EDUCATION RESOURCE PACK
created by Anna Ledwich commissioned by Mousetrap Theatre Projects
Six Characters in Search of an Author Education Resource Pack
Contents
Introduction 3 Luigi Pirandello - a biography 4
Six Characters in Search of an Author From disaster to success 5 A Synopsis 6 The cast 9 Who’s who: The Characters 10 Who’s who: The Film-makers 11
Docu-Drama and Drama-Documentary Is it fact or fiction? 12 Docu-Drama Glossary 13
The Production The Director 14 The Designer 15 Interview with Rupert Goold and Ben Power 16
Further Resources Bibliography and Weblinks 18 Mousetrap Theatre Projects 19
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Introduction
This pack has been developed to help you to get the best out of your visit to see Six Characters in Search of an Author. It is full of essential material to enable students to understand the narrative and themes of the play as well as the contemporary context of this production. There are suggestions for follow up activities and an interview with Ben Power and Rupert Goold.
With thanks to: Elaine Grant Ben Power Kelly Duffy
Rehearsal and show photography: Manuel Harlan
Main Six Characters Image Design: Aka Creative Advertising
Produced by Michael Edwards and Carole Winter for MJE Productions
The Gielgud Theatre is a Delfont Mackintosh Theatre
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Luigi Pirandello
A Biography
psychological shock. She never fully recovered. Pirandello harboured thoughts of suicide, but began intensive work on a novel. By the time the First World War broke out, he had published three novels and numerous short stories.
It was not until 1916, however, that he turned his attention to the theatre. He was remarkably prolific, turning out as many as "I am a child of Chaos and not only nine plays in one year. But as Pirandello's allegorically" fame as a writer increased, his private life deteriorated. Antonietta, plagued by Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, suspicion and obsessive jealousy, began to novelist and short story writer. He was born turn physically violent, becoming so on June 28, 1867 in Caos, on the island of volatile that she was in need of Sicily. His father owned a prosperous institutionalization. Against the advice of sulphur mine and his mother was from a doctors Pirandello instead chose to keep wealthy family. He received his elementary her at home. Their daughter was so education at home, and by the age of disturbed by her mother's illness that she twelve had already written his first tried to take her own life. The illness had a tragedy. profound effect on Pirandello's writing as well, leading him to explorations of In 1880, Luigi completed his high school madness, illusion, and isolation. It was not education and fell in love with his cousin until his plays finally began to prove Lina. While initially disapproved of, Lina’s profitable around 1919 that he was able to family demanded that Luigi abandon his send Antonietta to a private sanitarium. studies and dedicate himself to the sulphur business so that he could immediately In 1921 Six Characters in Search of an marry her. Luigi went to work in the Author was staged in Rome. In 1922 Six sulphur mines with his father for a time, Characters was translated into English and but he grew increasingly unhappy. The performed in London and in New York. In marriage to Lina, was called off and 1925, Pirandello was appointed artistic Pirandello moved to Rome to continue his director of the Teatro d'Arte di Roma by studies. Mussolini. As the company flourished Pirandello met actress Marta Abba, for In 1894, Pirandello married a shy, whom most of his later plays were written, withdrawn girl from a respectable family: and his troupe began touring extensively Antonietta. They had two sons and a throughout Europe and America. daughter and Pirandello began publishing novellas and a collection of poems. Mussolini's support allowed Pirandello’s work to reach an international audience, But in 1903 Pirandello’s life was shaken by yet for the remainder of his life, Pirandello a calamitous event: the sulphur mines was tainted by the stigma of being flooded. His father had invested an associated with the Fascist Party and enormous amount of his own money, into remained under close surveillance by the the venture. The family financially Italian secret police. collapsed and Antonietta suffered profound Pirandello was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1934. He died alone in his home in Rome on the 10th of December, 1936.
