No 1773

Anglica Wratislaviensia X X X
Wroclaw 1995

Literature

Joanna Gajlewicz

Illusion and Reality in Pirandello’s

Six Characters in Search of an Author
and W ilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth

The basic vehicle of artistic representation by virtue of which Art

functions and is perceived as Art is pretence, or to be more specific,
illusion of reality. It can hardly be denied that any dramatic perform­
ance at variance with this principle is simply unthinkable.
It will not be debatable that there is only one reason for the property
to be arranged on the stage: to stir the imagination of the audience and,
thus, allow it to forget about the limitations of the house—at least for
the time of the performance. Yet, there is no gainsaying it will not suffice
for a play to be successful; what is necessary is a tacit consent to be
“signed” between the actors and the spectators, according to which the
former are supposed to playact while the latter are expected to let them
hold sway from the moment the curtain rises. In short, permission to be
“deluded” must be granted. Such is the mechanics of traditional drama,
as we know it, or of what we call a “well-made play.”
Great theorists of modem drama have irrevocably repudiated
traditional methods of staging. They have effected profound organic
changes in the theatre itself. They have veered to experimentation which
has ever since become an intrinsic part of productions by such great
stage directors as Peter Brook, Tadeusz Kantor, Jerzy Grotowski, and
the master of happenings, Allan Kaprow.
Ironically enough, even stage experimentation as a form of alter­
native drama has in the meantime established itself as a fixed tradition.
In this regard its pioneers, Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936) and Thornton
Wilder (1897 —1975), whose plays are subject to analysis in this paper,
can and should in all reason be referred to as traditional experimen­
talists.
g Joanna Gajlewicz

Although there is a gap of twenty one years between the premiere of

Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) and the first public
performance of The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), the manifold resemblances
between these two pieces of drama are far from circumstantial.
Accordingly, it will be assumed that both playwrights, Pirandello and
Wilder, each in his own way, emphasized in their programmes the
theatricality of a performance; questioned the main assumptions of the
so-called well-made-play; aimed at destroying the perfect illusion of
reality of conventional stage; examined various levels of interplay
between Illusion and Reality; and programatically explored the inherent
relationship between Life and Art.

Definition of the key terms

To clarify both the meaning and scope of the key terms as employed
in the present analysis, it will be remembered that in its restricted sense
(as confined to theatrical experience only) illusion is to be construed as
als ob or a generation of pretences and verisimilitude in order to make
the audience assume events happening in front of them as fact. On the
other hand, reality should be defined entirely as the actuality of the
stage (not to confuse with the external outdoor reality). Moreover, in
a much broader sense, the opposition between the foregoing notions
assumes the form of antinomy between Life and Art (in general) as
formulated in the theories of both the playwrights. Likewise, the
interplay between Illusion and Reality will be studied on both theatrical
and philosophical planes.

W hat is a “theatre play”?

Inasmuch as they constantly emphasize the importance of their

theatrical form, Six Characters in Search of an Author and The Skin of
Our Teeth can be roughly described as “theatre plays.” Both Pirandello
and Wilder insist that their audience be reminded they are watching
a play: the spectators are therefore brought face to face with scenic raw
materials. In this respect the dramatists’ views on the nature of the
theatre seem to concur with that of John Gassner, a drama
historian, who says that “there is never any sense in pretending that one
is not in the theatre; that no amount of make-believe is rcnlity itself;
P Illusion and Reality

that, in short, theatre is the medium of dramatic art, and the

effectiveness in art consists in using the medium rather than concealing
it” (Gassner 1956:141).
A device most preferable to materialize such a concept of drama is
a “play in the making”1 employed by both playwrights. In this regard,
a performance in rehearsal can make it possible to present on the stage
those contributors to the play who do not usually belong to it (a stage
manager, ushers, stage hands, etc.). Such treatment is designed to
highlight the realistic aspect of the theatrical production.
Compared with Wilder, Pirandello appears to exploit this device
more directly. His play opens with a group of actors gathering to
rehearse a play by a Pirandello. As the stage is not set yet, the audience
is brought face to face with some carpenters and stage hands still at
work. Before the Manager comes up, “the actors and actresses, some
standing, some sitting, chat and smoke. One perhaps reads a paper;
another cons his part” (Six Characters... p. 215).
As soon as the rehearsal starts, the actors are all of a sudden
interrupted by the arrival of six characters who insist that they should
have their life drama performed on the stage. The reason for their
coming has already been stated in the very title of the play: “conceived”
by an author who failed to write a dramatic piece, to which they could
naturally belong, they are in search of an author to write “the book” of
their life and make their existence fully justified.
The same treatment is applied in The Skin of Our Teeth. A group of
ushers and dressers are supposed to stand in for the absent actors,
unexpectedly taken ill. Mr. Fitzpatrick, a Stage Manager, is going to
have a short rehearsal with them, in reference to which one of the
characters intervenes:
Antrobus: Now this scene takes place near the end of this act. And I’m sorry to say
we’ll need a short rehearsal, just a short running through. And as some of it takes place
in the auditorium, we’ll have to keep the curtain up. Those of you who wish can go out
in the lobby and smoke some more. The rest of you can listen to us, o r... or just talk
quietly among yourselves, as you choose (p. 158).

