Masks And Mummeries In Enrico 117 and Caligula>

To PROPOSE Pirandello's Henry IV and Camus' Caligula as representative of the conventional and traditional theater is, admittedly, unconventional. Critics continue to categorize both plays as dramas of the Absurd, while popular taste, accustomed to a slice-of-life realism in the modem theater, hesitates to look upon the theater of Pirandello and Camus as anything other than an avant-garde freak, interesting and provocative perhaps, but little more. The inability of both critic and popular audiences to accept Henry IV and Caligula as traditional theater arises, perhaps, from the utilization in both plays of currently unfamiliar theatrical devices, devices which are artificial and stylized rather than realistic. I refer specifically to the play-within-the-play and the assumption of a role within the play. Furthermore, that Pirandello and Camus utilize these age-old artifices of the theater as the main agents in revealing thesis, character, and action in their plays additionally hinders modem audiences from fully understanding Henry IV and Caligula. For, under the influence of nineteenth and twentieth century realism, we have forgotten that the essential nature of the traditional stage is basically artificial and stylized.