Così è (se vi pare)
Set of posters for a theatre production based on Così è (se vi pare), (Right You Are - if you think so), by Luigi Pirandello. The show was made by Sur la Scène, a theatre company based in Sospirolo, Italy.
2017
The play, published in 1917, revolves around one of Pirandello's favourite themes, the relativity of truth: there is not just one truth, but many truths, depending on our subjective view of reality.
A man, his wife and his mother-in-law move to a provincial town after a earthquake has destroyed their home. The townspeople start to investigate about them, getting more and more curious as the time goes by. They want to know why the couple does not live together with the older lady, and who is the wife, whom everyone has yet to see. The man and the mother-in-law are interrogated by the townspeople but each one of them tells a different story and claims the other one is insane. In a obsessive pursue of the truth, the wife, the only one who can solve the mystery, is invited to a town assembly. The woman claims - in a famous line - that she is whoever you believe she is.
The poster features a mask - one of Pirandello's favourite symbols - made with the collage technique. The pieces of paper, ripped from magazine photos, create an ambiguous and anonymous face: what we see is not real.
