J. William Davis - THEATRICS - Six Characters in Search of an Author

Luigi Pirandello

Donmar Warehouse

Director: Simon Usher

Six characters appear at a play's rehearsal. They wish to have actors play the parts they represent in an uncompleted story. Their story involves lust, betrayal, incest, drowning and suicide. It is a paradoxical situation in which the actors are imitating the characters as they perform the circumstances of their lives.

In this production the play begins with the audience entering the empty Donmar Warehouse; all the fixed seating has been replaced by loose chairs. The Actors enter and sit chatting amongst the audience. The stage manger announces "Welcome to this open rehearsal of Pirandello's Rules of the Game...". This combines with the programs and show posters printed with this title to disorient the audience.

The setting is designed to look like a typical empty rehearsal space. A new black painted brick wall, placed 1m in front of the iconographic Donmar back wall, has doors opening into the upper level director's office (which is accessed by a spiral stair) and to dressing rooms at stage level. There is also a tall scenic door in this wall which opens only at the play's finale when the characters re-enter the stage.

The clothes worn by the Actors, the Director and the Technicians are contemporary. The clothing worn by the Characters is true to the 1920s when the play was written and the period that the play-within-a-play is set; this is the time and place where the Characters truly live.

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Early costume sketches

Poster
design

Costume drawings

Director at her office door

Lead Actor + Actress

Father + Stepdaughter

Father tells their story

The Characters arrive

The Director enters

At the finale the remaining Characters - the Stepdaughter, the Father, the Son and the Mother - re-enter the theatre through the tall scenic door.

When the curtain is finally raised, Madame Pace's shop has vanished and the Six Characters are standing in the garden at night.

At the end of the dress shop scene the Director yells "Curtain!" prompting the Technician to allow a show curtain to fall around the stage.

The Stepdaughter and the Father re-enact their meeting at Madame Pace's dress shop.

The Director insists that the Characters join her in her office so that their story can be scripted as a play.

The Father and the Stepdaughter tell their story to the Director while the Actors impatiently listen.

The Six Characters arrive at the rehearsal on the catwalk above the stage.

The Director arrives for the rehearsal of Rules of the Game as the Actors mingle and chat to one another amongst the audience.

The Director leaves her office at the top of the spiral staircase.

Contemporary clothing for the Leading Actor and the Leading Actress.

1920s period costume designs for the Father and for the Stepdaughter.

Costume sketches illustrating the Characters and their counterparts the Actors and the Director.

At the finale the remaining Characters - the Stepdaughter, the Father, the Son and the Mother - re-enter the theatre through the tall scenic door.

Early costume sketches to establish a palette to insure that all the clothes work in harmony with one another.

Poster design for Six Characters in Search of an Author and The Rules of the Game - the play being rehearsed by the Actors prior to the arrival of the Characters.

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Finale

Characters in the garden

The curtain falls

Madame Pace's shop

Characters leave with Director

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