Pablo Picasso, father of Cubism and pioneer of Neo-Expressionism, immortal in his fame, once said: "Everything you can imagine is real." For a layman, the notion of Picasso may have the flavor of an enigmatic evasiveness; the transcendence of reality is not easy to conceptualize. For the playwright Luigi Pirandello, however, these words are representative of an absolute truth. In his play Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello tests this relationship between fiction and reality using the "Verismo" writing style. There is a thin line drawn between the six characters, who recognize themselves as such, purely creations of the writer, and the 'actors', who do not want to be characters at all but rather a representation of reality, of real people easily confused with those sitting in the audience. And while it is true that all those depicted in the work are intrinsically Pirandello characters, these characters are separated into two distinct groups: those representing characters and those representing real people. In an attempt to differentiate these two groups, Pirandello gives the characters masks, so that their singularity of emotions and individual goals are visible throughout the work. It also portrays actors and those associated with actors as very tangible representations of real people; Due to the nature of "Verismo" writing, audiences are bound to be genuinely confused by the presence of "real people" on stage, a space traditionally reserved for the progression of fictional events. However, over the course of the work it becomes increasingly clear that, despite attempts to separate the two groups, all those depicted in the work fall within Pirandello's definition of Character: one with an "immutable reality" (Pirandello, 61). As the tragedy unfolds, the lines between characters and actors, between fiction and reality, become blurred. Although Pirandello appears to have taken great pains to separate representations of what is real from representations of what is not, the separate representations of the actors and characters and the resulting mixing of roles reveal a subtextual commentary on the false nature of what it's real. all those represented in the work, whether fictitious or real, and the implications of this notion of falsehood regarding human nature. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay At the beginning of the work, the foundation is laid for the audience to see the distinctive qualities of the characters throughout the game; this work has often been interpreted as Pirandello's attempt to reveal the character's essential characteristics. However, I feel like it defines the character so deeply that it calls into question the essential characteristics of the real person. The contrast in the primary representations of the characters and actors creates a juxtaposition between fiction and reality that is questioned later in the work. From the first time the characters appear on stage, they are depicted as physically and internally separate from real people. As the Father Character says, they are "more alive than those who breathe and wear clothes! Less real, perhaps; but more true!" (12). Although these Characters are "alive", they are not alive in the same sense as the real person; unlike real people, the Characters do not have freedom of choice and are therefore condemned to the perpetual repetition of a single reality. This limitation is represented in the characters' conversations with the actors and in the use of masks and character descriptions within the text. The actors,however, they are portrayed as a representation of reality; nothing about their basic descriptions or actions would lead the audience to believe that they are anything other than accurate representations of Pirandello's era. The clothes, the set, the casual dialogue and the apparent spontaneity of their actions give the impression of an everyday reality. However, an undeniable formulaic quality becomes increasingly evident as the work progresses. Practically from the first scene, the director is the emblem of serious theatrical management: authoritative, frustrated and demanding. Even more extreme is the representation of the Leading Lady, a manifestation of pride, presumption and personal importance. This contradiction between reality and impracticality is noteworthy; although this does not change the fact that the actors are representative of real people, the inconsistency that is established soon becomes a major theme throughout the play. Although the characters and actors are initially portrayed as contrasting representations of fiction and reality, their roles begin to change. they mix as the story progresses, purpose and objective are confused between the two categories, and the concept of free will is questioned. First there is the fundamental problem of established roles; the fact that both the characters and the actors are all essentially Pirandello characters, and that all the characters (characters and actors) are played by real actors, creates a contradiction with the singularity of the goal established earlier in the work. Additionally, the characters begin to take on "real" qualities as the actors become increasingly multifaceted, a trait originally reserved for fictional characters. This confusion of roles, of fiction and reality, ultimately reveals the false nature of all the characters and actors portrayed in Pirandello's work. When the Characters first enter the scene, they not only have individual goals, but also a collective goal; they have to find an author. Here the mixing of roles begins. The director is the first called to exchange his stereotyped authoritative role with one of greater creative value, that of the author. The next group called to exchange roles is that of the Characters; the author/director, still demanding, orders them to go on stage and rehearse their story, and so the Characters become their own actors. Meanwhile the actors study the Characters so that they can take on their roles and become Characters on the stage. However, when the roles are restored to their original state, no one is satisfied with playing the part originally intended, and only the actors remain constant in their singularity of goal. The Characters refuse to accept the actors' interpretation of their story; as the stepdaughter exclaims, "I want to play my own drama. My own!" (53). Even the director abandons his role again to approach the stage as an actor and demonstrate the correct re-enactment of the story. It is only the actors who remain completely constant in their stereotype and their sole goal of acting. Through this transcendence of roles, not only does it become evident that the boundary between fiction and reality is perhaps not as clear as it originally seemed, but also that the actors become more similar to the characters than to the Characters themselves. desire to have control over their story and its actualization, the actors begin to seem less like representations of real characters and more like fictional characters. In fact, at the end of the work, it is not the Characters who have what the Father calls an "immutable reality" (61), but the actors. The Characters leave changed, there are two fewer Characters between them once the game is completed. The actors, however, leave as they began, with the director who.