The New York herald., 1922-11-19

tom of six Characters in Search of an
Author: a father. separated from his
family. visits a house of ill-fame and he
meets there-his own daughter. This is the
nude, the logical, reality that every one
can see and the dramatic potentialities OF
which every one can understand.
But let the artist try now to incarnate
that situation in real peolpe. and he dis
covers a curious thing: that these char
acters of his creation, imprisoned as they
are within the situation, acquire an autono-
nous existence of their own; and since
and il, they are real, they each have
histories impulses. aspirations. characters
in short which alter the aspect of the situ-
alton, making il different for each of them
and different in consequence for the author
And what is the artists task meanwhile?
He must torture each Of these characters
in turn. Topping off a motive here, sup
pressing an impulse there; ignoring a
justification in this case. imputing a base
ness in this other. With the result that
pilot" becomes an instrument of libel
and defamation against these characters,
who creatures OF fiction indeed still 'live''
in the consciousness of the author and
in the spiritual history of mankind Add
now to all this the conventions of the stage
which the author must obey; the prejudice
of producer and audience which he must
respect; the whims. peculiarities. and van
tiles Of the actors, which he must concili-
ate-the difficulties grow and grow; so
much so that the author is justified. in the
end. in refusing TO execute his drama.
though in his inner consciousness these
characters will continue to clamor for ex-
preston. becoming the torment of his
life
Some critics have called the six Char
acters' fascinating tumble. as unintel-
ligible to an audience as it is to the
suthor. Exactly, Pirandello (symboliz-
ing If you wish the author in generaD
is lost in the chaotic play-wOrld of his
fancy. But he has objectihed his bewild-
erment in a brilliantly lucid way. solving
in a new form the problem which the old
impressionists in painting set themselves.
the problem of rendering vagueness clearly.
The critics go astray on this ground.
only when they conceive of the "Six
Characters as a satire on the commercial
(Our Broadway drama. whitewashed with
a rather thin philosophy" The satire.
the philosophy (Which is as thin or as
profound as you choose TO call it, the
humor. the irony. the bitterness. the hu-
maneness, the good nature all proceed
from the same source
The "Six Characters for example. has
been called a Seven Keys to Bald-Pate'
with touch Of Bernard shaw" To com
pare PirandelO with George Cohan is
suggestive only in the sense that the in
geniousness Of the manner OF presenta-
ton reminds one of the almost devilish
cleverness Of some OF Cohan's inventions
for the stage. Shaw may be said to figure
a little more organically in the history OF
Pirandello's art: but the connection is a
very remote one and very much obscured
Shaw built up drama around a fearless
sociological criticism which struck an
original note in ;he pathos OF the Eu-
ropean sentimental play What the Italians
learned from Shaw was not however
his liberal point OF view toward life but
the possibility of an intellectual drama;
the 'grotesques" interpreted as a search
for queer and outlandish forms II is q
long haul from Major Barbara" to Piran-
dello's ghostly characters-though the line
however. tenuous. is historically intact
AS for the satire. that bears not 81
much upon the stage manager and hi.
actors as upon the dramatic author il
the first instance and upon life in genera
in the end. Do we. to begin with. evei