Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T21:51:52.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 35 - Avant-Garde Theatre after Pirandello

from Part VI - Reception and Legacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2024

Patricia Gaborik
Affiliation:
Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica ‘Silvio d'Amico’
Get access

Summary

The work of avant-garde auteurs from the mid-twentieth century onward is a testament not only to Pirandello’s ongoing influence but to the ways artists continue to break open fresh paths, building on Pirandello’s aesthetic. Through the destabilization of day-to-day existence, especially in his theatre trilogy – Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), Each in His Own Way (1924), and Tonight We Improvise (1930) – Pirandello shatters every kind of theatrical binary. Out of these eruptions, a sense of the postmodern emerges, evoked via the experience of a messy, chaotic collaborative process that culminates in an “anti-play” filled with seemingly random and often sinister playfulness. This essay closely examines the processes and performances of the Living Theatre’s (New York, 1959) and Robert Brustein’s American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987) productions of Tonight We Improvise. John Jesurun and Takeshi Kawamura’s Distant Observer: Tokyo/New York Correspondence at La MaMa (New York, 2018) is the next focal point – only one of many current transmittals of Pirandello’s genius, moving forward.

Type
Chapter
Information
Pirandello in Context , pp. 283 - 290
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×