‘The Treatment for Six Characters’, (Work-in-progress)
INTRODUCTION, 1
As part of my residency at the British School at Rome, made possible by the Derek Hill Scholarship, I will be working with the resources of the British School at Rome, as well as visiting ‘Studio di Luigi Pirandello’ and ‘Cinecittà’, to make my version of a 1935 un-made film treatment by Luigi Pirandello.
This was originally planned to be a cinematic version of Pirandello’s famous meta-play ‘Six Characters in Search of a Author’. Treatment for Six Characters was developed from earlier versions for a film of Six Characters, including Prologo ,1925, and Film-Novelle (scenario), 1928-30, which were all to be influenced by German Expressionist film. Treatment for Six Characters written in 1935-6 and was specifically intended to be directed and produced by German Theatre Director Max Reinhardt, ‘the Kaiser of the Berlin Theatre’, who had already staged the play over one hundred times to huge success. Reinhardt was to develop The Treatment for Six Characters with film director Josef von Sternberg, with Pirandello himself starring in a new role of The Author. Negotiations for this ended on the advent of Pirandello’s death in 1936.
