Six Characters

            There are many ties between real life and theater thus relating the two so close that sometimes it is hard to separate the two and at other times it is easy to separate them. Theater is like real life in that there is an audience of people always watching what each other are doing, there are actors who might not know they are actors but someone is watching them, there is an unknown outcome and it is immediate. It is unlike real life in that the participants do not know they are participants, things do not happen at a particular time, and life is real and not rehearsed. This is all very evident in Six Characters in Search of an Author because in many different instances, the father, in particular, makes reference to how their situation is real, talks about how life is an illusion, and worries continuously about perception. .
             Each character interprets their "drama within" differently, and as imperfect as that is, that is life, which art struggles to duplicate. Rejecting the conventional framework of a typical play, Pirandello brings realism to his play by running his play without acts, scenes, or intermissions. Instead the play is broken up, when the characters without an author, accompanied by the manager, adjourn off stage for twenty minutes to discuss and begin writing the character's story, while the curtain remains up. Later another natural delay of action takes place when a stagehand lets the curtain fall accidentally. This rebellion against a traditional format again illustrates Pirandello's intention to bring realism to his play, to bring real life to his play. As life is not divided up into scenes, or acts, each moment contributes to the next without delay.
             The six characters, on one side of the coin, have certain things about them that are predetermined. These are things like what they look like and how they will react to any possible situation. This allows for sound reality because the characters are there in the theater with the actors wanting to tell them about this reality of theirs that will forever stay the same.