SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR * HENRY IV * THE MOUNTAIN GIANTS Pirandello ranks with Strindberg, Brecht, and Beckett as a seminal figure in modern drama. Innovative and influential, he broke decisively with the conventions of realist theatre to foreground the tensions between art and reality. In his best known play, six characters, imagined but then abandoned by their author, intrude on the rehearsals of a provincial theatre company in an attempt to play out their family drama. In the brilliant Henry IV, a young man believes himself to be the Holy Roman Emperor; attempts to cure him of his delusion have disastrous consequences. The Mountain Giants is Pirandello\047s last, unfinished masterpiece, in which he moves towards the mythical, and make-believe and real life once more become entangled. The play reflects its author\047s growing anxiety about the function of art under a fascist regime. This new edition includes Pirandello\047s important Preface to Six Characters, an essential critical document for understanding the play that made him famous. Anthony Mortimer\047s lively and performable translations remain scrupulously faithful to the letter and spirit of the originals.