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Six Characters in
Search of an Author: From disaster to success
"Oh the dramatic theatre! I will conquer However, a review the next day by an it. I cannot enter into one without influential critic pronounced that the experiencing a strange sensation, an production was “a success imposed by a excitement of the blood through all my minority on a bewildered, confused public veins..." who were basically trying hard to Luigi Pirandello understand. From today, we can say that Pirandello is one of the most deserving precursors of tomorrow’s genius if Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an tomorrow ever comes.” Author was a defining moment in the history of drama because its form and Six Characters, was a great success when content were so revolutionary. presented at Milan later that year and in 1922 Six Characters was translated into But when it was first staged in Rome in English. It was performed in London and 1921 it was a resounding failure. From the New York, thus extending Pirandello’s fame outset things started to go badly. The beyond the shores of Italy. audience came into the theatre and were shocked to discover that the curtain was raised and that there was no scenery. Some spectators were appalled by this crude presentation: stagehands could be clearly seen and actors milled about the stage if they were not really in a play. The arrival of the “characters”, and their assertion that they were more real than the actors proved to be even more bewildering.
All this served to infuriate those spectators who had gone to the theatre for pleasant evening’s entertainment. The audience were polarised: outraged and delighted. The first jeers were followed by shouts of disapproval, and when the opponents of the play realized that they were in the majority, they started to chant in unison. Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 production of Six Characters The production had its supporters, but their in Search of an Author defense of Pirandello’s play created even more confusion. Audience members, actors Other notable plays by Pirandello: and critics ended up exchanging blows, spilling out into the street. The evening As You Desire Me (1930) culminated in a general riot and Pirandello, Henry IV (1921) attending the performance with his Right You Are (If You Think You Are) (1917) daughter, was forced to escape out of the theatre through a side exit in order to avoid the volatile crowds.
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Six Characters in Search of an Author (2008) A new version by Rupert Goold & Ben Power
A Synopsis
Freya Parker as The Girl (left) and Denise Gough as The Step-Daughter
Prologue/Act 1
The play begins in a disused office in their author and are seeking another to Denmark. A documentary filmmaking team, complete their story. They argue that (a Producer, Editor, Actor and Actress) are without an author to give them life they watching a rough edit of their film. Their are unable to achieve lasting immortality. film follows the story of a 14 year-old Convinced that they are mad, the British boy, Andrew who, suffering from an filmmakers try to eject them from the un-named terminal disease, has decided to office but the Father and Step-Daughter proceed with assisted suicide at a Danish plead with them to listen to their story. clinic. The Father proceeds to tell the filmmakers A television Executive has flown to their story but the other characters Denmark to see the results of their work. It interject, disagreeing over details. They is clear that the film is lacking significant demand that the Producer film their story footage of the boy and his family. The so that the full truth can be revealed. Executive upbraids the Producer for the sterile and dull nature of the film. The Their passion and willingness to expose team is at a loss how to proceed when their darkest secrets convinces the there is a knock at the door. Producer that their story is intriguing enough to warrant filming. To the surprise Six strange people enter the office. They of the other filmmakers the Producer are a family and they claim that they are decides to abandon the original film and characters. They have been abandoned by tell the characters’ story.
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Jamie Bower as The Actor and Christine Entwistle as The Actress
Act 2
The filmmakers and characters begin crew. He and the Step-Daughter enact a filming the characters’ story. A set has ritual whereas he tells her she must pay for been constructed to resemble a her mother’s poor hat-making by prostitute’s room. The Step-Daughter ‘entertaining’ a gentleman upstairs. The instructs them what further articles they crew attempts to film this but cannot hear need to make the room more authentic. what they are saying. The Father and the The Producer explains how the film will be Step-Daughter enact the moment where made: the family will tell their story and they first meet. Their performance is then the actors will reconstruct the scenes strange and disconcerting. The Producer on film. The Father and Step-Daughter interrupts it and prepares the actors to object to the use of the actors and reconstruct it. question why they, as the characters, cannot enact the story themselves. The The actors enact the scene in a naturalistic Producer explains that when in way but are soon interrupted by the documentary films, the people being laughter of the Father and Step-Daughter. profiled enact their own stories the film They demand to enact the scene in its can feel fake and untruthful. The use of entirety. The Producer agrees. They begin actors allows the story to seem more real. to perform the scene in a ritualized and The characters begrudgingly accept this stylized way. The scene culminates in the explanation. Father and Step-Daughter about to consummate when the Mother walks in and In order for the story to begin, the interrupts the scene. She screams in horror Producer learns that another character and the scream leads into an opera that needs to be present: Mr. Pace. They draws all six characters into a final tableau summon him using “articles of his trade”, of horror. hats. He erupts from the bed, terrifying the
Ian McDiarmid & Denise Gough in rehearsal
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Freya Parker as The Girl
Act 3 Act 4
