Ruth Agnew reviews Six Characters in Search of an Author, written by Luigi Pirandello, directed by Jeremy Hinman, performed by the Court Theatre Youth Company at the Court Theatre, Tuesday 2 September 2025.
“A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is. Because a character has really a life of his own, marked with his especial characteristics; for which reason he is always ‘somebody’.”
Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author is an early twentieth century Italian absurdist metatheatrical play that explores reality, identity and authorship through the juxtaposition of six fictional characters who appear at a play rehearsal in search of their author to finish their incomplete story. The complexity of a simple synopsis sentence about this play gives some insight into the challenge tackling this text would be for any cast, let alone a youth cast, but the Court Theatre Youth Company prove themselves to be well up to the task. This is another impressive offering from a company playing a significant role in producing the wealth of young talent in our town.
Since its inception in 2014, The Court Theatre Youth Company has been an absolute gem in the Court Theatre’s crown, offering emerging talent (aged 16-21) professional training and performance opportunities. Founded by Alice Canton, the youth company provided a bridge between secondary school and tertiary drama institutions or a stepping stone towards professional acting careers (including for creatives Khalil Qualls, Josiah Morgan, and William Burns). Since then, I can honestly say some of my favourite Court Theatre shows have come out of this programme: Do Not Touch The Exhibition (2014), Vernon God Little (2018), and Boudica (2019). Six Characters in Search of an Author is an excellent choice for this year’s crop of emerging Ōtautahi actors, offering opportunities to explore a seminal text, exercise their creativity, and showcase the impressive skills, talent and dedication the group brings to the stage.
As the audience enters The Wakefield Family Front Room, it is already humming with the bustle and busyness of a pre-show performance space. This gives the audience the first sign that this cast has put in the background work and process necessary to perform Six Characters well. Absurdism, by definition, can be discombobulating for actors, but it is clear these actors share a vision and understanding of what their interpretation of the play is, and what they want the audience to take from it. Legend has it the first performances of Six Characters so angered audiences with its unexpected and unsettling plot and tone that people screamed at the stage, called for the playwright to be locked up as a madman, and left theatres crying. There was no such adverse reaction from any audience member at the Court Theatre.
It could be said that director Jeremy Hinman edges close to lunatic territory in his ambitious approach to this show. To achieve the solid performance we see with actors who have not been professionally trained, there must have been hours of unpacking the concept of absurdism, the layers of metatheatricality, and balancing the teetering shifts in tone and style in the play. So to choose to add contemporary elements, use scene changes as opportunities for stylised physical theatre sequences and use the entirety of The Front Room as a performance space seems like a crazy creative choice, yet somehow it all worked. If the lunatics are running the asylum, I would like to be in Hinman’s ward please.
We have yet to see the versatility of The Front Room fully explored, but there are several moments in Six Characters where the space becomes an actor, demonstrating the distance between the worlds of the characters and the actors by utilising the upper tier as an extension of the stage, or positioning the audience within the action. Basic theatre principles, such as making use of different levels, making a stage entrance with a clear idea of where the character has come from, and varied vocal modulation are used to excellent effect.
There were some clear standouts in the cast, who must be mentioned: Sienna Gutsell as stepdaughter and Grace Opie as son play their parts with more maturity and intelligence than should be possible at their stage in life. They both maintain the audience’s attention through lengthy, complicated speeches, shift tonal pitch as the action demands, and showcase the foundation of essential voice, body and movement skills a professional actor builds a career on. Rose Fleet embodies the director with such assurance and vocal power it seems she has stepped out of the Court Theatre rehearsal room. It is not only those cast in larger roles who impress; proving the adage about no small roles, Ben Hamm and Philippa Morphet say less than others, but make every word count.
Moments from this play are still replaying in my mind, and aspects of the story brought up some confronting questions for me, which speaks to the effectiveness of this work. I’m not going to claim to fully understand the script or this production of it, but I am so very glad I had opportunity to be confused in such fine company.
“Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!”
Six Character in Search of an Author plays at the Court Theatre until Saturday 13 September, 2025.
Flat City Field Notes 