«Rappresentazione in tre atti»was first published in 1933 in Milan by Mondadori, and then posthumously (1938) by the same publisher, in the ninth volume of the third collection of Maschere nude , together with Non si sa come and Trovarsi. The work, named by Pirandello in German (Wenn man jemand ist), debuted on stage in Spanish (Cuando se es alguien) in Buenos Aires on 20 September 1933, and was finally performed in Italy (Sanremo) on 7 November of the same year.
The title has gnomic luck rather than stage luck, but its plot is firmly rooted in Pirandello's research: the breakdown of identity, reality and fiction, image. Names like others of that fortunate disparity between life and form, here chromatically polarised by the vitality of “a red woman, of dreams” and the marble pallor of a statue.
