THE GREAT PIRANDELLO

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1082, 20 September 1930, Page 1

THE GREAT PIRANDELLO

FIVE HOURS’ WORK A DAY—AND 120 CIGARETTES! NOW INTERESTED IN TALKIES Pirandello, the famous Italian dramatist, has Veen visiting London. The following interview appeared in the “Daily Mail.” ! piRANDELLO, I felt, should be seen in a tapestried room at the top !of an ivory tower. So great a figure ! among the highbrows as this Italian ; dramatist of world reputation should surely be met only in lofty seclusion; ! yet here he was approaching me in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel, Lon- : don. We shook hands and he smiled. He offered me a cigarette and began talkI ing in quick enthusiastic tones about his new plays, new talking pictures, new novels. "Why did j'ou decide to work for the talking pictures?” I asked. “Because,” he said, “I want to keep young.” “Why are you in London?” “I have just sold four plays to Shubert iu New York, aud I came over to find if Cochran would be interested in them for London. One is being produced in London in October.” "I suppose that proves you have now achieved popularity. How do you like it?” “I prefer a quiet life.” “What then is your idea of happi ness ?” “Writing, writing writing.” “And when you stop writing?” “I shall die.” 120 Cigarettes a Day “How much writing do you do in a day?” “Five hours —and smoke 120 cigarettes.” “What are you going to do when vou have finished all the films and plays for which you are under contract?” “I shall then retire to write my masterpiece —a novel called 'Adam and Eve.’ ” "What will be the idea of it? This question set his imagination alight. He sat forward in his chair. His eyes sparkled. His hands grew eloquent and ideas came from him in a cataract. Adam and Eve in Pirandello’s hook •will be the last man and woman on earth —not the first. An earthquake will have destroyed every other human being. They alone are the repository of all the civilisation, the art, the science, the history of the world. All the gold of all the nations is theirs alone. They have a son and then a daughter. These two must marry if the world is to be repeopled. Adam and Eve with all their load of accumulated civilisation and convention are a check on the primitive instincts ot their children. . . . Ultimately the children kill their parents. The cataract slowed down. “How long • will it take you to write?” “Perhaps ten years.