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| Luigi Pirandello |
By Niccolò Graffio
“Well, if you want to take away from me the possibility of representing the torment of my spirit which never gives me peace, you will be suppressing me: that's all. Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as to give a meaning and a value of his own to life.” – Luigi Pirandello: Six Characters in Search of an Author, 1921.
It has often been said that tragedy and comedy are two sides of the same coin. Indeed, most comedies seem to arise out of tragedies. The late stand-up comedian Richard Pryor is an excellent example of this phenomenon. For years he regaled audiences, both black and white, with tales of his childhood in the slums of Peoria, Illinois. Audiences would regularly howl with laughter at his stories of living in bone-crunching poverty, abuse at the hands of his elders, substance abuse and trying to avoid falling into the “tender mercies” of street gangs. One has to wonder, though, how many people would think all this funny if it happened to them, or how many others laughed simply because it was better than crying.
Tragedy, therefore, while lamentable, can also be a source of inspiration for those fortunate enough to be born with the creative spark that allows them to put feelings into words and convey their meaning to others. This has been done not just with the genre of Comedy, but Drama as well (among others). The subject of this article is one such man. One who, in spite of the various tragedies that overshadowed his life, put pen in hand and gave the world some of its more memorable literature, as well as helping to reshape modern theater.
Luigi Pirandello was born on June 28, 1867 in the town of Kaos (Chaos), a poor suburb of the town of Girgenti (now Agrigento), Sicily. Unlike the bulk of his fellow Sicilians, Pirandello was blessed with being born into a fairly wealthy family. His father, Stefano, owned a prosperous sulfur mine. His mother, Caterina Ricci Gramitto, descended from a family of professionals.
Ironically, the first of the many tragedies that would overshadow Luigi’s life occurred six years prior to his birth: the destruction of his homeland, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Stefano had participated with Giuseppe Garibaldi in the Expedition of the Thousand, and eventually took part in the Battle of Aspromonte, at which Garibaldi was taken prisoner by the forces of the infamous Enrico Cialdini. Caterina, in the meantime, had been forced to flee with her father to Malta, where he had been exiled by the collapsing Bourbon monarchy.
Luigi Pirandello’s parents, like most Southerners of the time, had been infected with the idealism of the Risorgimento and its false promises of “unification”, land reform and republican government. When the harsh and corrupt reality set in, Pirandello’s parents became angry and bitter. This sense of betrayal would find its way to Luigi, who later expressed it in some of his works.
“'When he bent down over her gloomily to ask her exactly what had happened, she repelled him with both arms. And clenching her teeth, she sadistically flung the confession of her betrayal into his face. Huddling as she opened her hands, she said with a convulsive, malicious smile: ‘In the dream!...In the dream!...’”: Luigi Pirandello: Tales of Madness: The Reality of the Dream, transl. by Giovanni R. Bussino, Dante Univ. of America, pgs. 96-97, 1984.
Growing up, Luigi was home-schooled (not uncommon at the time for wealthier folk). When he reached the age for secondary school education, his father enrolled him in technical school, hoping that one day his son would follow him in the family business. Behind Stefano’s back, Luigi transferred himself to the ginnasio to study the humanities, his real love. When his father learned of this, however, he would neither look at nor speak to his son for months. This formed the basis of the second tragedy that would overshadow Luigi’s life: his inability to communicate with his own father.
In 1880 Pirandello’s family moved to Palermo, the capital of the island of Sicily. It was here he finished his secondary school education, and it was here he began to read in earnest the works of great 19th century Italian poets. It was also here that Luigi learned, after discovering some secret notes, of his father’s adulterous betrayal of his mother. This exacerbated the schism between father and son, while simultaneously drawing Luigi closer to his mother, whom he would later come to venerate in his work Colloqui con i personaggi (“Talks with the Characters”).
After graduating secondary school, Luigi enrolled in the University of Palermo in both the departments of Law and Letters. It was here the young Pirandello got his feet wet with the subject of politics. The University of Palermo was a hotbed of radicalism, especially of the movement that would soon morph into the Fasci Siciliani, a democratic socialist labor movement made up of farmers, workers and miners. Though he was never an active member of the organization, Pirandello would maintain close, friendly ties with many of its leading ideologues.
