Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the works of Luigi Pirandello, Italian dramatist and poet; especially describing drama in which actors become inseparable and indistinct from the characters that they play.

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Examples

  • Since then, any play or movie that reveals a similar awareness is described as "Pirandellian."

    KansasCity.com: Front Page 2011

  • But this kind of Pirandellian journey into reality isn't something you trifle with: it's a bottomless lake in hell, not a wading pool in Withrow Park.

    Thestar.com - Home Page 2009

  • So you get tuneful songs such as "Filling Out the Form" and "Development Medley" and "Awkward Photo Shoot," and a cascade of Pirandellian moments in which the characters telegraph the fact that they know they are real people trapped in a work of fiction.

    Theater review: Peter Marks on '[title of show]' at Signature Theatre Peter Marks 2010

  • The play doesn't get into actual torture until Act II, but it does not end by spiraling down into darkness; I'm proud of the odd, Pirandellian ending, in which Felicity insists on finding some alternative outcomes (which I prefer not to describe here).

    Chris Durang: I've Written a Play on Torture 2009

  • Yet if "Synecdoche" represents the prototype of the Kaufman story, with its Pirandellian touches and tricky surprises, his best film is an outlier.

    Untangling Charlie Kaufman 2008

  • For one of the most fascinating things about this behind-the-scenes, no-holds-barred document of her 1990 worldwide Blond Ambition concert tour is Madonna's Pirandellian gift for revealing everything and nothing simultaneously.

    Madonna Lets It All Hang Out 2008

  • This pop-Pirandellian concept, written by Ephron with her sister Delia, yields some healthy laughs.

    WITCHY WOMAN 2007

  • Behind the camera and in the editing room, he manages to keep the Pirandellian pathology of the situation under control, as his acting alter ego explores the paradoxes that come with a life spent mixing make-believe and reality.

    Austin Powers Is Back With A Frenzy of Cesspool Humor 2002

  • It never resorts to Pirandellian maneuvers to lend irony to the simple scenario.

    The Man Who Made Kids Has Redeemed Himself 1999

  • It never resorts to Pirandellian maneuvers to lend irony to the simple scenario.

    The Man Who Made Kids Has Redeemed Himself 1999

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