir!
Oh, you've been here before, more than once?
Well, then there's no need to be so shy!
May I take off your hat?
No, sir, I'll do it myself!
Oh my God!
Oh yeah, give it to me; no, I'll put it down!
But oh, dear little head like yours, ought to have a smarter hat than come, help me choose one from the stock, won't you?
Hey, those are our hats, you know!
Silence!
Be funny, if you please; we're playing the scene now!
I'd have you notice, begin again, please!
No, thank you, sir!
Oh come now, don't talk like that!
You must take it!
I shall be upset if you don't; there are some lovely little hats here!
And then madam will be pleased; she expects it anyway, you know!
No, no, I couldn't wear it!
Oh, you are thinking about what they’d say at home if they saw you come in with a new hat?
My dear girl, there’s always a way around these little matters, you know!
No, it’s not that I couldn’t wear it because I am, as you can see—you might have noticed—ah, in mourning!
Of course!
I beg your pardon, I’m frightfully sorry!
No, no!
Stop, stop!
It's I who must thank you!
There’s no need for you to feel mortified or especially sorry!
Don't think any more on what I said!
I must forget that I am dressed so!
Stop!
Stop a minute!
Stop!
Don't write that down!
Cut out that last bit!
Fine!
It's going fine now; you can go on as we arranged!
Pretty good, that seemed the best coming now!
Why can't we go on?
Have a little patience!
Of course, it must be treated lightly—still with a bit of go in it!
Of course, it's easy enough!
Shall you and I try it now?
Why yes, I'll prepare my entrance!
See, the same between you and madam Pasha is finished!
I’ll write it up properly after you!
Remain here!
Oh, where are you going?
Oh one minute; I want to put my hat on again!
Good, you stay here with your head bowed down a little bit!
But she isn't dressed in black!
But I shall be!
And much more effectively than you—please be quiet and watch!
You'll be able to learn something!
Come on, come on—entrance please!
Good afternoon, miss!
No, no, no, no!
Silence!
And will you just please stop with that laughing, if we go on like this we’ll never finish!
Give me, ma’am, but it's natural enough; this lady stands there still!
But if she’s supposed to be me, I can assure you that if I heard anyone say good morning in that manner and in that tone, I would burst out laughing!
If I did?
Yes, yes, the manner, the tone, the suspects—rubbish!
Stand aside and let me see the action!
If I've got to represent an old fellow who's coming into a house of an equivocal character!
Don't listen to them for heaven's sake!
Do it again; it goes fine!
Well, good afternoon, miss!
Good afternoon!
Ah, but I say this is not the first time that you have come here, is it?
No, sir!
Oh, you’ve been here before—more than once?
No, no, stop!
Let her nod yes first!
You've been here before, eh?
Oh my God, what's the matter?!
Nothing, not nothing; go on!
You've been here before, eh?
Well then there's no need to be so shy, is there?
May I take off your hat?
I’m not going to stop here to be made a fool of by that woman there!
Neither am I!
I’m through with it!
Violence once and for all, I tell you!
Forgive me; forgive me!
You haven't any manners; that's what it is!
You go too far!
Yes, it's true!
But excuse her!
Excuse what?
It's absolutely disgusting!
Yes, but, sir, but believe me it has such a strange effect!
When strange, why strange?
Where is it strange?
What?
No, sir, I admire your actors and this gentleman here, this lady, but they are certainly not us!
I should hope not!
Evidently, they cannot be you since they are actors, which are so actors—both of them act our parts exceedingly well!
But believe me, it produces quite a different effect on us!
They want to be us, but they aren't!
All the same what is it then, anyway?
Something that dares and no longer covers!
But naturally, inevitably, I've told you so already!
Yes, I understand, I understand!
But then let's have no more!
We'll have the rehearsals by ourselves afterwards in the ordinary way!
Never could stand rehearsing with the author present!
He's never satisfied—come on, come on!
Let's get on with it again!
And try and see if you can't keep from laughing!
I was trying to be quiet!
There's a nice bit coming for you now—you'll see!
Well then, when she says—don't think any more of what I've said, I must forget, etc. etc.—you come in sharp with "I understand, I understand," and then you ask her why she is in mourning!
No, not at all!
See here, when I told him that it was useless for me to be thinking about wearing mourning, do you know how he answered me?
Oh well, he said, then let’s just take off this little frock!
Oh, great!
Just what we want to make a riot in the theatre!
But it is the truth!
