Citation

Domenico, Di Ceglie GR. Br. J. Psychother. 2000; 16(3): 303-310.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1752-0118.2000.tb00521.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The play Six Characters in Search of an Author is about madness, its seductiveness, its at times apparent plausibility, its language and its infectiousness. It makes the spectator participate in a psychotic experience. A great deal of disturbance in the audience followed its first performance in 1920 at the Teatro la Valle in Rome. By representing what is ultimately the failure of mental and theatrical representation Pirandello has created a work of art which is a most interesting anticipation and validation of the work on psychotic states of mind of the last few decades. In this paper we explore aspects of the play which are relevant to the work in the consulting room with a group of psychotic or borderline patients whose functioning is evocative of the Six Characters in Search of an Author.