The Act 1 set has disappeared and been The Producer watches in horror as the replaced by an enormous fish tank. The six filmmaking crew, oblivious to her and the characters and Producer are present. The Boy, repeat the prologue of Act 1, but this rest of the crew seems to have time with a Director’s Commentary voiced disappeared. over the top. As the commentary describes the making of the scene, there is a knock The Father reveals that they are all at his at the door and we hear the Father’s voice house, in the garden. He has brought the saying he is in search of an author. The family back there after the terrible scene characters have invaded the reality of the in the bedroom. The Father questions the Director’s Commentary. The scene changes Producer’s beliefs in reality and truth – again. stating that her truth is as fragmented and impermanent as biology itself. She is ever Two Theatre Makers are pitching an idea changing, therefore less real than the for a new version of Six Characters in characters, as they are fixed, unchanging Search of an Author to an Executive who is and will live on forever. The Producer very excited by the idea. They describe demands to know how their story ends and their vision for the production (exactly as the scene culminates with the Girl we have watched). As they do so, the drowning in the fish tank. To the Father and Step-Daughter enter wielding Producer’s horror, the Boy stabs himself in knives and hatchets. They butcher the the heart with a syringe. The family Theatre Makers and the scene changes once disappears and the Producer is left alone again. with the dead Boy. A gentleman in 1920s clothing enters: She picks up the Boy and carries him out of Pirandello himself. He complains to his the theatre searching for help. She exits Housekeeper that he is having great the theatre and enters into a theatre next difficulty with his latest play, Six door. She runs onto a stage where a Characters in Search of an Author. The performance is taking place, but the actors characters are fully formed and demanding don’t notice her. She realizes that she’s his attention but he is having difficulty invisible. She re-enters the stage and stabs finding an ending. He decides to leave the herself with the syringe to shock herself story unfinished. back into reality. Instead, her reality changes and the scene returns to the A boy appears on a screen. It’s Andrew, the office/film-editing suite of Act 1. subject of the Producer’s euthanasia film. The Producer realizes that in the face of the characters’ constancy and power she is unable to continue with this reality and needs to seek an ending to it all. The Father and Step-Daughter lead her from the room and hand her an injection. She injects herself and slowly dies surrounded by all of the characters. w w w. m o u s e t r a p . o r g . u k 8 Six Characters in Search of an Author Education Resource Pack
The Cast
IAN MCDIARMID JOHN MACKAY JAKE HARDERS The Father The Executive/Pace The Cameraman
ELEANOR DAVID NOMA DUMEZWENI JEREMY JOYCE The Mother The Producer Runner
BAILEY PEPPER DYFAN DWYFOR ROBIN PEARCE The Boy The Son The Editor
ELLIOT HORNE DENISE GOUGH JAMIE BOWER The Boy The Step-Daughter The Actor
FREYA PARKER CHRISTINE ENTWISLE The Girl The Actress
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Who’s who
Ian McDiarmid as The Father (centre)
The Characters
The Father The Father is the head of the family. He reconcile with her eldest Son. She is and the Mother were married and had one resistant to their story being told but child, the Son. But he drove the Mother out accepts that there is no choice. and kept the Son to bring up on his own. She went on to have three more children The Son with another man: the Step-Daughter, the The most resistant of them all to having Girl and the Boy. The Father has had little their story told. He refuses to speak until to do with their lives until now. He goaded by the Father and Step-Daughter. struggles between feeling remorse and guilt He condemns them for lying and presenting and feelings self-justification. His attitude a story that he doesn’t recognize. He to the rest of the family is one of disdain resents his Mother for apparently and loathing. The rest of the family reacts abandoning him when he was two years to him with fear and disgust. old, yet is cold towards his Father and feels antipathy towards the other children. He is The Step-Daughter only drawn in to the story because his A dashing and impudent girl, the Step- refusal to acknowledge his Mother leads her Daughter wears clothes of mourning. She to abandon the younger children, which in loathes the father for his lechery and the turn leads to their deaths. Son for his aloofness. She chastises her Mother for her weakness and condemns the The Girl young Boy for being the most evil of them A silent character. She is the youngest all. Her only tenderness is reserved for the daughter. A silent, mournful presence, she Girl. Coupled with this desire to punish her clings to the Mother or the Step-Daughter family she is also propelled by a need to be until the moment in the garden where she the centre of attention: the starlet of her drowns. very own film. The Boy The Mother A silent character. Disliked by the Son and She is defined by her state of mourning. the Step-Daughter, he clings to his Mother. Her story is one of death, abandonment, He stabs himself with the syringe and dies. separation from her children and poverty. His action is explained by the Father as an She punishes herself for the deaths of her attempt to regain control of a situation two youngest children: she left them alone that is spiralling out of control. in the garden whilst attempting to
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Noma Dumezweni as The Producer (centre)
The Film-makers
The Producer The Actress A highly successful film producer and A long time collaborator with the Producer. director. She is under pressure to produce She is the most openly hostile towards the another award-winning film like her characters and their story. She challenges previous one. She is an isolated character the Producer’s decision vehemently and who is harbouring grief for a sister that continues to display anger and disbelief as died. She follows her instincts often to the the filming goes underway. She clashes anger of her crew and compromising her with the Step-Daughter over her attempt to safety (and eventual sanity). She describes portray the Step-Daughter in the filmed herself as a ‘narrative junkie’ – someone reconstruction. who is addicted to finding and following a story.