What does that matter?
Acting is our business here; truth, up to a point, but no further!
What do you want to do then?
You’ll see!
You'll see!
Leave it to me!
No, ma’am!
What you want to do is piece together a little romantic, sentimental scene out of my disgust, out of all the reasons each were cruel and viola than the other!
Why I am the way I am!
He is to ask me why I am in mourning and I with tears in my eyes that it was just two months since Papa died!
No, ma’am, no!
He's got to say to me as he did—well, let's take off this little dress at once!
And I with two months mourning!
And my heart went there behind the screen and with these fingers tingling from shame!
Heaven's sake, what are you saying?
The truth, the truth, it may be!
I don’t and I can understand all of your horror!
But you surely must see that we can't have this sort of thing on the stage!
It won't go—it is impossible!
Very well, I'm much obliged to you but I'm off now!
Be reasonable!
Don't lose your temper!
I won't stop here!
I won't!
I can see you fixed it all up with him in your office!
All this talk about what is possible for the stage, I understand!
He wants to get in on this complicated cerebral drama to have his famous ribbon Morris and tormented acted!
But I want to act my part—my part!
Ah, just your part!
But if you will pardon me, there are parts other than yours—his and hers!
On the stage, you can't have an actor becoming too prominent and overshadowing all the others!
The thing is to pack them all into a neat little framework and then act what is active!
I am aware of the fact that everyone has his own interior life which he very much wants to put forward!
But the difficulty lies in this fact—to set out just so much as is necessary for the stage, taking the other characters into consideration, and at the same time hint at the unrevealed interior life of each!
I am willing to admit, my dear young lady, that from your point of view it would be a fine idea if each character could tell the public all his troubles in a nice monologue or a regular one-hour lecture!
You must restrain yourself, my dear, and in your own interest too, because this fury of yours, this exaggerated disgust you show, may make a bad impression!
You know, after you have confessed to me that there were others before him at madame Pacis and more than once!
It's true!
But remember those others mean him and for me all the same!
What the others, how do you mean?!
For one who has gone wrong, ma'am, he who was responsible for the first fault is responsible for all that follows!
He is responsible for my faults—even before I'm born!
Look at him and tell me it isn't true!
Well, well, and does the weight of so much responsibility bear nothing on you?
Give him a chance to act it—to get it over!
How can he act all his knowable remorses, all his moral torments, if you want to spare him the horror of being discovered one day after he had asked her what he did?
Ask her in the arms of her— that already fallen woman!
That child, ma’am!
That child, I pray your mercy!
Public tomorrow you will act us as you wish!
Treating us in your own manner but do you really want to see drama?
Do you want to see it flesh out as it really did?
Of course, that’s just what I do want!
So I can use as much of it—ISM!
Well then, ask my mother to leave us!
No, no, don’t permit it, man!
Don't permit it!
But it's only his—try it!
No, I can't bear it!
I can't!!
But since it's happened already, I don't understand!
It’s taking place now—it happens all the time!
My torment isn't a pretended one!
I live and feel every minute of my torture!
Those two children there—have you heard them speak?
They can't speak anymore!
They cling to me to keep my torment actual and vivid for me!
But for themselves, they do not exist!
They aren't anymore!
And she has run away!
She has left me!
God is lost!
If I not see her here before me, it is only to renew for me the tortures I have suffered for her!
To the eternal moment, she is here to catch me, fix me, and hold me eternally in the stocks for that one fleeting and shameful moment of my life!
She can't give it up!
And you, sir, cannot either!
Fairly spare me!
I didn't say I didn't want to act it before!
As a matter of fact, the nucleus of the whole first act, right up to her surprise—just so!
This is my punishment, the passion in all of us that must culminate in her final cry!
Still hear it in my ears!
If it's driven me mad— that cry you can put me on as you like, it doesn't matter!
Fully trust if you like, provided I have at least the bare arms!
Because standing like this with my head so and my arms around his neck, I saw a vein pulsing in my arm there and then!
As if that live vein had awakened disgust in me, I closed my eyes like this and let my head sink on his breast!
Cry out, "Mother!"
Cry out!
Cry out as you did then!
No, my daughter, my daughter!
You brute, you brute; she is my daughter!
Don't you see, she's my daughter?
Fine, fine; damn good!
And then of course, CURTAIN!
Yes, of course because that's the way it really happened!
Oh yes, no doubt about it—CURTAIN!
Here, CURTAIN!
That damned idiot!
