The Rules of the Game

The third volume of Luigi Pirandello's collected plays contains major work, but The Rules of the Game is by far the best known. First performed in 1918, the action of the play does not all take place on the surface; situations are suddenly reversed when the mind of the deceived husband becomes clear to the audience. This biting comedy verging on farce also contains a tragic moral. Each in his own Way (1924) is a variation on Six Characters in Search of an Author , Pirandello's best known play. The interplay between the characters and their stage representations surprises and involves the audience in the nature of reality. Grafted (1917) is more conventional on the surface but hides a cunning metaphor based on the principle of the graft of a garden plant. The Other Son (1923) digs deep into the reality of peasant life in Sicily. A young doctor unearths a horrifying story in his attempt to understand why a poverty-stricken old woman writes to her far-away sons for help while ignoring another son who lives in the same village.