By 1887, having chosen the department of Letters, he moved to Rome to continue his studies. His disappointment with life at the heart of the Risorgimento found their expression in his first collection of poems, Mal Giocondo (1889). He was eventually expelled from the university for insulting a Latin professor, but was able to transfer to the University of Bonn, Germany, thanks to a letter of presentation given to him by one of his other professors. Here he received a doctoral degree in Romance philology in 1891. It was also here young Luigi formed the bonds with German culture that would be reflected in his works for the rest of his life.
Eventually returning to Rome, Pirandello would befriend the noted Verist writer-journalist Luigi Capuana, who encouraged him to pursue a career in narrative writing. The year 1894 saw two milestones in his life: his publication of his first collection of short stories (Amori senza Amore), and his marriage to Antonietta Portulano, a Sicilian girl of Agrigentine origin. Shy and from a good family, the marriage met with his father’s approval (she was the daughter of a business associate). The first several years of married life were productive for Luigi in more ways than one. In addition to writing numerous articles for magazines, he and his wife produced three children (Stefano, Fausto & Lietta).
In 1897, he accepted an offer to teach the Italian language at the Istituto Superiore di Magistero in Rome. Over the next several years he wrote numerous poems, novellas and a novel, Il Turno.
Sadly, tragedy would not be far behind him. In 1903 his father’s sulfur mine was flooded, financially ruining him. Likewise, Antonietta lost her dowry (Luigi had invested it in the mine). According to reports, upon learning of the disaster she became so distraught she entered a state of psychological shock! Afterwards, she developed delusions of paranoia and jealousy which over time progressively worsened until by 1919 Pirandello had no choice left but to place her in a nursing home. She would spend the last 40 years of her life there.
The family’s financial misfortunes forced Luigi for the first time to pursue writing as a profitable career. In 1904 he published Il Fu Mattia Pascal (“The Late Mattia Pascal”), one of his most successful novels. This novel, which draws thinly-veiled elements from the author’s own life, gave him the fame he needed to write for more important editors, and thereby fatten his bank account. It also conveyed in no uncertain terms to the reader Pirandello’s feelings about the Risorgimento.
“He received us most cordially, speaking with a marked Neapolitan accent; then he begged his secretary to continue to show us the various mementos that filled the room, attesting his loyalty to the Bourbon dynasty. At the end we were standing in front of a little square frame covered by a green cloth with the gold-embroidered legend: I do not hide; I protect. Lift me and read. The Marchese asked Papiano to remove the object from the wall and bring it to him. Beneath the cloth there wasn’t a picture, but instead, framed under glass, a letter from the Royal Minister Pietro Ulloa who, in 1860, that is to say during the death throes of the realm, invited the Marchese Giglio D’Auletta to be a member of the Cabinet which was never to be formed. Along with this invitation there was a draft of the Marchese’s letter of acceptance: a proud letter that castigated those who refused to accept the responsibility of power in this moment of supreme danger and anxiety with the enemy, the bandit Garibaldi, almost at the gates of Naples.” – Luigi Pirandello: The Late Mattia Pascal, transl. by Wm. Weaver, pg. 203, NY Review Books, 2005.
In 1913 he published in book form I Vecchi e I Giovani (“The Old and the Young”). This novel, which had earlier been published in episodes, deals with the violent Northern Italian suppression of the Fasci Siciliani in the years 1893-94. It also put into perspective the author’s feelings towards his own parents. While his mother is transfigured into the otherworldly character of Caterina Laurentano, his father, represented by Stefano Auriti, is dead and buried.
In 1921 Pirandello first staged what became perhaps his best known work: the satirical tragicomedy Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore (“Six Characters in Search of an Author”). Opening at the Valle di Roma, it was a riotous failure! Ironically, the same play was a great success when presented at Milan a year later. By now Pirandello was known internationally. Six Characters was performed in English in London and New York.
In 1924, two years after Benito Mussolini’s “March on Rome”, Luigi Pirandello became a member of the Italian Fascist Party. The following year, with “Il Duce’s” help, he assumed the artistic direction and ownership of the Teatro d'Arte di Roma. By 1928, though, the company was forced to close due to financial problems. Shortly after this, Pirandello began to reside abroad with great frequency, especially in Paris and Berlin.