1 The notion as employed in the present analysis refers to the structure of the play,
and is not to be confused with the phrase “the comedy in the making” (appearing at the
beginning of the cast list in the Unglish edition) which —as Eric Bentley suggests —is
a mistranslation of the Italian "iina com media da faro" and should rather read “a play
yet to bo made" (197.1:62).
10 Joanna Gajlewicz

In both plays breaking up the course of the performance was

designed to look accidental and unintentional so as to create the
impression that what follows is a piece of improvisation not included in
the script. Needless to say, what apparently is to stand for the reality of
the stage, revealing its mechanisms at work, is in actual fact the illusion
of that reality.
The appearance of the six characters and the sudden sickness of the
actors are not the only obstacles to hold back the plays, for it is also
their Stage Managers who cut in several times to keep the performance
going while the actors are openly expressing disapproval of the
substance of the plays in which they are cast:
Leading Man: But it’s ridiculous!
The Manager: Ridiculous? Ridiculous? Is it my fault if France won’t send us any
more good comedies, and we are reduced to putting on Pirandello’s works where
nobody understands anything, and where the author plays the fool with us all? (Six
Characters... p. 216)
At the beginning of The Skin of Our Teeth Miss Somerset taking the
part of Lily Sabina suddenly “flings pretence to the winds and coming
downstage says with indignation”:
I hate this play and every word in it... Besides the author hasn’t made up his silly
mind as to whether we’re all living back in caves or in New Jersey today, and that’s the
way it is all the way through. Oh —why can’t we have plays like we used to have [...]
good entertainment with a message you can take home with you? (pp. 101 —102)

Various levels of the interplay between illusion and reality

In the foregoing passages one can distinguish several different levels

of the interplay between illusion and reality. One of them pertains to the
structure of the play while the others refer to its characters and their
feelings. Like the quotations previously discussed (the lines of the Stage
Managers), all the present intrusions of the actors are not what they
seem to be, that is to say, they are “illusory.” They are related not to the
play in progress (which in reality proceeds uninterrupted) but to the
“play in the making.” As regards the actors in “the play in the making,”
their sudden discontent is an inseparable part of “the book” and has
nothing to do with the expression of their personal attitudes.
The third level of the interplay is a result of the application of
similar devices by the both playwrights: they make their characters
criticize their own works and praise the traditional play, the prin-
11 Illusion and Reality

ciples of which they have undertaken to challenge. The interaction

between what is actually stated (illusion) and what is really meant
(reality) constitutes the substantial element of structural irony employed
by the authors of the plays.
In uncovering the secrets of theatrical production Pirandello and
Wilder continue to remind the audience that it is the stage itself which is
the place of action of their own dramatic works. According to Eric
Bentley, for instance, “what earned the Maestro [Pirandello] the
highest compliments for originality was th a t... the boards of the theatre
represent—the boards of the theatre. That is to say, they do not represent,
they are. They are appearances which are the reality” (Bentley 1973:61).2