I said "CURTAIN!" to show the act should end there!
And he goes and lets it down!
And earnest—yes, yes, it’s alright, effect certain, that’s the right ending!
Let’s guarantee the first act at any rate!
Ah yes, I back—leave it to me!
Leave it all to me as we arranged you—little go fine!
You'll see our entry into the house in spite of him!
Leave it to me, I tell you!
Do let it be clear, at any rate, that it is in spite of my wishes!
Well, all the good that's come of it, it doesn't matter!
The more harm done to us, the more remorse for him!
I understand, good heavens!
I understand—I’m taking it into account!
I beg you, ma'am, to let it appear quite plain!
That for conscience sake I did try in every way to pacify me, to dissuade me from spying him!
Do what she wants—satisfy her!
Because it is true, I enjoy it immensely!
Anyhow, as you can see the weaker she is, the more she tries to get at his heart, the more distant and aloof he becomes!
Are we going to begin this second act or not?
I'm not going to talk anymore now!
But I must tell you this: you can't have the whole action take place in the garden as he suggests!
It's not possible!
Why not?
Because he is always shut up alone in his room!
And then there's all the part about that poor dazed looking boy there, which takes place indoors!
Maybe on the other hand, you will understand we—we can't change scenes three or four times in one act!
So they used to once!
Yes, when the public was up to the level of that child there!
It makes the illusion easier, the illusion!
Oh for heaven's sake, don't say illusion!
Please don't use that word which is particularly painful to us!
And why, if you please, though?
It is painful, cruel!
Really cruel and you ought to understand that!
But why?
What aren’t we to say then?
The illusion I tell you, sir, which we've got to create for the audience with our acting!
And the illusion of a reality!
I—I understand but you perhaps do not understand us!
You see here for you and your actors the thing is only and rightly so—a kind of game!
A game?
We're not children here if you please—we are serious actors!
I don't deny it!
What I mean is the game or play of your art which has to give, as the gentleman says, a perfect illusion of reality!
Precisely!
But if you consider the fact that we are as we are, have no other reality outside of this illusion—then—
And what does that mean, as I say, sir?
That which is a game of art for you is our sole reality!
But not only for us!
You know, by the way, just do you think it over!
Can you tell me who you are?
Who I am?
I am myself!
And if I were to tell you that that isn't true, because you are—?
I should say you were mad!
Well yes, you're quite right to laugh, because we are all making believe here!
And you can therefore object that it's only for a joke that that gentleman there, who is naturally himself, has to be me!
Who am, on the contrary, myself?
This thing you see here!
You see, ha!
I've caught you in a trap!
But we've had this all over once before!
Want to begin again?
No, no, that wasn't my meaning!
In fact, I should like to request you to abandon this game of art, which you are accustomed to playing here with your actors!
And to ask you seriously once again, who are you?
A man who calls himself a character comes and asks me who I am?
A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is, because a character has really a life of his own marked with his special characteristics for which for which reason he is always somebody!
But a man—I’m not speaking of you now—may very well be nobody!
Yes, but you are asking these questions of me!
The boss, the manager, do you understand?
Yes, but only doing—
But only in order to know if you as you really are now see yourself as you once were!
With all the illusions that were thought yours then!
With all the things both inside and outside of you as they seem to you, as they were indeed for you!
Well sir, if you think all of those illusions that mean nothing to you now of—all those things which don't even seem to you to exist anymore while they were once for you—don't you feel that?
Well, I won't say, these boards, but the very earth under your feet is sinking away from you!
When you reflect in that same way, this you as you feel it today all this present reality of yours is fated to seem a mere illusion to you tomorrow!
And where does all this take us anyway?
Oh, nowhere; it's only to show you that if we have no other reality beyond the illusion, you too must not count over much on your reality as you feel it today!
Since like that of yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow!
Ah, excellent, then you'll be saying next that you, with this comedy of yours that you brought here to act, are truer and more real than I am!
What, of course, without a doubt—oh really!
What, I thought you understood that from the beginning—more real than I?
No!
If your reality can change from one day to another, everyone knows it can change; it's always changing, the same as anyone's else!
No, sir!
Not ours!
Look here, that is the very difference: our reality doesn't change!
It can't change!
It can't be any other than what it is because it is already fixed forever!
It's terrible!
Ours is an immutable reality which should make you shudder when you approach us if you are really conscious of the fact that your reality is a mere transitory and fleeting illusion!
