 Luigi Pirandello was born in 1867
in Girgenti (now Agrigento) on the island of Sicily.
Luigi's father was a fairly prosperous sulphur dealer
and intended that his son should follow in his footsteps,
but the boy demonstrated a studious bent early on, and
as a result, he was provided with a literary schooling.
He entered the University of Rome in 1887, but later
transferred to Bonn University where he completed his
doctoral thesis, a study of his native Sicilian dialect.
Pirandello's first creative efforts were in the realm
of verse--he translated Goethe's
Roman elegies--but after falling under the influence
of Sicilian novelist Capuana who became his friend and
advisor, Pirandello turned his attention to naturalistic
fiction. His first novel, The Outcast (1893),
contains the seeds that would blossom in his later writing.
Pirandello's sense of disillusionment was burned
into his psyche early on by a very personal tragedy.
In 1894, at the age of 27, he married a young woman
whom he had never met. The marriage had been arranged
by his parents according to custom. His young bride,
Antonietta Portulano, was the daughter of his father's
business partner. The girl's mother had died in childbirth
because her father was so insanely jealous that he would
not allow a doctor to be present during the birth. For
a time, the young couple found happiness, but after
the birth of their third child and the loss of the family
fortune in a flood, Antonietta suffered a mental breakdown.
She became so violent that she should have been institutionalized,
but Pirandello chose instead to keep her at home for
seventeen years while she spat her venom at the young
writer and his three children. Their daughter was so
disturbed by her mother's illness that she tried to
take her own life. Fortunately, her instrument of choice,
a revolver, was so old as to be of no use. The illness
had a profound effect on Pirandello's writing as well,
leading him to explorations of madness, illusion, and
isolation. It was not until his plays finally began
to prove profitable around 1919 that he was able to
sent Antonietta to a private sanitarium.
Pirandello wrote his first widely acclaimed novel,
The Late Mattia Pascal, in 1904. By the time
the First World War broke out ten years later, he had
published two other novels and numerous short stories.
It was not until 1916, however, that he turned his attention
to the theatre. He quickly became enthralled by this
new medium, and became quite prolific, turning out as
many as nine plays in one year. His first three plays,
Better Think Twice About It!, Liolà, and
It is So!, If You Think So, were each written
in less than a week. His first notable critical success
came in 1920 with As Before, Better than Before.
Then, within a five week period in 1921, he wrote two
masterpieces: Six Characters in Search of an Author,
and Henry IV. Six Characters had a
successful but scandalous opening in Rome and, soon
after, another successful--but less scandalous--opening
in Milan. Almost overnight, the play was being directed
by Komisarjevsky in London, Brock Pemberton in New York,
and Max Reinhardt in Germany. 1922 saw the successful
opening of two more plays, Henry IV and Naked.
Between 1922 and 1924, Pirandello became a major
public figure. In Paris, he received the Legion of Honor,
and in 1925, with the help of Mussolini who had publicly
announced his admiration for the playwright, Pirandello
opened his own Art Theatre in Rome. Pirandello's relationship
with Mussolini has been the subject of much debate.
Some scholars have suggested that the playwright's enthusiastic
adoption of fascism was simply a matter of practicality,
a strategic ploy to advance his career. Had he opposed
the fascist regime, it would have meant serious difficulties
for him and for his art. Acceptance, on the other hand,
meant subsidies and publicity. His statement that "I
am a Fascist because I am an Italian." has often
been called on to support this theory, and one of his
later plays, The Giants of the Mountain, has
often been interpreted as showing the author's growing
realization that the fascist giants were hostile to
culture. And yet, during his last appearance in New
York, Pirandello voluntarily distributed a statement
announcing his support of Italy's annexation of Abyssinia.
He even gave his Nobel medal over to the Italian government
to be melted down for the Abyssinian campaign. However,
Pirandello was a complex creature, and all that can
be certain is that nothing is certain. At any rate,
Mussolini's support quickly brought the Italian playwright
international fame, and a worldwide tour ensued, introducing
London, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and several
cities in Germany, Argentina, and Brazil to the intriguing
intellectual contortions of "Pirandellian"
theatre.
Influenced by his wife's long illness, much of what
Pirandello wrote dealt with themes of madness, illusion
and isolation. In Henry IV, Pirandello's protagonist
loses his mind after falling from a horse at the end
of a masquerade. His illusion that he is the medieval
German emperor Henry IV is coddled by a wealthy relative
who surrounds the delirious man with a grotesque retinue
of servants and courtiers. Finally, after twelve years,
the injured man recovers his sanity, but continues to
feign insanity because he prefers this world of illusions
to the real world in which he lost the woman he loved.
When this woman and her new lover come to visit, "Henry
IV" is overcome with rage and mortally wounds his
rival. Now it is more imperative than ever that the
pretence of madness continue. If he is to escape the
legal consequences of his actions, he must remain Henry
IV for the rest of his life. The brilliance of Henry
IV lies in its hero's deliberate rejection of reality
as something to painful to bear.
The most popular of Pirandello's comedies, however,
his masterpiece, is Six Characters in Search of an
Author. The premise of the play is that these six
characters have taken on a life of their own because
their author has failed to complete the story. They
invade a rehearsal of another Pirandellian play and
insist on playing out the life that is rightfully theirs.
Suggesting that life defies all simple interpretations,
Pirandello's characters rebel against their creator.
They attack the foundation of the play, refusing to
follow stage directions and interfering with the structure
of the play until it breaks down into a series of alternately
comic and tragic fragments.
Although he reached his peak of dramatic originality
with Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello
continued to write until the time of his death and continued
to experience a great deal of critical success. It was
also in the theatre that Pirandello finally found a
more understanding relationship with a woman, the actress
Marta Abba for whom he wrote most of his later plays.
In 1931, Judith Anderson appeared on Broadway in Pirandello's
As You Desire me. In the film version, Anderson
was replaced by an even bigger star--Greta Garbo. Pirandello
was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1934, and at the time
of his death in 1936, he was in negotiations to appear
in a film version of Six Characters.
Luigi Pirandello left instructions for his funeral,
saying, "When I am dead, do not clothe me. Wrap
me naked in a sheet. No flowers on the bed and no lighted
candle. A pauper's cart. Naked. And let no one accompany
me, neither relatives nor friends. The cart, the horse,
the coachmen, e basta. Burn me." But the church
did not believe in cremation and the Fascist party did
not want a world-famous fascist to slip away naked,
without his black shirt. Thus, against his wishes, Pirandello
was given a state funeral.
Pirandello was clearly the greatest Italian playwright
of his time, and he has left a lasting mark on all the
playwrights that have followed him. In his agony over
the illusory nature of existence and the isolation of
man, he anticipates such writers as Samuel
Beckett, Harold
Pinter and Eugene
Ionesco. Perhaps Pirandello best summed up his art
himself when he said, "I have tried to tell something
to other men, without any ambition, except perhaps that
of avenging myself for having been born."
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