The Play Within the Play

The most obvious device that Pirandello uses to convey his themes is to portray the action as a play within a play. The initial play within a play is relatively easy for the audience to handle—Pirandello's own Rules of'the Game is being performed in rehearsal by a troupe of actors. Then the "characters" enter and they seem to embody a completely different play within the play. Furthermore, they insist on acting out the story that have brought to the rehearsal, which is done twice, once by themselves and again by the actors. And once the audience has more or less assimilated all of this, a seventh character, Madame Pace, is created on the spot, as if out of thm air. The effect is similar to that presented with nesting boxes, one inside another and another inside that until the audience gets so...