“Six characters in search of an author” staged by Gabriele Lavia, a gifted director-dramaturg

Abstract

This article examines the production by Gabriele Lavia, Six Characters in Search of an Author, written by Luigi Pirandello. Lavia refuses the metatheatrical approach and prefers to penetrate the plot of the text, which offers us – according to Lavia – a subversive mix of dangerous subjects (incest, paedophilia, exhibitionism and perversions typical of a cuckolded husband). Alonge’s analysis exalts the great originality of Lavia’s creation and underlines that Lavia pierces the text as an acute Pirandellian philologist, mixing in his script some different editions of the text (the last edition of 1925, the first of 1921, and even the second edition of 1923).