BWW Reviews: IN SEARCH OF MRS. PIRANDELLO at the Wildside Festival

In Search of Mrs. Pirandello is a brilliant play by a young Montreal writer, Michaela Di Cesare. It first premiered at the 2015 Montreal Fringe Festival and has since become even more polished.

Running at the 19th annual Wildside Festival a the Centaur Theatre, the show chronicles a fascinating descent into history as the Di Cesare, who plays the role of The Searcher, investigates the story of Luigi Pirandello's ill-fated wife, Antonietta.

Based on the historical record, the play explores how a woman can become nothing more than a footnote in the biography of a great man, and how the push and pull of time can bring two different narratives into sharp focus.

As The Searcher digs for information about what happened to Antonietta before and after she was confined to a mental hospital for 40 years, the figures of Antonietta and Luigi come to life in the vivid performances of Tara Nicodemo and Davide Chiazzese.

Nicodemo is a new edition since the last incarnation of the show and she proves to be highly advantageous choice. She brings a sense of gravitas and power to the production that balances nicely with the overbearing personality of her husband. Chiazzese is a very versatile actor, and his performance of the manic, struggling artist Pirandello is without reproach.

Director Cristina Cugliandro makes great use of the lighting and set design to create shadow figures backlit against tall linen drapes. This gives an eerie, disquieting atmosphere to some of the most intense scenes as the play weaves in themes of madness and mistrust.

The play succeeds in raising questions about the evolving relationship between history and art, fiction and fact, and the merit of storytelling in a postmodern age. By acknowledging its own bias and motivations, the play offers the audience a unique chance to think, to engage and to search for their own answers.

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