If a brilliant playwright's characters are denied the chance to tell their story, there will be drama. This scenario unfolds in "Six Characters in Search of an Author," a play by Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello, premiering at Bowdoin next Thursday.
"The premise of the play is that these six characters were imagined by an author but then the author didn't write the play that they appear in," said student director Phil Gates '08. "They're just kind of floating. They know what their story is, but they don't have a medium for expressing it."
According to Gates, the "floating characters inevitably run into problems."
"They show up at a rehearsal of another play, interrupt, and ask the director to produce their story," he said.
Pirandello wrote the play in the early 1920s. Although the concept of six imagined characters interrupting rehearsals for another play may not seem as outlandish to theatergoers today, it triggered a boisterous reaction when it premiered in Rome in 1921. The audience rioted and Pirandello had to be escorted out of the theater.
"It was one of the first plays to sort of blur the distinctions between real life and the illusion of theater," said Gates. "I once heard it described as a metaphysical ghost story, and that's how I like to think of it."
Since its premier, "Six Characters" has become one of Pirandello's most famous plays.
"He was one of the first modern playwrights, and I think he's definitely had a big influence on theater," said Gates.
Pirandello won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1934.
Gates is directing the play as part of an independent study through the theater department. Although he has directed before, "Six Characters" is his first full-length directing project. He chose the play early this fall.
"Even though I didn't have the whole summer to think about it, it's been a great experience because it's forced me to grapple with this play really intensely," he said. "The play forces you to be creative and think in different ways."
The cast includes 12 characters, all of whom are on continually on stage. This constant presence on stage "has been an interesting aspect" of the production, Gates said.
"A big challenge for me and the actors has been keeping the play grounded and making sure that it is very immediate," he said. "There are a lot of ideas in it that can seem very philosophical and unrelated and make the play seem as though a bunch of people are just talking, but the ideas are all tied to the characters' stories."
In order to further engage the audience, Gates has altered the location of the play so that it takes place at Bowdoin.
"I've updated the setting a little bit so that the actors are Bowdoin students and the director is a Bowdoin director," said Gates.
He added, "I wanted to play around with the structure, but it was important to keep the characters' story exactly as it was written because their story has a lot of force."
The characters wrestle with such issues as prostitution, incest, and suicide, and the change of locale has added a new dimension of complexity to Piradello's work.
"Particularly with the actors, we've done a lot of improv work with them, they're very natural, nearly playing themselves," said Gates. "The relationship between Bowdoin characters and characters from this other world are at times very funny, but also very moving."
The six characters will tell their stories next week in Wish Theater on Thursday and Friday nights at 7 p.m. No ticket is necessary for entry.