"Six Characters in Search of an Author" kicks off Mason Player 2013-2014 season

Over the weekend of Oct. 4-6, Mason Players produced Pirandello's famous meta-theatrical piece “Six Characters in Search of an Author.”

The play was about a group of stage performers beginning to start a rehearsal when, suddenly, a group of six people come in and interrupt their performance. These six people, called “characters,” interrupt the rehearsal claiming they are in search of an author. They ask the director to be their author. The six characters try to pitch their story to the director and other actors so their story can be spread and put on in front of audiences.

The characters and actors in the play are nameless and were identified by their relationships to everyone present in the play. The father, (Sam Taylor, junior), the stepdaughter (Madison Landis, sophomore) and the director (Halah Zenhom, senior) truly carried the play. The father and stepdaughter were constantly arguing about their past and the story they were trying to convey with the director butting into their disagreements to get back to work. Though most of the daughter and stepfather’s conversations were arguments, they captured the audience’s attention with their passion and fury towards their story.

The stepdaughter character used a voice that was both eerie and captivating. Her evil laugh caught the audience off guard. She swayed the audience to her side of each argument with her sugary, but wicked personality.

The leading actors, played by David Johnson and Madeleine Jennings, constantly reacted to the unfolding story told by the characters. These two characters were over-dramatically perfect, providing the comic relief for serious discussions in the play.

The six characters added a tornado of confusion at the beginning of the play with their dramatic story they were trying to share with the director and actors. The family was mysterious and cryptic with their dialogue. The few sighs from the audience at points reiterated the fact that the audience as a whole was trying to keep up with their wild story.

Under the student direction of Alec Henneberger, senior,  this play certainly puzzled the audience.