th century. Modernism rejected traditions that existed in the nineteenth century and sought to stretch the boundaries, striking out in new directions and with new techniques. More was demanded of the reader of literature or the viewer of art. Answers were not presented directly to issues raised, but instead the artist demanded the participation of the audience more directly in elucidating meaning and in seeing the relationship between technique and meaning (Baldick 140). In part, this was a response to the discovery and dissemination of ideas from psychology showing the complexities of human experience in a new light. Science was discovering the uncertainties of existence. The atomic world showed that the reality we perceive through the sense is not the only reality. Psychology was showing that behavior was more complex than previously imagined and that there was an entire world of relationships and forces that was hidden. The ambiguities and uncertainties that this new knowledge created was expressed in different ways by artists in different fields. In the theater, playwrights such as Pirandello and Brecht delved into abstract structures and borrowed from the abstractions of other cultures--notably Oriental forms such as the Japanese Noh drama--to escape from the realism of the theater of the nineteenth century.
The very act of creating a theatrical experience can have a political meaning, and this is especially true in modernist works that seek to involve the audience more directly in the experience. In the case of Six Characters in Search of an Author, the author himself had certain political ideals which are likely to have colored how he shaped the work.
Fascism is a political ideology that was tested in this century in Germany and Italy and that was thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the world by the conclusion of World War II. Italian fascism was shaped by Benito Mussolini and his followers. Eugen Weber m...