GRICE E PIRANDELLO

 andello’s  HENRY IV  In a new version by  Tom Stoppard  1Contents  Section 1: Cast list and plot summary 3  Section 2: A performance history of Henry IV 5  Early Italian stagings of Henry IV and subsequent  productions in Britain 5  The performance history in context 7  HENRY IV in a new version by Tom Stoppard at the Donmar, 2004 8  Section 3: Section 4: Key concepts and ideas in the Pirandellian play 9  The Face and the Mask 9  The Theatre of the Looking Glass 9  Costruisi – building yourself up A play about time 10  Themes of Madness, Reality & Illusion 10  11  The role of set design and costume in HENRY IV Design concepts for the production Design concepts for ‘the play within a play’ 12  12  12  The Portraits 13  Section 5: Pirandello in relation to other theatre practitioners 16  Pirandello and Stoppard 16  Pirandello and Stanislavski 16  Pirandello and Shakespeare 17  Pirandello and Pirandello 17  Section 6: The rehearsal process Approaching rehearsals for HENRY IV Inside the rehearsal room 18  Practical work on the text 18  18  22  Section 7: Follow-up material 25  Assessing the production 25  Ideas for further practical work 25  Section 8: Biographies of non-fictional characters referred  to in the script 26  Section 9: Bibliography and suggestions for further study 27  2section  1  Cast list and plot summary  ‘Henry IV is a play about madness, time, aging, masks, and the attempt to  escape from one reality and substitute another of one’s own making. In this  substitution we see a man attempt to control his life in the same way that a  playwright shapes his play or an actor his character’  Richard Oliver, Dreams of Passion: The Theatre of Luigi Pirandello1  Cast  In order of appearance  Harold: Stuart Burt  Landolf: James Lance  Ordulf: Neil McDermott  Bertold: Nitzan Sharron  Giovanni: Brian Poyser  Marquis Carlo Di Nolli: Orlando Wells  Baron Tito Belcredi: David Yelland  Marchese Matilda: Francesca Annis  Frida: Tania Emery  Doctor: Robert Demeger  Henry IV: Ian McDiarmid  Photograph by Ivan Kyncl  Creative Team  Director: Michael Grandage  Designer: Christopher Oram  Lighting Designer: Neil Austin  Music & Sound Score: Adam Cork  Sound Designer: Fergus O’Hare  ◊ Ian McDiarmid as Henry IV in Tom  Stoppard’s version of Pirandello’s  HENRY IV, Donmar 2004  3Plot summary  The play opens in what appears to be the throne room of the 11th century Holy  Roman Emperor Henry IV. It soon transpires that courtiers in medieval costumes  are taking part in a charade in present day Italy. They have been hired to pretend  to be the counsellors of a mad nobleman who has believed himself to be Henry IV  since falling off a horse 20 years earlier. The accident took place during a pageant  in which the nobleman was dressed as the Emperor Henry IV. His wealthy sister  – who has recently died – provided him with the palace and the followers to enable  him to live out his delusion.  In Act One, a group of aristocrats arrive to meet Henry. They are:  The Marquis di Nolli - Henry’s Nephew, the son of his recently deceased sister  Frida - Di Nolli’s fiancée  Matilda - Frida’s Mother and the woman whom Henry was formerly in  love with.  Belcredi – Matilda’s lover and Henry’s old rival  Genoni – A Doctor  The aristocrats have to dress up in 11th century style costumes and assume the  roles of characters known to the Emperor, Henry IV, before they can meet him.  In Act Two, the aristocrats – led by the Doctor – initiate a strategy to shock Henry  out of his madness. Frida and Di Nolli are dressed in masquerade costumes to  resemble the young Henry and Matilda. They are to stand in front of two portraits  of the young Henry and Matilda - painted in the costumes worn during the fateful  pageant when Henry was still young and sane.  Meanwhile, Henry reveals to his counsellors that he is not mad at all; after 12  years of believing he was actually Henry IV, he then became conscious of his true  identity, although chose to continue to live out his created fiction of madness.  