This intelligent, dark mindbender opens during a rehearsal of another play by Pirandello, but the rehearsal is interrupted when six people walk on and desperately try to convince the Director (Collin McConnell) to do a different show – a show that has never been done before starring the six of them. The mysterious visitors claim to be characters dreamt up by an author who was unable to write them down. Their tragic tale has them knowing only anguish and misery, and they hope that by actually being put onto a script and performed onstage, this will somehow relieve their agony. The Director and his actors believe the newly arrived characters to be out-of-work actors rather than mere works of fiction, but they are intrigued by the story they begin to tell and eventually acquiesce to give life to their tale of woe.

Nonsense Productions, formed by a small group of students from Carlsbad High School who last May turned in their hilarious inaugural production of Full Circle, decided to take on this ambitious drama for their second show featuring a cast of twenty put on at Patio Playhouse’s theatre in Escondido. Under the direction of co-founder Tess Team, the show was an impressive success with the “Six Characters” quickly drawing us into their world and their made-up lives that, thanks to their intense performances, clearly seem all-too-real for them.

As the Father, Tyler Leslie leads the six as sort of the spokesman for the group who is tormented by his own embarrassing deeds, especially where it concerns the fate of his bastard daughter (Summer Spiro). He stalked the daughter as a young girl, but by this time the girl has grown into a beautiful young woman and, through a sad set of circumstances, a prostitute. It’s an occupation that leads to an encounter that will haunt the Father and make the Daughter even more jaded and bitter toward him – a raw bitterness that dominates every moment the two are near each other onstage. As the Mother, Carolyn McMahon is a riveting figure in spite of her mostly silent presence, her despair over the fate of her eldest daughter and the rejection of the sullen Son (Ryan Johnson) crushing her. By her side throughout are a small boy and girl, both mute and mostly detached from the others for reasons we will see later. And then there is the outrageous Madame Pace (Sarah Kapp), a character created to add a little comic relief to the play but who plays a pivotal part in leading to the family’s doomed fate.

Performed August 13 - 15, 2004.

Rob Hopper
San Diego Playbill