The Editor Special Mention: An experienced and loyal member of the film-making team. He is skeptical of the Pace family’s story and is displeased that they A volatile character. He is of the have abandoned the euthanasia film in Characters’ world and yet separate from favour of the characters. them. He owns the hat shop that the Mother works in. He primarily acts as a The Actor pimp for girls who work as prostitutes in Another long-time member of the the room above the shop. He is protective Producer’s team. He is more intrigued by of the Step-Daughter yet exploits her. He the characters’ story than the rest of the treats the Father as an old friend (and team and expresses willingness to explore favourite customer) whilst tormenting the their story. He can be fickle, often Mother with the Step-Daughter’s situation. changing opinions according to those around him.
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Docu-Drama and Drama-Documentary: Is it fact or fiction?
“Life is full of absurdities that have no need to appear real since they are true.” The Father (Six Characters in Search of an Author)
Throughout its long history, drama documentary has been one of film and television's most popular, but also most controversial, forms. Film and television programme makers are attracted to its combination of the languages of drama and documentary to dramatise research, thereby stimulating interest in issues through empathy with characters and narrative.
However, critics continue to debate the extent to which these techniques 'blur the boundaries' of fact and fiction and sacrifice factual accuracy to dramatic storytelling.
Docu-drama: A filmed dramatization based on fact that combines documentary and fictional elements. At its best, a docu-drama can be a skillful representation of a real person or event. It uses literary and narrative techniques to flesh out the bare facts of an event in history and it usually consists entirely of actors performing recreations of documented events.
Drama-documentary: A type of film that combines elements of documentary and drama. Film and television drama-docs usually feature dramatic reconstructions of events and people combined with contemporaneous footage of the events themselves. Drama-docs tend to demonstrate a strict focus on the facts of the event being treated, with less emphasis on fictional elements.
Film Docu-dramas of note
Bloody Sunday (2002) The Road to Guantanamo (2006) United 93 (2006)
Drama-documentaries of note
Cathy Come Home (1966) Supervolcano (2005) Touching the Void (2004)
Noma Dumezweni in rehearsal as The Producer Points for Discussion:
The BBC were reprimanded for showing misleading footage of the Queen. The programme makers had edited scenes in a different order and presented a story that was factually inaccurate.
What tools do the media use to influence our opinion on a topic? How can the re- arranging of facts completely change a story? Why might programme editors and journalists choose to do this?
