In this ruthlessly funny Pirandello comedy, a "virtuous" married woman has been carrying on an affair with a private tutor while her husband, the Captain, is away at sea. Now the Captain is returning imminently, and her lover must escape the house without being discovered. But escaping proves nearly impossible in a household that seems designed to expose every lie. Through a Farce-like cascade of close calls and mistaken identities, Pirandello dissects the theatricality of bourgeois morality: the woman who calls herself virtuous betrays her husband; the man of culture preaches about civilization while scheming like a cad; and the "beast" of a Captain might be the most honest creature of all. Written in 1919 and based on an earlier novella, this is Pirandello at his most accessible yet still deeply unsettling, stripping away the masks we wear to reveal the absurd creatures beneath.
