December 14, 1929

The Experimental Theatre gave the American première of Luigi Pirandello’s Each in His Own Way (Ciascuno a suo modo, 1924). An anonymous reviewer in The Miscellany News found the “expressive technique” of the production “well-suited to the play” as well as to the particularities of the venue. “In naturalistic plays,” she wrote, “when girls must impersonate men, a violation of our aesthetic senses is inevitable. But in such a play as Pirandello’s, where we see men and women who are mere toys of the great life force which makes puppets of them, our intrest has shifted. The emphasis is no longer on the differences of men and women, but [on] their underlying similarities.”

The reviewer also praised the effect and “simplicity of the surroundings…. The black and white color scheme is suggestive of the inner meaning of the play. The costumes of the characters who stalk about unconscious of the life force…express their puppet natures—Donna Livia all grey, the old gentlemen, the friends, Doro clad in conventional black. Even the fluffy, fussy girls are practically colorless. We hear that blood has been shed, and we…see the color of red exactly in proportion to the individuals’ awareness of the force of life within them. Delia, in whom the feeling is strongest, steps through the black curtains all in red velvet. Even her hair is red.”

Pirandello spoke at Vassar on “The Italian Theatre, Old and New” in January 1924, and The Experimental Theatre presented another American première, that of his satiric drama Tonight We Improvise (Questa sera si recita a soggetto, 1929), in December 1936