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Docu-Drama Glossary as featured in Six Characters in Search of an Author
Peter Fincham Storyville BBC One controller who resigned over BBC International Documentary series. It documentary footage that misrepresented commissions documentaries from around the Queen. A trailer from the documentary the world. A Year with the Queen apparently showed the Queen storming out of a session with Alan Yentob American photographer Annie Leibovitz Television Executive who was both BBC1 over a disagreement about what she should and BBC2 controller. He writes and wear. The BBC subsequently admitted that presents BBC1’s Imagine… documentary one of the shots used in the trailer had series. been edited out of order. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein Kevin McDonald Revolutionary Soviet Russian film director. British film-maker who made the Oscar- Films include: Strike, Battleship Potemkin winning docu-drama The Last King of and October. His work vastly influenced Scotland and the BAFTA Award winning early film makers owing to his innovative drama-documentary Touching the Void use of “montage”, a specific use of film which told the story of two climbers' editing. Eisenstein believed that editing disastrous attempt to scale the Siula could be used for more than just Grande in the Andes in 1985. illustrating a scene, through a "linkage" of related images. He felt the "collision" of Nick Broomfield shots could be used to manipulate the British documentary film-maker. He films emotions of the audience and create film with a minimum of crew, just himself and metaphors. He believed that an idea should one or two camera operators, which gives be derived from the juxtaposition of two his documentaries a distinctive style. independent shots, bringing an element of Broomfield himself is often in shot holding collage into film. His writings and films the sound boom. Films include: Kurt and have continued to have a major impact on Courtney, Biggie & Tupac, Aileen: Life and subsequent filmmakers. Death of a Serial Killer. Being John Malkovich Paul Greengrass A 1999 film written by Charlie Kaufman and Oscar and BAFTA Award-winning British directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John writer and film director. He specializes in Cusack and Cameron Diaz, as well as the dramatizations of real-life events and is actor John Malkovich, who plays a known for his signature use of hand-held fictionalized version of himself. The film cameras. Films include: The Murder of was widely praised for its originality, both Stephen Lawrence, Bloody Sunday, United in terms of the script and Jonze's direction. 93. The Player Ken Loach A 1992 film directed by Robert Altman. The British television and film director. He is film, loaded with movie references and known for his naturalistic, social realism Hollywood insider jokes, is a critique of the directing style and his film treatment of Hollywood movie business. social issues such as homelessness and One of the more notable features of the labour rights. Films include: Cathy Come film is the inclusion of over 60 cameo Home, Riff-Raff, The Wind That Shakes the appearances by major Hollywood actors, Barley. producers and directors—all playing themselves—intertwined throughout the story.
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The Production
Director & co-author
Rupert Goold
Rupert Goold is Artistic Director of Rupert’s productions are very distinct in Headlong Theatre. Productions for that he aims to combine intellectual ideas Headlong include Faustus, Restoration, with entertaining and often bold staging. Paradise Lost, Rough Crossings and The He believes that audiences who attend his Last Days of Judas Iscariot. productions should be challenged and entertained at the same time. He is best In 2007 Rupert directed Patrick Stewart, as known for creating fresh and exciting new Macbeth in his acclaimed Minerva studio interpretations of classic plays. His staging of Macbeth at the Chichester production of The Tempest was set in an Festival Theatre. The production Arctic wasteland. His production of Faustus subsequently transferred to the Gielgud married the text of Christopher Marlowe Theatre in London and then to the Brooklyn with a contemporary story involving Jake Academy of Music in New York and and Dinos Chapman, two London artists Broadway. Goold won the 2007 Evening who are famous for creating controversial Standard Theatre Award and the 2008 artworks. His production of Macbeth was Olivier Award for Best Director. set in an un-named part of the Soviet Union during the cold war, but was also Later this year, he will direct the West End influenced by horror films such as Saw and revival of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal, The Shining. Drury Lane.
Co-author
Ben Power
Ben Power is the Literary Associate for Standard and Critics Circle Awards for Best Headlong Theatre. Previous adaptations for Play). He has adapted the play for Radio 4. Headlong includes Faustus, Paradise Lost and Six Characters in Search of an Author. Other work for the stage includes new versions of The Tempest and Much Ado Ben was the Dramaturge and Literary About Nothing for the RSC Complete Works Associate on A Disappearing Number for Festival; Tamburlaine the Great (Bankside Complicite (Winner of the Olivier, Evening Rose), Julius Caesar (Menier Chocolate Factory).
Points for discussion:
In Pirandello’s original version the six characters interrupt a theatre rehearsal. In Rupert Goold and Ben Power’s version the six characters interrupt a documentary film-making team.