The distinction between the character and the actor

Pirandello and Wilder insist that the audience accept the fact that
the theatre is—in its very essence—both illusory and real, because
theatrical illusion and reality go hand in hand. As a rule, the audience
readily give credence to the existence of even the most freakish character
on the stage; yet, they never lose sight of the real man —an actor—who
endows the character with life and his own personal characteristics.
Going a step further in their experimentation with the theatrical
medium, both Pirandello and Wilder accentuate the distinction between
characters and actors. In Six Characters in Search of an Author the
division is stressed in the cast list by grouping all the dramatis personae
into “characters of the comedy in the making” and “actors of the
company,” which is to be preserved throughout the play. As opposed to
the living actors who, by theatrical means and their acting, create an
illusion of reality for the audience, the six characters are entirely
imaginary, “fantastic” and “have no other reality outside of this
illusion” (p. 237). Accordingly, the main conflict in the play leading up
to the clash between those two parties arises from the interplay between
the illusion of reality (as performed by the actors) and the reality of
illusion (as experienced by the characters).
What strikes the eye, while comparing Six Characters in Search of an
Author with The Skin of Our Teeth, is that in the latter play the division
into actors and characters is also of consequence, though it is not

1 A similar opinion iibonl Wilder’s works was expressed by Donald Hciney (1974:
217): "Wilder always secs the stage as stage; theatre is not so much a slice of life as life is
like the theatre."
12 Joanna Gajlewicz

entirely “mechanical.” One dramatis persona in Wilder’s play is intended

to function at the same time both as a character (Lily Sabina) and an
actor (Miss Somerset). The split into Man-the-Character and
Man-the-Actor is noticeable whenever characters step out of their roles
and present themselves merely as actors. Therefore the spectator finds
out, for example, that Miss Somerset was forced to accept her part in
the play since she had to earn her living, for, as we learn, “waiting for
better times in the theatre” is no profitable business at all. Not only
does she display her disillusionment, but even refuses to perform certain
scenes from the play.
At first glance it seems apparent that Miss Somerset and “the actors
of the company” (from Pirandello’s play) represent theatrical reality.
Actually, Miss Somerset is as “imaginary” as Lily Sabina, or “the
characters of the comedy in the making,” because both the actors
(Leading Lady, Mr. Fitzpatrick, etc.) and the characters (The Father,
Mr. Antrobus, etc.) are all the dramatis personae of the play performed
in front of the audience.3
Another character who presents himself as an actor is Henry (The
Skin of Our Teeth). The climactic dialogue between him and his father,
Mr. Antrobus, happens to be interrupted by Miss Somerset who fears
that Henry may really strangle his partner. That is how Henry —as the
‘actor’ who has stepped out of his role—accounts for his strange
behaviour:
Henry: I’m sorry. I don’t know what comes over me. I have nothing against him
personally... But something comes over me. It’s like I become fifteen years old again.
I ... I ... listen: my own father used to whip me and lock me up every Saturday night.
I never had enough to eat... My father and my uncle put rules in the way of everything
I wanted to do. They tried to prevent my living at all —I’m sorry. I’m sorry (p. 171).
At this critical juncture the audience begins to feel confident that
Henry-the-actor under the impact of some painful memories from his
boyhood transfers his hatred to and desires to avenge himself on his
fictional father, Mr. Antrobus. The scene in question appears to be
crucial for the illusion versus reality interplay. Henry’s own reminiscen­
ces from the past commingle with his illusory theatrical experience,

3 Raymond Williams elucidates this point in his comment on Six Characters in

Search of an Author, which also holds good of The Skin of Our Teeth : “The contrast is
not between artifice and reality, but between two levels of artifice. The characters, that is
to say, cannot represent a reality against which the artificiality of the theatre may be
measured; they are themselves products of the theatrical method" (1983:1H 1).
13 Illusion and Reality

and, as a result, the pretended attempt on Antrobus’ life assumes the

form of an actual act of violence. Travis Bogard comments on the scene
in the following way: “When Cain’s murderous frenzy becomes the
actor’s reality, when the artificial enactment of a symbolic gesture
becomes the particular actor’s truth, illusion and reality merge”
(1965:368).
However, the moment the audience are beginning to see Henry’s
point and feel capable of distinguishing between what is real and what is
illusory, Sabina hastens to rectify his words.
Sabina: That’s not true. I knew your father and your uncle and your mother. You
imagined all that. Why, they did everything they could for you. How can you say things
like that? They didn’t lock you up (The Skin of Our Teeth, p. 172).
Now the spectators come to realize that what they have so far
considered a reality (Henry-the-actor’s childhood) once again turns out
to be a sort of illusion of that reality which Henry creates about himself.
This perspective, perpetually angled, makes it sometimes almost impos­
sible for the confused audience to detect whether the lines belong to the
actors or to the characters they perform: this is where the borderline
between illusion and reality as good as disappears.
A similar kind of perplexity is to be found in Six Characters in
Search of an Author, where, at the close of the play, the Actors are
confronted with a scene enacted by the six newcomers, in which the Boy
is shown to have shot himself with a revolver.
The Manager {pushing the Actors aside while they lift up the Boy and carry him off):
Is he really wounded?
Some Actors: He’s dead! dead!
Other Actors: No, no, it’s only make believe, it’s only pretence!
The Father (with a terrible cry): Pretence? Reality, sir, reality! (p. 242).

