Director Zeffirelli's first encounter with Pirandello's dramaturgy occurred with this play, built around the performance of a great leading lady. Alongside Paola Borboni, who had starred in 1968 in "Venti zecchini d'oro", the protagonists were other two professionals who had collaborated with Zeffirelli on multiple occasions: Alfredo Bianchini, a friend since youth, a refined actor and singer, who performed in stage productions such as "Euridice" and "Romeo and Juliet", and in several of Zeffirelli's films; and Pino Colizzi, an actor in several theatrical productions, the Italian voice dubber for Michael York in "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Romeo and Juliet", for Jon Voigt in "The Champ", and most notably for Robert Powell in "Jesus of Nazareth", and since 1979 the dubbing director for all of Zeffirelli's films.
The single set conceived by Zeffirelli replaced the bourgeois living room described in the play with the stage of a talk show. The petty curiosity of a provincial town thus became the ruthless voyeurism of a television audience. This concept would later be revisited and reimagined twenty years later in the English production of the play.