Each of the three works collected in this first volume of my plays presents characters, events and passions peculiar to it and having nothing to do with those of the other two; but the three together, however different, form something of a trilogy…
The volume that Pirandello is speaking about here is not this volume—not Naked Masks—but rather the publication of a previous volume which included the plays mentioned above. “Premise” is one of the prose essays previous published which comprises Naked Masks. The essay goes on to explain the peculiar and specific way that the tree plays mentioned form a trilogy; in a sense which has nothing to do—as implied—with any natural connection between them of the type usually reserved for trilogies.
It seems like yesterday, but is actually many years ago that a nimble little maidservant entered the service of my art. However, she always comes fresh to the job.
She is called Fantasy.
Pirandello goes on to discuss the fresh method by which Fantasy brought a family into his home several years ago with the promise that they would reveals themselves as a fascinating story needing to be told in his next novel. The darkly whimsical tale transforms into how writers can often lose their grip on characters who insidiously start taking over how their own narrative ought to be presented. This little prose essay section of the book offers a fascinating story indeed: how a man committed to writing a novel ending up writing one of the most innovative and influential stage plays of the 20th century.
"Oh, sir, you know well life is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.”
This line from Pirandello’s most famous and most revolutionary play is said by one of those characters brought into his house by Fantasy, but of all the lines of dialogue spoke by all his characters in all his plays, it perhaps come closest to being the definitive statement of the author’s own personal philosophy. Pirandello was an instrumental figure in the early development of a theatrical movement which briefly swept the world. Absurdism insists that the only way to deal with the world around us without lapsing into some form of insanity is to recognize that is totally and uncompromisingly absurd and then not only accept this fact, but glorify its chaotic impact on each of own individual fates.
“The management is grieved to announce that in view of unfortunate incidents which took place at the end of the second act, we shall be unable to continue to performance this evening.”
The curtain goes down in this play then quickly rises to confront the audience with bedlam. The backstage crew and front-lobby workers are trying desperately to figure out what is going on amid rumors that a woman named Moreno made her way backstage and slapped either the playwright Pirandello or the actress playing a character she believes Pirandello based on her. The breakdown of the wall separating fictional characters from the writer who created them which began in earnest with Six Characters in Search of an Author has by this point in this play completely broken down into chaos in which it has become increasingly difficult to determine where the blurred line separating the real from the imagine even is anymore.
