Tonight We Improvise (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Luigi Pirandello
- First Published: 1930
- Type of Plot: Surrealist
- Time of Work: The early twentieth century
- Setting: Theater itself (framing play) and Sicily (inner play)
- Principal Characters: Doctor Hinkfuss, The old character Man, The character Woman, The leading Lady, The leading Man, Three Actresses, Five Actors
- Genres: Drama, Surrealist literature
- Subjects: Suffering, Acting or actors, 1920’s, Reality, Creative process, Drama or dramatists, Italy or Italians, Performing arts
- Locales: Sicily, Italy
The Play
Tonight We Improvise begins with a lowering of the houselights, the sounds of a squabble behind the curtain, queries from actors planted in the audience, and at length the director’s entrance from the lobby. Doctor Hinkfuss, declaring that any play is its director’s scenic creation, which, with the help of the audience, brings life to the playwright’s art, explains that he will create tableaux in which the actors will enact impromptu Pirandello’s Sicilian story of “jealousy of the past.” The curtain, raised for the first act, reveals another curtain,...
[The entire page is 2843 words long]
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