Sicilian Culture: The News: Author In Search of Characters

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Author In Search of Characters
By Sarah B. Hood

The Shaw Festival could have gone to any source in the world when they were seeking a new translation of Six Characters in Search of an Author, the play that turned Luigi Pirandello into one of the most internationally renowned playwrights of the 20th century. In fact, they went no further than the campus of the University of Toronto, where Domenico Pietropaolo serves as Director of the Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama.
Calabrian-born Pietropaolo was already working on his own translation of the famous play last year when he was approached. "There has been a longstanding connection between the Graduate Centre and the Shaw Festival, in the sense that the Literary Advisor to the Shaw Festival, Ronald Bryden, was the Director of the Drama Centre," Pietropaolo explains. Also, Denis Johnston, Shaw's Head of Publications, "is now cross-appointed to the Drama Centre."
In his efforts to strengthen the links between academic pursuits and the professional theatre world, Pietropaolo has deepened those connections through such initiatives as co-productions and student placements. "The Shaw Festival was very open to that collaboration," he comments.
Pietropaolo¹s interest in the project was "to prepare an edition that was not just another production of Six Characters in Search of an Author, but one that would have research value," he says. Therefore he turned not to the second edition of the script, which is the one most often performed, but to the first, "the one that made Pirandello an international star."
The second edition, Pietropaolo believes, "is a readerly edition," less suited to staging than the first. "The major change is that in the second edition the characters come in through the main door of the theatre, whereas in the first edition they enter through a small door in the wall onstage," he says. Perhaps this seems like a small distinction; its importance lies in the fact that Pirandello's genius, and the key to this play, consists in a questioning of the relationship between the world on the stage and real life. Therefore, the fibre of the play is deeply altered depending on whether the "six characters" seem to be fictional creations or real people.
The translation did not evolve only on the page. Pietropaolo arranged for his graduate students to analyze various versions of his emerging script. "Then we had various readings of it. We were able to listen to the orchestrated voices," he says, pointing out that the English words are "not always as rhythmical or as euphonic as they are in Italian."
Then the production was workshopped, and, finally, Pietropaolo attended rehearsals at Shaw, where the professional cast of actors made small additional changes: adding, subtracting or altering certain words or phrases. The production made its debut in last year¹s Shaw festival season, and "was very successful. It was sold out almost immediately," says Pietropaolo. It was so successful, in fact, it is being remounted this year, so those who were disappointed last year will have a second chance to see this locally produced recreation of one of the world¹s most important plays.
Six Characters in Search of an Author runs from July 7 until September 22 at the Shaw Festival¹s Court House Theatre. For tickets, call 1-800-511-SHAW, or visit www.shawfest.sympatico.ca.
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