Pirandello’s relationship with Mussolini has been much debated. Initially he seemed supportive of the Fascist regime. He even went on record as saying he was “…a Fascist because I am Italian.” However, he would later state: “I’m apolitical. I’m only a man on the world…” His play, The Giants of the Mountain, has been interpreted as evidence of his belief the Fascists were hostile to culture. In 1927 he tore his Fascist Party membership card to pieces in front of the secretary-general of the Fascist Party! In 1934 Pirandello's libretto for Gian Francesco Malipiero's opera The Fable of the Changeling was criticized by the Fascist authorities. That same year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Yet the following year he is said to have given the gold medal to the Fascist government to be melted down for the invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Yet he remained critical of the regime and its leader, once describing Mussolini as a “…top hat, and empty top hat that by itself cannot stand upright.”
Cynics charge that Pirandello was a self-server who used his association with the Fascist regime to advance himself and his theater. I am inclined to disagree. It must be remembered first and foremost the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini was a totalitarian government, and such governments historically have taken a dim view of criticism, regardless of who makes them. For his critical comments and works Pirandello was placed under close surveillance by the Fascist secret police until the day of his death on December 10th, 1936. It should also be noted again that after 1928, Luigi Pirandello spent an increasing amount of time outside Mussolini’s Italy.
Numerous writers over the years have analyzed Pirandello’s works, attempting to get a glimpse into the mind of the great author and playwright. Freudian themes fairly permeate his works. One point on which there is almost complete agreement is the feeling he had a deep-seated disappointment in his fellow man. Why shouldn’t he? Throughout his life those closest to him more often than not were a disappointment to him. From his own father, who betrayed his mother (and by extension, Luigi) to Mussolini, who became a disappointment as a leader. One could even argue that Mussolini, as “Il Duce” of Italy, was in fact a surrogate father for Pirandello!
Not just people, but the ideologies that surrounded Pirandello disappointed him. From the deceptive Risorgimento, to the failed socialist policies of the Fasci Siciliani, and finally to the sardonic myth of “Italian unity”, failure and betrayal always seemed close at hand. One could imagine such an environment would produce feelings of melancholia in a more sensitive soul, and in Pirandello’s case it was certainly true. He once described his life as a “…colorless existence broken only by daily walks.”
In spite of all this, however, he never stopped searching for the truth, either in the theater or in his own life. Entire books have been written detailing his role in the debates on and around the theatrical event. In particular the role of theater: theater as spectacle, from the director’s viewpoint, and theater as dramatic text, the author’s viewpoint. This latter debate was perhaps best exemplified in his play Six Characters in Search of an Author.
While he may never have found something, ideologically-speaking, to give real meaning to his life, perhaps his life can give meaning to ours. Even though he has been dead now 73 years, he still has something to teach us. Standing where he is, on the pages of history, he is veritably shouting it at us from across the mists of time. It is that we should never stop searching for the truth, because the truth is ever elusive. Also, fiction can be a stronger force than reality, because reality is filled with people, and people are weak. Left to their own devices, they can and will disappoint if not betray us. In this day and age of so-called “conservative” politicos speaking vaguely of “family values” while spending us into bankruptcy, of leftist demagogues who preach “hope and change” while continuing with business as usual, these are lessons we would do well to remember.
"A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die! And to be able to live forever you don't need to have extraordinary gifts or be able to do miracles. Who was Sancho Panza? Who was Prospero? But they will live forever because - living seeds - they had the luck to find a fruitful soil, an imagination which knew how to grow them and feed them, so that they will live forever." – Luigi Pirandello: Six Characters in Search of an Author, 1921.
Further reading:
1) Luigi Pirandello: Contemporary Perspectives; edited by Gian-Paolo Biasin & Manuela Gieri, Univ. of Toronto Press, 1999.
2) Tales of Madness by Luigi Pirandello; translated by Giovanni R. Bussino, Dante University of America Press, 1984.
3) The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello; translated by William Weaver, NY Review Books, 2005.
This time I had the pleasure to see their Tarantelle e canti d'amore at Mehanata Bulgarian Bar in New York City's Lower East Side. Ironically, it was in this casual milieu, rather than the more "prestigious" settings of their previous shows, that I enjoyed them the most. For me, it seemed more authentic that they played in a tavern than in a theater or church; if only because it allowed the audience the freedom to dance along with the band and partake in the experience as it was meant to be, rather than just watch from afar.