Reality versus illusion on the theatrical plane: conclusions

When examining the interplay between reality and illusion on the

theatrical plane, one can hardly fail to discern the “interpenetration” of
the real and the illusory. The special effect seems to have been
accomplished by the application of “the play in the making” device
which determines the structure of the plays as well as the construction
of the dramatis personae. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the
inlet play liclwecn illusion and reality on two separate levels: 1) that of
an actual performance, and 2) that of the play in the making. It does not
14 Joanna Gajlewicz

imply, however, that these two levels are mutually exclusive, since each
of them makes up the integral part of the other. And so, the physical
stage functions as the place of action for the play in the making, whereas
the incidental interruptions of the continuity of the latter mark the
endings of the successive acts of the actual performance.4
Needless to say, the introduction of the new dimension of double
illusion has established new relations between the dramatis personae in
the plays. In the play proper the distinction between actors and
characters seems obvious: the audience gathered in the auditorium see
the actors (reality) perform their roles of characters (illusion) on the
stage. And the same time, however, it happens that all the characters of
the two plays are either actors or characters of the play in the
making —both equally illusory as opposed to the living actors.
In The Skin of Our Teeth “the effect is a little like the infinity to be
found in barbershop mirrors: Lilith, the eternal temptress, is a maid
named Sabina, who is played by an actress named Miss Fairweather,
who in turn was played by an actress named Tallulah Bankhead”
(Bogard 1965:367).
Such an original handling (manipulation?) of the theatrical medium
whose goal is to expose and highlight these aspects of the stage
production, which traditional presentation does conceal, requires a new
kind of audience. Unlike the 19th-century theatre-goers who “fashioned
a theatre which could not disturb them,”5 the new breed of spectators
are not expected to watch the modem plays passively, but conversely,
they are to respond to everything that is spoken and done on the
boards, for as Wilder explains in his essay “Some Thoughts on
Playwriting,” drama is a “collaborative effort shared by the playwright,
the actors, and the playgoers who sit ‘shoulder to shoulder’ as the play
unfolds” (Goldstein 1965:116).
The spectator, as an organic constituent of a theatrical production,
is drawn into participation in the performance. In the Skin of Our Teeth,

4 It holds true of Six Characters in Search of an Author which is meant to be “the

comedy without acts or scenes.” In actual fact the play in the making is interrupted
twice: for the first time when “the manager and the chief characters withdraw to arrange
the scenario” (the break marks the end of the first act of the actual performance), and
later, when “by mistake the stage hands let the curtain down” (the end of the second
act).
5 Cf. Preface to Three Plays (pp. 8—10) and Wilder’s critical view of the
19th-century traditional drama which attempted to suit the tastes of the middle class
audience.
15 Illusion and Reality

for example, Sabina addresses the audience directly and once even
stimulates them into action:6
Sabina (after placing wood on the fireplace comes down to the footlights and addresses
the audience): Will you please start handing up your chairs? We’ll need everything for
this fire. Save the human race. — Ushers, will you pass the chairs up here? Thank you
(p. 126).
As regards Six Characters in Search of an Author, although the
spectators are not expected to display any sign of activity, the role of the
responsive audience is taken over by the group of actors who are
watching the play-within-the-play performed by the characters: when
the latter are beginning to speak in an unintelligible manner, the former
break in to disapprove:
Leading Man: What does she say?
Leading Lady: One can’t hear a word.
Juvenile Lead: Louder! Louder please! (p. 231).

