Metatheater: Illusion and Reality in Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author

Abstract

Metatheater is a reference to the self-reflexivity of the dramatic text. It is a modernist device used to shatter the allusion that the text confers on the audience or the reader by calling his/her attention to the fact that this is not reality but a textual construction. This interplay of reality and illusion in Metatheater is meant to explore the complexity of the modern life. Major among the plays in this type of drama is Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. It illuminates the fusion of illusion and reality by exploring the metatheatrical device which is play within a play and try to touch the metaphysical imagination of the audience. How the audience will experience Metatheater by feeling the boundaries between illusion and reality.