Two Riddles – Luigi Pirandello

Notos Theatre

First performance: Friday, March 17, 1995

“The performance consists of two one-act plays by Pirandello, The Vice (1892) and I’m Dreaming (But Am I?) (1929).

The Vice was written in 1892 and is the first extant play from Pirandello’s youth. Its original title was The Epilogue, but Pirandello later retitled it La Morsa [The Vice], with the subtitle “Epilogue in One Act.” The subject revolves around the dramatic ending, the “epilogue” of a woman’s ordeal as she is crushed by the vice grip of a tormenting relationship (wife-mother-mistress), ultimately leading to her suicide. The Vice is the only one-act play that preceded its corresponding short story, which was published in 1897 under the title La Paura [The Fear].

From Marios Ploritis’ foreword to:

Luigi Pirandello, Short Stories and One-Act Plays, Gonis Publishing, translated by O. Argyropoulos, Athens (2005). Edited by L. Tsoukala.