Rating: 
Summary: the beginning
Review: There are few works I have read that match the greatness of this work. As it progresses ,it starts opening up new chapters in the realm of complex human behavior for the reader to explore. To me it looks as if it is really a case of who understands whom? The stepdaughter blames her father for all her misfortunes who in turn blames her mother who he says left her for another man. Its none of the fault of the mother either who fell in love with a man who, she says, was introduced to her by none other than the father himself.(her falling in love is nothing but natural and still she feels that she would have remained with her husband had she not been driven out of the house.).The son is not attached to any body because he had a non attached upbringing. The step daughter being a victim of prostitution hates her father who being lonely and forced by the carnal needs (which is again but natural) visits brothel .It is by coincidence that he happens to seduce his own daughter which is a very important link in the story( here also, the father is remorseful but insists that he should not be branded evil just because of one aberration which he feels are present in other humans also.) . The boy always feels lonely and alien because he is despised by the son for being illegitimate which is not his fault. His blank stare and ultimately his committing suicide are all tragic expressions of the fact that the child must have felt extremely lonely and punished for a crime which he did not commit. The situation grows highly complex when the step daughter kills her own brother by lowering it in the pool(and while lowering she asserts that she is killing it because she loves it which leaves a big question mark on human nature whether at the same time it can love somebody and yet go to the extent of mercilessly killing it also ?).It is all a chain where every person thinks the other responsible for his wretchedness and yet all look correct from their own angle .So how do you find out the truth as to who is correct? Probably this is what the author wants to say that the truth is not absolute but relative and therefore unknowable. All are driven by their own sets of morals and compulsions . Regarding the play, it is really difficult to show a situation from the point of view of so many persons . The imagination of the author is also fantastic when it shows that six characters have become alive from a story and have become living entities. More surprisingly, they start mingling with those who are REALLY REAL .There are few works which can match the greatness of this work.
Rating: 
Summary: interesting thought experiment, blessedly brief
Review: We're all familiar with the dramatic device of the "play within a play" from Shakespeare (for instance, the device is used in Hamlet). But Nobel Laureate Luigi Pirandello had a specific use for the concept; he wanted to demonstrate the fine line that separates reality and fiction. He did so most famously in the play Six Characters in Search of an Author. The play opens with a theater company getting ready to begin a rehearsal. As the director tries to bring some order to the proceedings, six people walk in off of the street looking for an author. They want someone to dramatize their sordid true life story. The tale that they unfold is in fact so melodramatic that the director has his troupe start acting out the six characters and repeating their lines. Meanwhile, the six quibble with the actors' interpretations and with the reproduced dialogue and even argue with the director over whether it is possible or appropriate for anyone other than the six to play themselves. The premise and structure of the play are amusing and thought provoking. One can only imagine how Pirandello would react to the permutations we see spun out today with reality tv and instant tv movies based on real events, even those we've all just witnessed on live tv like the OJ trial. In fact, just recently on the X-Files, Scully and Mulder were working with a police force which was being filmed for the live action show COPS. Fictional characters pretending to be on a "real" show, but the players on the "real" show are fictional for this episode... He would have loved it. But ultimately the actual content of this play seems to be totally superfluous. The ingenious set up is the whole point and so it ends up resembling one of those Saturday Night Live skits that doesn't know when enough is enough. It all makes for an interesting thought experiment but a somewhat tedious, though blessedly brief, drama. GRADE: C+
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