SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR
Following the critically-acclaimed run at Chichester Festival Theatre, SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR opened at the Gielgud Theatre in the West End last night. It is a contemporary version of Luigi Pirandello’s masterpiece, co-written by Rupert Goold and Ben Power and directed by Rupert Goold.
"Pirandello’s spooky, 1920s classic of family trauma and
metaphysical shockwaves has been given a seriously thrilling makeover …
Goold has charged it with its original existential mystery and visceral
excitements. The elements of family break-down,marital collapse and
suicide acquire a chilling potency. . The crucial scene of incestuous
sex is interpreted with a candour forbidden in the age of stage
censorship. … An astonishing night.” Evening Standard (Nicholas De Jongh)
“The raw Oedipal power of Rupert Goold’s production transcends the
ingenious framework he has devised with Ben Power … Goold’s production
captures the chaos and pain of the disruptive family and the dark fear
that lies at the heart of Pirandello’s play.” The Guardian (Michael Billington)
“I haven’t seen a more exhilaratingly imaginative revival of a
modern classic since Stephen Daldry raised Priestley’s Inspector Calls
from the grave … I was left mentally waving a white flag – while
cheering a boldness seldom encountered in the West End.” The Times (Benedict Nightingale)
“Scintillatingly clever.” Financial Times
“Everyone involved in the transfer merits special praise because
they have not just preserved the weird, mind-bending intellectual
integrity of this fiercely fresh take on the play. With enhanced
production values for the live and pre-recorded filmic elements, the
show has now expertly heightened the emotional effect of the constant
disturbing clashes between different levels of reality and modes of
existence.” The Independent (Paul Taylor)
“a thrilling production that deserves to thrive … Goold brings it
bang up to date, often playing fast and loose with Pirandello’s text,
but remaining entirely faithful to the play’s analysis of the
relationship between art and reality, while also capturing the drama’s
disconcerting mixture of playfulness and tragic anguish.” The Telegraph (Charles Spencer)
Praise for the Chichester Festival Theatre production:
"Following his brilliant production of Dr Faustus, which married
Marlowe’s play with the present-day shock artists the Chapman Brothers,
and his award-winning staging at Chichester last year of a Stalinist
Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart, this latest piece confirms Goold as
the most exciting director of his generation …
the piece’s themes emerge with clarity and wit, the scenes of
anguished distress are truly harrowing, and the whole hi-tech show has
a rare zing and confidence …
Like Goold’s Macbeth, which went on to triumph in the West End and
on Broadway, I suspect this brilliantly inventive show has a long
dramatic life ahead of it." The Telegraph (Charles Spencer)
"What’s extremely bold and smart about [the production] –is how it
spots the connection with contemporary ‘faction,’ plays around with
that and creates a whole new narrative frame. Thus the mysterious
titular Characters don’t interrupt a rehearsal in a traditional
theatre. They walk into a television studio and demand to be filmed
reliving their unresolved dysfunctional family saga.
…this is an extraordinary evening. Goold’s directorial choices can
be breathtakingly brave, not least in his nightmarish brothel scene
where everyone’s howls turn into a raving opera, and Mackay is
reincarnated as a shrieking chimp of a pimp. Pirandello’s potentially
arid real/pretending games are invested with fierce emotional urgency.
And even the excessive twists are Pirandellian and satirically
self-reverential too…." The Independent on Sunday (Kate Bassett)
"Letting these two … get their hands on Pirandello is like striking
a match in a firework factory, though I’d hesitate to say which
provided the gunpowder and which the flame.
The principal change they make is brilliant. No 21-st century
Chichester audience would possibly be fooled at first into thinking
they were watching a rehearsal, so instead we begin with a portrayal of
a crew making a drama-documentary for television….
Making us feel a greater apparent connection with a base level of
reality by adding another level of mediation into Pirandello’s mix is a
feat of genius." Financial Times (Ian Shuttleworth)
"The result is a production I found … exhilarating …The play the
six characters proceed to perform and these TV actors try and fail to
replicate, comes painfully, horribly to life. The scene in the ad hoc
bordello … is as ugly as a 21st-century Pirandello might make it ….
Pirandello’s serious points come across less wordily and preachily than usual ….
There’s a stunning moment in which dialogue escalates into music
and the agony of Eleanor David … becomes literally operatic. That too,
says something about the strengths and limitations of art, but there’s
also an ending that would disorient even Pirandello’s brainbox." The Times (Benedict Nightingale)
"Rupert Goold, who directed the Macbeth of my dreams and nightmares
last year at the Minerva, now works his illuminating magic upon Luigi
Pirandello’s intimidatingly cerebral SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN
AUTHOR.
He has restored a long-lost element of sexual horror…." Evening Standard (Nicholas de Jongh)
"… there can be no doubt that director Rupert Goold and co-author
Ben Power have given a remarkable new lease of life to SIX CHARACTERS
IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR, in their madly ingenious multi-media adaptation
of Pirandello’s seminal play." The Independent (Paul Taylor)
"it’s hard not to be won over by their chutzpah, as well as the
technical excellence and sheer theatrical brio of Goold’s production.
…a bravura piece of contemporary theatermaking, combining recorded
technology with precise live acting and direction….
Familiarity with Pirandello’s play certainly aids enjoyment of this
brainy funhouse of a show, but the storytelling is strong enough to
carry along the uninitiated. There hasn’t been a major production of
this play in London for at least seven years; strong local reviews
might prompt a deserved transfer, which would be yet another feather in
golden boy Goold’s cap." Variety (Karen Fricker)