What are other possible contemporary scenarios could the six characters interrupt? (hint: think of situations where stories are told, both factual and fictional)
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Designer
Miriam Buether
Trained in Costume Design at Akademie für often transforms theatres so that they are Kostüm Design in Hamburg and in Theatre unrecognizable. For her 2007 production of Design at Central St Martins. She was My Child, she turned the Royal Court’s overall winner of the 1999 Linbury Theatre downstairs theatre into the interior of a Design Prize. London Underground tube train. For her 2008 production of The Good Soul of She has created set and costume designs Sichuan, she transformed the Young Vic for Soho Theatre, Royal Court, Young Vic, theatre into a cement factory. Her design Plymouth Theatre Royal and the Arcola for the Chichester Festival Theatre theatre. Miriam regularly works with production of Six Characters in Search of companies such as Frantic Assembly, an Author transformed the Minerva Studio National Theatre of Scotland, Canadian into an anonymous, abandoned office, National Ballet and Komische Opera Berlin, complete with strip lighting and views of an anonymous Danish city. Her designs are marked by ambitious and creative use of a theatrical space. She
The opening Act: The Mother (centre) pleads with The The final image of the play: The Characters help Producer for her help The Producer to find an ending
Follow up Activity:
Each of the Characters has a very distinct “look”. The Father is inspired by the 2004 documentary Capturing the Friedmans. The Mother was partly inspired by images of Jackie Onassis. The look of The Step-Daughter was heavily influenced by the actress, Denise Gough, coming to the first day of rehearsal wearing a bowler hat! The Son was based on images of 1950s Left-Bank French philosophers. The Boy and The Girl were inspired by Victorian photographs of children in mourning. Finally, the look of Pace was based on Harvey Keitel’s greasy pimp character in the 1976 film Taxi Driver.
In groups discuss and create a distinct “look” for each of the Six Characters. Make sure that your inspiration is drawn from recognizable sources (e.g. films, photographs, contemporary celebrities, figures from history). Why have you chosen that image for the Character? How does it enhance the Character’s personality and the themes of the play?
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Interview with Rupert Goold & Ben Power
Ben Power (left) and Rupert Goold (right) in rehearsal
What attracted you to this play?
Ben: Rupert and I were looking for a classic text which was a rare combination of being both theatrically exciting and intellectually ambitious. Six Characters is one of the most formally audacious plays ever written – a text so experimental it provoked riots when first premiered in Rome in 1921. It also has a reputation for being difficult and the fact that lots of its techniques have been appropriated by other mediums (particularly film) in the last eighty years meant that we thought there was room for us to re-imagine it slightly. In other words, we thought it could be re-contextualized and made to feel urgent and exciting for a modern audience.
How did you both come up with the concept for your version of Six Characters?
Rupert: We thought right from the beginning of our process that lots of the play’s questions about truth and the nature and trustworthiness of reality were questions that film and television were very engaged with at the moment. It seemed that it might be possible to move the play away from its original setting and focus it on a group of film-makers without making it lose its power.
Ben: We suspected it could be made more powerful and accessible to a modern audience if it dealt with film rather than theatre. We then watched lots of different genres of film and television before settling on documentaries. We’d also been looking at the work of the Dignitas clinic (which offers assisted suicide) and the two came together quite naturally.
What were your influences (visual and literary) when writing and staging the play?
Rupert: Our main influence was definitely Pirandello himself. Not the dusty English version that had developed a reputation for being inaccessible, but the passionate, intellectually dazzling showman who audiences either loved or hated in 1920’s Italy. We read lots of his other writing, particularly his later essays about Six Characters. We also watched lots of the films of people like Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman (particularly Being John Malkovich and Adaptation) and also the documentary film Capturing the Friedmans. Our designer, Miriam, is German and lots of our visual aesthetic is influenced by European photography, both German and Scandinavian. Finally, and obviously, Hamlet is a major influence on both the original play and our adaptation.
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The 4th act departs significantly from the original version. What were you exploring with the series of ‘hijacks’ and how does it enhance a contemporary audience’s understanding of the original play?
Ben: The original play very clearly ends with a challenge to what we mean by ‘real’ and by ‘reality’. We wanted to develop this moment in order to really highlight the horror of what Pirandello is proposing – that reality doesn’t, can’t, really exist. We’re so used to seeing the idea of truth destroyed or challenged on screen. We thought it’d be both interesting and unsettling (and hopefully, kind of fun) to see it challenged on stage. Once we’d begun to rip up the fabric of truth in the play, following Pirandello’s own logic, we felt we had to continue to follow the journey of our film-maker, to keep ‘hi-jacking’ or undermining reality until we reached the only place we could, the only possible conclusion.
