The Plays and Fiction of Luigi Pirandello

The well-known drama critic and theater director Robert Brustein was one of the first to assert unequivocally that "Pirandello's influence on the drama of the twentieth century is immeasurable," and to identify as the playwritght's "most original achievement . . . the dramatization of the very act of creation in his dramatis personae "being both his product and his process." The present volume illustrates the many facets of that provocative statement in such essays as "Pirandello and the Waiting Stage of the Absurd," "Comedy and Paradox in Pirandello's Plays (An Hegelian Perspective)," "The Psychology of the Alienated: The Women in Pirandello's Plays," and many more. Gathered together by the author from her writings since 1974, each article has been carefully edited, and some expanded.The collection also includes Paolucci's translation of Pirandello's essay on the history of the Italian theater.