Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author caused a cultural firestorm when it opened in Rome in 1921. Reportedly, after the show's premiere the playwright had to leave through a backstage door to avoid protestors. A precursor to the Theatre of the Absurd movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the play upends notions of reality and fiction while skewering the conventions of theatrical production and performan…
