The Manager often makes the situationally-ironic complaint that a certain character, scene, or event "won't act," despite the fact that the play is already in motion. In Act 1, the Step-Daughter describes how the Father followed her around the streets, but the Manager says it could never come to fruition as a scene in their play:
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Yes, yes. True. He used to follow me in the street and smiled at me, waved his hand, like this. I would look at him with interest, wondering who he might be. I told my mother, who guessed at once (the Mother agrees with a nod). Then she didn’t want to send me to school for some days; and when I finally went back, there he was again—looking so ridiculous—with a paper parcel in his hands. He came close to me, caressed me, and drew out a fine straw hat from the parcel, with a bouquet of flowers—all for me! THE MANAGER. A bit discursive this, you know!
THE SON (contemptuously). Literature! Literature!
THE FATHER. Literature indeed! This is life, this is passion!
THE MANAGER. It may be, but it won’t act.
Here, Pirandello offers four very contradictory viewpoints: the daughter describes events in her life; the son displays contempt for her story with the verbally ironic statement "Literature! Literature!"; the father takes his statement literally and then takes it even farther: "this is passion!"; and the Manager muses that "it may be" but also asserts that "it won't act." He draws this conclusion because the family continues to contradict itself while complaining that the actors are doing an inadequate job of expressing their story.
The Manager's conclusion is a good example of situational irony because his words do not match reality. The Step-Daughter's description does, in fact, act, because it becomes a source of conflict, the beginning of a literary call-and-response that reveals a key aspect of each character. Another interpretation of this phrase—that the scene will not be allowed to be acted out on the stage due to its inappropriate content—grounds the Manager's words in political and social reality. However, this moment would still be situationally ironic, because regardless of why the play might "not act," it is still in the process of being acted as the viewer hears these words.
The title of Six Characters in Search of an Author is a great example of situational irony. Situational irony comes from a contradiction between expectation and reality. In this story, the characters claim to be searching for an unknown author despite the fact that they already have an author—Pirandello! Nonetheless, the entire plot of this play revolves around six people who claim they need an author in order to exist in the world of a story. The Father says in Act 1: "As a manner of fact [...] we have come here in search of an author," and he insists that the Manager help them create their "comedy":
Look here! look here! The comedy has to be made. (to the manager:) But if you and your actors are willing, we can soon concert it among ourselves.
Throughout the play, each character reinforces his insistence on the creation of the family's story. However, the viewer gradually realizes the story's irony: the very same characters who claim to search for an author would not exist unless an author had created them. This idea creates many questions, both about theater and about life. In the world of theater, how do characters take shape in an author's mind? What makes them seem so real in the greatest stories? In the realm of human life, how can people be sure of their own realities? Isn't everything, to an extent, a performance? The seeming paradox of Pirandello's title reveals itself to be an ironic scenario that provokes some weighty questions in a playful manner.
Not much happens in Six Characters in Search of an Author, and Pirandello uses situational irony to reinforce this fact. In Act 3, the Manager tries to resist it by claiming that "drama is action" and "not confounded philosophy":
THE MANAGER. You’ve got to understand that you can’t go on arguing at your own pleasure. Drama is action, sir, action and not confounded philosophy.
In this scene, the Manager becomes increasingly frustrated by the Father's constant criticism. The Manager strives to construct a play; the Father keeps trying to change his plans to make the story more accurate. Why is this a good example of situational irony? Situational irony occurs when reality greatly differs from expectation; here the manager insists that "drama is action" when in reality Pirandello's play is constituted almost entirely by existential speculation. This moment is necessary and significant because it shows how blatantly this play defies the viewer's expectations. It contains far less action than philosophy and far fewer answers than questions; one might say that its philosophical passages constitute the main action of the play, or that the dramatic actions are largely psychological. By having the Manager insist that "drama is action," Pirandello challenges not only the viewers' interpretation of his play but also their conception of theater.