Reality versus illusion on the philosophical plane

The confrontation between the actors (brought down to the role of

an audience) and the characters (anxious to take the part of actors)
forms the main conflict in the play, defined by Pirandello himself as “the
inherent tragic conflict between Life (which is always moving and
changing) and form (which fixes it immutable).”7 This statement
definitely stresses one aspect of the opposition between Life and Art,
that is to say, the mutability of life in the realm of time versus the
immutability of form in the realm of art.
Apparently, it is not at all difficult to determine who is who in the
play. The characters (fantastic creations existing only in the author’s
imagination) represent Art as opposed to real, living actors intended to
symbolize Life. At the same time, however, the characters—who
gradually become so independent of their creator that they declare they
are willing to live on their own and present their family drama on the
stage themselves—signify the immediacy of experience, a characteristic of

* Some other examples of Sabina addressing people gathered in the auditorium are
to lip loutul at the beginning and in the middle of the first act: “Now that you audience
air l(«ii mug to this, too, I understand it a little hotter” (p. 105); “Ladies and gentlemen!
I b ill'l lake this pluy serious” (p 117),
' 11 I'irandollo 1952: 245
Jy Illusion and Reality

The juxtaposition of these two contrastive perspectives allows for

including that, as regards Pirandello’s concept of drama, no actor is in
i position to impersonate any character because individual experience
:annot be shared. Although it is possible to repeat words and imitate
gestures, no one is able to enter a dramatis persona’s mind or feel what
le/she is feeling at a given moment. The only thing an actor can venture
s, indeed, try to interpret the character’s experience (Life) by virtue of
lis acting (Art). Yet, by creating an illusion of reality with the aid of
nanifold theatrical conventions, he destroys at the same time the
llusory reality of the characters.
The gap between the actor and the character becomes more and
nore “unbridgable” by the fact that —as the Father himself puts
t —unlike living men “he who has had the luck to be born a character
:an laugh even at death. He can not die” (p. 218). The point is expanded
n the argument between the Father and the Stage Manager, where the
ormer maintains that the characters are truer and more real than the
ictors:
The Father: Ours is an immutable reality which should make you shudder when
'ou approach us if you are really conscious of the fact that your reality is a mere
ransitory and fleeting illusion, taking this form today and that tomorrow (p. 238).
However, one cannot help feeling that the immutability of the
;haracters’ reality (seemingly superior to the aging bodies and uncertain
uture of the actors) proves to be their curse. They are doomed to go on
epeating the same harrowing and embarrassing scenes from their
amily life over and over again, as they can do nothing to escape their
lestiny and torment.
This view is also shared by JjzSrn M0strup who comments on the
nevitability of the six characters’ lot as exemplified by the Son: “The
ion resists the father’s and daughter’s plans of having their story turned
nto a play, and this is a psychological detail which is used to
:haracterize him in relationship to the others. He is a closed and
eticent nature, and he does not wish to participate together with the
hree other children, whom he considers to be intruders. But this
nodes! descriptive detail takes on a special significance because it
impliasizes the necessity of their situation. He cannot avoid par-
Uipating; he came along against his will, and against his will he must
ict Ins part to the bitter end and share defeat with the others”
Iil l ». I u < \
16 Joanna Gajlewicz

Life. In contrast, the actors trying to imitate characters stand for the
theatre or Art. The following inference complies with Eric Bentley’s
interpretation of the main source of discord in the play, namely the
difference between living and rehearsing a scene: “We see a central
group of people who are ‘real.’ They suffer, and need help, not analysis.
Around these are grouped unreal busybodies who can only look on,
criticize and hinder” (1987:182).
As the characters go through traumatic scenes from their life in front
of the actors, the Stage Manager continues to remind them of the
limitations of the theatrical staging:
Stage Manager: On the stage you can’t have a character becoming too prominent
and overshadowing all the others. The thing is to pack them all into a neat little
framework and then act what is actable (Six Characters... p. 235).

As the members of the theatrical company contend, the embarrass­

ment with which the characters are re-living their personal tragedies,
and also their insistence on having the scenery reconstructed with
meticulous care, are out of line with any of the widely accepted
theatrical conventions. On the other hand, the characters are never
content with the way the actors perform their (the characters’) parts.
The stage directions say:
The rendering of the scene by the actors from the very first words seem to be quite
a different thing, though it has not in any way the air of parody. Naturally, the
Stepdaughter and the Father not being able to recognize themselves in the Leading
Lady and the Leading Man, who deliver their words in different tones and with
a different psychology, express, sometimes with smiles, sometimes with gestures, the
impression they receive (Six Characters... p. 233).
What we realize in the course of the play is that the reality of the
theatre (which is only an illusion) and a dramatic illusion (which is the
characters’ reality) come to form irreconcilable antinomies. The task of
the company is clearly defined by the Stage Manager (“Acting is our
business here. Truth up to a certain point, no further” —p. 234), while
the point of view of the characters is presented by the Mother who
vehemently reacts to what has happened on the boards:
The Mother: I can’t bear it. I can’t.
The Manager: But since it has happened already... I don’t understand!
The Mother: It's taking place now. It happens all the time. My torment isn’t
f § Joanna Gajlewicz

