Pirandello and Reality TV: When Fine Lines Get Blurred Essay

Introduction Pirandello’s play Six Characters in Search of an Author broke ground by challenging our perceptions of what is real and not.  Ã‚   In the play, the â€Å"invisible barrier†Ã¢â‚¬â€setting apart the actors from their play—is torn down as characters otherwise trapped within the confines of text from a novel or short story emerge into real life, and burst through in the middle of a rehearsal of actors to give themselves life.  Ã‚   The roles are reversed and the actors become the prop by which the â€Å"characters† criticize stage-life, the dynamics of a story, and even the questions of humanity’s existence. His play is most noteworthy, however, by being ahead of its time; the act by which the â€Å"characters†, in need of being given life in any form, act out the very nature of their lives would be reminiscent of the trend of Reality Television today. In fact, the play’s criticisms about the formula of the theatre echo in the present time.   The play’s characters from the prop-actors to the characters-in-need-of-a-medium, represent the different aspects of Reality Television. How accurate was Pirandello’s play in predicting this trend?   What were his criticisms of it, and how much did it hit its mark?  Ã‚   What then was the play’s sentiment towards â€Å"Life forced to play Art†?  Ã‚   This essay will explore this through the evolution of the play itself, from the characterization, to the progression of the themes, and will conclude through the medium of a finished product. Finding a Cast The â€Å"Six Characters† in the playwright’s story that force themselves on a hapless Manager represent various individuals with their respective prejudices, ideas, and reactions towards their need for public expression. They also represent the different people, who are forced upon the klieg lights, particularly under the constant glare of the cameras of Reality Television. The two of the aggressive characters are of the Father and the Stepdaughter.  Ã‚   Pirandello depicts the Father as one who has volunteered to depict his role as truthfully as he can, in order to redeem himself before the eyes of his family, and hopefully smother the guilt, which had been buried in him for some time. The playwright focused much on this character, using him as instrument to question the truths of Man’s existence, his prejudices in life and as mouthpiece for the criticism of the artificialness of the theater.  Ã‚   He is out to superimpose a version of his life that would be acceptable and palatable to his audience, as well as his family. Unwittingly, though, the Father also represents characters in Reality programs such as Big Brother who volunteer to be part of the show to project a positive image of themselves, by acting out what they see themselves as who they are, and through helpful â€Å"confession booths† where they try to explain their thoughts and feelings to the camera.  Ã‚   Pirandello used the Father to explain that persons have their subjective interpretations of the world, which is just as much prejudiced as the person observing them.   This subjective depiction of oneself is magnified through the â€Å"confession booths† of reality television. The Stepdaughter is caught in the trauma of a moment and would like nothing else to perpetuate that moment of outrage as a form of punishment for her father.   She is the most vitriolic critic among the characters of the stage, and the playwright used her as an instrument to attack the formulae that the theatre and plays use to depict â€Å"truer reality†.  Ã‚   Her agenda, of course, is less than noble.  Ã‚   Her character represents those individuals who are forever caught within a traumatic moment that they painfully perpetuate to punish those close to them. This has also been absorbed by reality television in the form of show such as Temptation Island, where situations are force upon people in order to vindicate distrust or even contempt. The Mother, the Son, and the two children are the passive characters who, in one way or another, would rather not be part of the play.   They are, however, trapped to play their part for one reason or another.  Ã‚   The most active of these, the mother and son, represent those who are resistant to their parts, and virulently opposed to it, but tied to it for one reason or another.  Ã‚   In Reality Television, a program My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee, forced an individual to fake a wedding and coerce her family to acceding to it. The most tragic of these characters, however, are the children who are silent throughout the general duration of the play only to act the final and central sequence of it through their parts.  Ã‚   These are the persons who are unwittingly trapped in a situation that they would rather have not entered, had they known.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus, Joe Schmoe and Joe Schmoe 2 have people who are not aware that they are in fact in a reality show centered on how they were being fooled. Finding a Theme The Stepdaughter bitterly criticized that the actors trying to portray them are too unnatural in acting out her family’s characters.   Indeed, she pointed out that there were distinct differences in a scene with her father, which she acted with him, and the same scene, which the actors tried to portray. The Father later explained that actors have already begun to act them not in their true form but in a prejudiced idea of what they have observed of the characters or the scene.  Ã‚   This is true enough of media today trying to interpret an event or people by projecting them in a way that explains how they saw the event, rather than how it really was. In the Reality show The Osbournes or Growing Up Gotti for example, the scenes were edited to focus more on the heated moments where the family are caught heaping curses, invectives, or insults at each other, when these are in fact merely isolated instances of it.   The Manager in the play explains that this is only to make the fact â€Å"truer†, and more believable.  Ã‚   Indeed, the most dramatic moments of a reality show are the ones that are given most airtime, and are edited to make it, as the Stepdaughter protested, a â€Å"romantic drama† rather than what it really was. The play’s Manager in one scene explained to the Stepdaughter that a character could not be overemphasized to overshadow another character.   Indeed, that was what both the Father and the Stepdaughter were trying to do.   The inexistence of an actual central character (only a consistent plot and theme) in the play mirrors how some reality shows do not focus on a central character but let the show work out according to how the characters interact amongst themselves.  Ã‚   Survivor and Big Brother are such programs. Conclusion: Unintended Consequences The Manager in the play was caught up in the possibilities of entertainment of using the dynamics of a family’s life, while his acting ensemble watched on.   Faithful through every scene, the tragedies of the characters are indeed perpetuated right to the end (at least, to how far the â€Å"writer† wrote), and it is at this end that the Manager realizes and bewails to what fate it has turned to.  Ã‚   For such is the danger of trying to stage a play based on dynamic characters and true life. It is only the dynamism of the characters—and their respective prejudices—that sets them apart from the static of a written play. Like the Manager in Six Characters, this dynamism can sometimes go out of control and individuals will clash, so a balance is made as to what is aired and what is not.   The â€Å"true form† then, becomes compromised, and prejudiced to what is perceived.  Ã‚   It is entertaining to the audience, as they have a sense of it being an illusion (an illusion of reality, as one character described it), but as the Father adamantly explains, it is real to them. The reality show Temptation Island once seemed to appeal to the audience as a sort-of drama that is often seen in the movies about the test of love.   Ã‚  Reality bursts in, however, when one of the contestants, who just saw her husband flirting with one of the girls from a separate island, was actually pregnant with their child.  Ã‚   With the real prospects of having to break up a family, these candidates are offered an apology and immediately whisked away, and off the program.  Ã‚  Ã‚   It was not an illusion to them; it was real life. Pirandello’s critique is clear: having to stage reality before the audience is only entertainment only as far as they feel detached from it.   Within the glare of the cameras, however, lives are destroyed and perpetuated in â€Å"edited moments† that twist the very nature of it. WORKS CITED Pirandello, L. (1921). Six Characters in Search of an Author. In A. Caputi (Ed.), Eight Modern Plays.   New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1991.