Freya Parker as The Girl (centre)
Follow up Activity:
In groups look through a newspaper. Choose a news story that is dramatic or entertaining. Select the key moments from it and create a performance re- enacting the story.
Does your re-enactment stay close to the facts of the news story? Are there moments when it becomes more like fiction? How does your interpretation of the news story differ from other peoples?
Now try enacting the story in different performance styles. Suggested performance styles: naturalism, slap-stick comedy, expressive movement (no words), opera.
How does it change the atmosphere of your story?
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Six Characters in Search of Playtext of the 2008 an Author by Luigi Pirandello production at the Gielgud (version by Ben Power and including full cast list and Rupert Goold) (Nick Herne production credits Books)
Six Characters in Search of Plenty of explanatory notes, Author by Luigi Pirandello useful for students for whom (translated by John Linstrum) this is a set text (Methuen Student Editions)
Six Characters in Search of Collection of Pirandello’s an Author and other plays by plays that best exemplify Luigi Pirandello (translated brilliantly innovation of his by Mark Musa) (Penguin theatrical forms and themes Twentieth Century Classics)
Luigi Pirandello in the A collection of much Theatre: A Documentary previously unpublished Record by Susan Bassnett- archive material, including McGuire and Jennifer Lorch documents from Luigi (Harwood Academic Pirandello's theoretical Performing Arts) essays and reviews
Pirandello and Film by Nina Examines Pirandello's many Da Vinci Nichols and Jana attempts to transform Six O'Keefe Bazzoni (University Characters into a movie. The of Nebraska Press) authors examine Pirandello's views on film and its relation
to theatre
Capturing The Friedmans Oscar-nominated (2004 DVD) directed by documentary the provided Andrew Jarecki (Tartan much inspiration for Rupert Films) Goold’s production of Six Characters in Search of an Author
Weblinks http://www.headlongtheatre.co.uk Headlong Theatre, creators of the production http://www.cft.org.uk Chichester Festival Theatre, creators of the production http:www.mjeproductions.com West End Producers of Six Characters http://www.6characters.co.uk The Official London web site for Six Characters in Search of an Author
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Mousetrap Theatre Projects
Mousetrap Theatre Projects offers young people with limited resources and access, the opportunity to engage with the best of London’s live theatre. We are an independent charity, working with theatres in the West End and across London. Since 1997, we have taken nearly 60,000 young people to the theatre.
We create innovative and exciting theatre access, education and audience development programmes. Young people take part with their school or youth group, their family or their friends.
Mission Statement
We believe that all young people should have the opportunity to attend outstanding theatre, irrespective of their cultural, social or economic background. Our mission is to increase young people’s access to the best of live theatre in London (particularly those young people with limited resources, opportunities or support) and to enable them to engage creatively with that experience.
As an independent charity, Mousetrap Theatre Projects is in a unique position to select the appropriate or relevant theatre productions in and beyond the West End that stimulate and inspire young people. We devise programmes that use theatre as a catalyst to explore ideas, learn new skills, develop creativity and offer new perspectives. At the heart of our education and outreach work is the desire to open doors to young people who might otherwise consider London’s rich cultural heritage closed to them.
Areas of Endeavour
Access: To provide young people with limited resources, support or a disability, the opportunity to attend London theatre, often as a first-time experience: The London Theatre Challenge for mainstream and special schools, All- Schools Matinees, Family First Nights and Envision
Education: To enable young people to engage actively with their theatre experience and to use theatre as an educational resource in and out of the classroom to stimulate creative work and to develop theatre-related skills: TheatreWorks, Play the Critic, Insight sessions, WriteThinking, TechTaster, PowerPlay and Stage Business
Audience Development: To encourage a legacy of theatregoing among young audiences by reducing barriers and enhancing their knowledge and understanding of theatre: C145 and West End for £10
Creating Links: To develop collaborations with young people, schools, teachers, artists, arts organisations, youth groups, community organisations and social service agencies with the theatre industry: Meet the Artists Events, Special Seminars/Round Table Discussions, Teachers’ Advisory Group, Teachers Preview Club and StageXChange
Mousetrap Theatre Projects Bedford Chambers The Piazza Covent Garden London WC2E 8HA www.mousetrap.org.uk Tel. 020 7836 4388
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