Cyclical forms of the plays

The deterministic view of the characters’ lives creates an air of

fatality and pessimism throughout the play. The double failure of the
characters to understand each other, and of the actors to understand
the characters, is reflected in the cyclical form of Six Characters in
Search of an Author: from the Manager’s last words the audience are
bound to infer that the moment curtain rises again he will try to go on
with the interrupted rehearsal, which brings the spectator back to
square one. This aura of despondency mounts with a scene of the
Manager complaining about the wasted time, from which can be
concluded that he has not taken a lesson from this strange encounter.
The same kind of cyclical form has been adopted in The Skin of Our
Teeth; likewise, its action runs back to its start. This time, however, the
last act ends with the opening scene of the play, namely, Sabina
repeating her opening lines and addressing the audience with a short
epilogue:8
Sabina (she comes to the footlights): This is where you came in. We have to go on
for ages and ages yet (p. 178).
The notion of a cyclical recurrence of things, as employed in the
play, is redolent of the theories of Giambattista Vico, an 18th-century
Neapolitan thinker, according to whom all nations and civilizations
must pass through the subsequent stages of growth, decline and fall, and
again regrowth. This process of cultural and civilizational development
parallels, to some extent, a child’s acquisition of knowledge through
broadening experience.
It seems that Wilder (as opposed to Pirandello who dwells basically
upon the notion of Art and the existence of artistic creations) focuses his
attention on the value of human endeavours and Life and its requisite,
Vitality. Therefore in The Skin of Our Teeth the experience of an
individual merges with that of the whole race: a striking effect produced
by Wilder’s ingenuity in manipulating time. Namely, the playwright sets

8 The notion of the inevitability of human destiny is additionally stressed in

Sabina’s violent monologue in the middle of the third act: “That’s all we do —always
beginning again! Over and over again... Some day the whole earth’s going to have to
turn cold anyway, and until that time all these other things’ll be happening again: it will
be more wars and more walls of ice and floods and earthquakes” (The Skin of Our Teeth,
p. 167).
19 Illusion and Reality

together the geological time of the Ice Age in the first act with the
biblical time of Noah’s flood in the second and the time of World
War II in the third act of the play. As the time of action encompasses
both the prehistoric past and the present (the play was written—as
Wilder himself points out— “on the eve of our entrance into the war”)9
characters naturally represent contemporary Americans, cavemen, etc.,
in general, human types, “everymen,” whose conduct reflects the
universal experience of humanity.10
Accordingly, it can be concluded that this primordial experience of
the race shared by all human beings, the Jungian “collective uncon­
scious,” is the key to the proper understanding of the play and,
especially, of the climactic scene in which Henry is trying to strangle
Mr. Antrobus. It explains why Henry-the-actor confuses the reality with
the theatrical illusion: he cannot help identifying himself entirely with
Henry-the-character, even though his individual experience is not
identical. Besides Mr. Antrobus-the-actor himself admits that his own
way of acting must have “prompted” Henry to take such a radical and
inexplicable course of action:
Antrobus: It’s not wholly his fault that he wants to strangle me in this scene. It’s my
fault too. He wouldn’t feel that way unless there were something in me that reminded
him of all that (The Skin of Our Teeth, p. 172).
It will possibly be agreed that this “something” might be typified as
the potentiality of each and every actor to identify himself with each and
every character, the source of which is the archetypal experience they do
share.
If we compare the actor-character relationship in Six Characters in
Search of an Author with that of The Skin of Our Teeth, we may be able
to find that Pirandello and Wilder considerably differ in opinions on
that point. For the former, the actor is incapable of identifying himself
with the character (hence, the splitting of the cast fist into two separate
groups). For the latter, on the contrary, the actor is able to impersonate
uny character whatsoever (as has been proved in the Henry—Mr.
Antrobus climactic scene).

u a . Wilder 1984: 13.

