LUIGI PIRANDELLO (Girgenti 1867 - Rome 1936) was arguably the most influential playwright in the 20th century, and his writings attract even more scholarly attention today. His plays challenge incessantly our perception of reality, exposing the grotesque elements that make up all manner of social behaviour. He has been criticised for paying lip service to Mussolini's regime, but the prevailing scholarship today recognizes the real purpose behind the playwright's political stance: Pirandello's interest, first and foremost, was to promote his theatre, and he did not hesitate to "act" in order to gain the necessary government backing. Significantly, Alice Rohe regarded him as the harbinger of a new Italian Renaissance. Pirandello was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934.