Taking this form today, and that tomorrow according to the conditions, according to your will, your sentiments which in turn are controlled by an intellect that shows them to you today in one manner and tomorrow who knows how!
Illusions of reality represented in this fatuous comedy of life that never ends, nor can ever end!
Because if tomorrow were to end, then Y, all would be finished!
Oh, for God's sake, will you at least finish with this philosophizing and let us try to shape this comedy which you yourself have brought me here?
You argue and philosophize a bit too much, my dear, sir!
You know you seem to me almost—almost!
By the way, I think you introduced yourself to me as a—what shall we say?
A character created by an author
him sir nobody can force me. I can wait a minute. First of all, the baby has to go to the fountain.
Yes, yes, of course, that's it. Both at the same time.
What do you mean by both at the same time? And isn't right there was no scene between me and her? Ask her how it was.
Yes, it's true, I had come into his room—into my room. Do you understand? Nothing to do with the garden. It doesn't matter. Haven't I told you? We've got a group—the action.
What do you want? Nothing. I was just looking at you. She's a tattoo debris actual part.
You, exactly, and it seems to me that you ought to be grateful to them for their interest.
Yes, but how do I proceed? That it isn't possible to live in front of a mirror which not only freezes us with the image of ourselves but throws unlikeliness back at us with a horrible grimace.
That, that is true—absolutely true. You must see that he's right. Move away from them! Do like I'm out of this.
Be quiet, will you? Let me hear your mother. You were saying that you had entered?
Yes, into his room, because I couldn't stand it any longer. I want to empty my heart to him of all the anguish that tortures me. But if anything could follow me, come in.
Nothing happened. There was no scene. I went away, that's all. I don't care for the scenes. It's true, it's true, that's how it was.
Well now, we've got to do this bit between you and him. It's indispensable.
I'm ready when you are ready. If you could only find a chance for me to tell him. You will do this for your mother. Do you understand? For your mother!
I do nothing!
Okay, for God's sake, you will do as I tell you. Do you hear your mother asking you for a favor? Have you even got the guts to be a son?
No, you have got to obey, do you hear me? What does this mean, the madness that you have? Have you no decency that you insist on showing everyone our shame?
I won't do it! I won't stand through the will of our author in this. He didn't want to put us on the stage after all. Man alive, you came here!
He did! I didn't! Aren't you here now? It was his wish, and he dragged us along with him.
He's told you not only the things that did happen but things that never happened at all.
Well then, tell me, what did happen?
You went out of your room without saying a word—without a word—so as to avoid a scene. And then what did you do?
Nothing. Hooking into the garden.
Well, walking in the garden.
Why on earth to insist? It's horrible, the baby there in the fountain. She was following him at the moment, and then you...
I ran over to her. I was jumping in to drag her out when I saw something that froze my blood. The boy there, standing stuck still, eyes like a madman, watching his little sister drown in the fountain.
Is he really wouldn’t dead?
Oh no, it's only make-believe! It's only pretend.
Pretense! Reality, sir! Reality! Pretense!
Reality, to hell with it all! Never in my life has such a thing happened to me! I've lost a whole day over these people, a whole day.
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Thank you everyone for joining us for "Six Characters in Search of an Author" by Luigi Pirandello. We hope that if you are interested in volunteering to work with us in Pandemic Players, then you visit us at our Facebook group, Pandemic Players Community. That's the Facebook group where we solicit volunteers and, of course, auditions to join us for one of our casts.
At this point, we can announce some of our upcoming plays. Next Saturday, we will be performing "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen. On 2nd of May, "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare. On 9 May, we have "The Adding Machine" by Elmer Rice, and on 16 May, "Trojan Women" by Euripides. We're very excited for these upcoming productions and we look forward to seeing some of you auditioning.
Please join us at Pandemic Players Community; you will find audition information at that site.
Of course, at this time, I'm going to remind you that this evening’s production was done in support of our good friends at Fells Point Corner Theater. If you are feeling like this is a time that you would be interested in supporting them, please either go to our Facebook site, just Pandemic Players on Facebook, and you will find at the top of that page a link from which you can donate to that group.
If you are not on Facebook, of course, you can go to 2048, or they have options to donate to them directly there. Thank you so much for the support! The outreach that we have had from the community has been just staggering for us. The amount of support that has been given to the local theaters is something that those of us that set up this project just never dreamed would reach the level that it did. So thank you very much to each and every one of you out there, and with that, we will see you next week. Pandemic Players out.
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