Hex Burbank suggests that Mr. Antrobus is the middle class American, Adam,
rttul tho "father pilot” of the human race at the same time; his wife is the American
mother, but also I've ami a symbol of eternity, etc. (1961: 105— 106).
20 Joanna Gajlewicz

The relationship between Life and Art

It can be inferred that the difference in treating the actor-character

relationship by the two playwrights originates from their opposing
conceptions of the relationship between Life and Art. As has already
been stated, for Pirandello art is both timeless and unalterable:
Hence, always, as we open the book, we shall find Francesca alive and confessing to
Dante her sweet sin, and if we turn to the passage a hundred thousand times in
succession, Francesca will speak her words, never repeating them mechanically, but
saying them as though each time were the first time with such living and sudden passion
that Dante every time will turn faint. All that lives, by the fact of living, has a form, and
by the same token must die —except the work of art which lives for ever in so far as it is
form (Pirandello 1952: 248).
For that reason, Art is not an appropriate means to reflect changing
and transitory processes of Life. Whenever a “piece” of life has been
arrested in artistic form, it becomes eternal, although it is bound to lose
its fluidity. In this respect —as Susan Bassnett avers — “Art is a kind of
death, since it freezes and fixes the unfixable” (1983:26).
For Wilder it is quite the contrary. The analysis of his play proves
that both its form and content are designed to demonstrate that it is
Life that possesses the quality of timelessness; Life, not as an individual
being, but as a process or force which carries mankind through the
times of woe. This triumph of Life is hinted at in the very title of the
play, for—as M. Goldstein observes—“no matter how hard pressed or
frightened, the human race has power to survive its great adventure in
the world where physical nature and its own internal conflicts pose
endless threats” (1965:118).
As a result of definite universal human needs and nature, all efforts
aimed at avoiding extinction are common to men of all epochs and
cultures. For this reason, Wilder introduces various mythological
figures and presents a mixture of philosophical trends.11
In consequence, the cyclical form of the play reflects not only the
recurrent disasters that threaten human race with annihilation, but also
Man’s propensity to commit the same mistakes time and again.
Optimistically enough, the idea of progress has not been entirely denied:
the posterity will still have a chance to learn a lesson from the errors of
their ancestors:

1 Cf. Burbank 1961: 110.

22 Illusion and Reality

Antrobus: All I ask is the chance to build new worlds and God has always given us
that. And has given us (opening the book) voices to guide us; and the memory of our
mistakes to warn us... We’ve come a long way. We’ve learned. We’re learning. And the
steps of our journey are marked for us here (he stands by the table turning the leaves of
a book) (The Skin of Our Teeth, p. 176).

Antrobus in his monologue defines the function of art as reflection

and record of human activities. Art is timeless and universal only
because Life it imitates possesses those qualities. As the process of living
has no end, the play which is to translate it into the language of Art has
no finite form either. At the very end of the last act Sabina bids the
audience goodbye, saying: “You go home. The end of this play isn’t
written yet.” This is the way the play comes to a halt: no ending, no
denouement, no catharsis.

Concluding reflections

The manipulation of theatricality in Pirandello’s and Wilder’s plays

(the final goal of which is to obliterate the fine between illusion and
reality) appears to be nothing but the sleight of hand of a conjurer’s who
has invited a spectator to take part in his show. The latter is basically
aware that all he bears witness to amounts to the former’s dexterity; yet,
what he sees is beyond his ken. Therefore he can hardly deny it is magic.
The relativity of events on the stage makes it impossible for the
spectator to treat the play as pure entertainment. The play ceases to be
a play; it turns into a sort of game whose rules he is trying to learn in the
course of the performance; the spectator is no longer a passive recipient:
he should commit himself. The theatre has thus become a “happening”
reality to which he is expected to conform. This new experience of his
goes beyond his aesthetic experience. This is where Art converges on
Life.
Pirandello’s and Wilder’s attempts at experimentation have finally
paved the road to the experimentalist theatre of today in which plot has
become a set of images and events; action has turned into activity, roles
into tasks; themes have given way to no pre-set meaning; scripts have
been replaced by scenarioes or free forms: where product has become
a process. The new concept of the theatre has ever since become “the
piny in the making.”
22 Joanna Gajlewicz

References

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Plays. New York: Dutton & Co.
— 1967. “Six Characters in Search of an Author.” In: Drama in the Modern World.
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Wilder, T.H. 1984. “The Skin of Our Teeth.” In: Three Plays. Middlesex: Penguin
Books.
Bassnett-Mc Quire, S. 1983. Luigi Pirandello. London: Macmillan Press.
Bentley, E. 1973. Theatre of War. New York: The Viking Press.
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