When the masqueraded Frida in Act Three confronts Henry, he is almost driven  mad again by seeing what he thinks is the portrait of Matilda come to life. When  Belcredi accuses Henry of play-acting, Henry takes his revenge and stabs Belcredi  to death. Having acted in sanity, he is now perceived to be actually mad and the  play ends with his realisation that he has now trapped himself in the role of the  mad Emperor for the rest of his life.  4section  2  A performance history of  Henry IV  Early Italian stagings of Henry IV and  subsequent productions in Britain.  Milan, 1922  The first production of Henry IV was staged at the Teatro Manzoni, Milan, on 24  February 1922. It was performed by Ruggero Ruggeri’s Company, with Ruggeri  playing the title role.  Rome, 1925  The play was revived at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, on the 11 June 1925 by Luigi  Pirandello’s Company.  Britain, 1924 and 1925  This was followed by a European tour where the play received its first professional  British staging at the New Oxford Theatre in late June 1925 – albeit in Italian –  again, with Ruggeri playing the title role. (There had been an amateur production  of the play at the Amateur Dramatic Club, Cambridge, 7 June 1924, translated by  Edward Storer):  Madness, whether treated poetically as by Shakespeare, or ironically, as by  Pirandello, is always a moving spectacle. It becomes terrible at the hands of  Ruggero Ruggeri.  The Times, 19 June 1925  Later in the same year, the play received another production at the Everyman  Theatre, Hampstead, with Ernest Milton in the title role. The translation used was  again by Edward Storer:  Mr Milton was better than the actor in the A.D.C.’s (the Amateur Dramatic Club,  Cambridge) production of a year ago – as perhaps can go without saying, as  the comparison is that of a professional against amateur – but he was also more  interesting, I thought, even than the star tragedian of Signor Pirandello’s Company  that recently appeared in London.  Unmarked Newspaper Review, Theatre Museum Archives  5Mr Milton did, from this first entrance, with his horribly unreal flaxen hair, his  haggard painted cheeks, and his pale robe of sackcloth hanging on him like a  shroud, stamp on the audience once and for all the shuddering horror of an  apparition from another world – not from the world beyond the grave, but from the  world of one who has entered the grave in his own lifetime.  Unmarked Newspaper Review, Theatre Museum Archives  London, 1953  The play was next revived in London at St James’ Theatre on 20 April 1953, when  Ruggero Ruggeri – at the age of 82 – returned to London with another Italian  production of the play.  Everything hangs on the part of the “Emperor” who explores the no-mans land  between illusion and so-called truth, and Signor Ruggeri, who played the part so  memorably in 1925, is an actor who even now has the power to make us shy over  our shadows: a sly glint in the eye, a speaking hand movement, and a power to  surprise us which mark the great interpreter.  Manchester Guardian, 22 April 1953  London, 1973  London didn’t see its next staging of Henry IV until February 1974, when Rex  Harrison played Henry at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Clifford William’s directed:  Harrison assumes the pursy, dropsical look of the incarcerated invalid. On each  bloated cheek is a dab of red paint. The hair is lank, the skin bewhiskered, the head  rigid and strained, the eyes almost blind. Yet he has a chilling majesty, querulously  issuing high, off-hand orders and dominating the court like a ruined cathedral in its  close.  Daily Telegraph, 21 February 1974.  London, 1990  The play’s most recent London production was in May 1990 at the Wyndham’s  Theatre with Richard Harris playing Henry:  …from the moment when he suddenly removes his Henry IV make-up and wig and  declares, with a breathtakingly, blokey casualness that he is ‘so bloody bored’ with  the whole pretence, Harris plays the part with a wonderfully tamed and caustic  daring.  ‘He who plays the king’, Paul Taylor, The Independent, 26 May 1990  6The performance history of Henry IV in context.  Pirandello ranks in importance with Goldoni in the Italian theatre and has had a  major influence on the development of modern European drama. Why, then, has  Henry IV received so few revivals in Britain since the first professional production  staged here eighty years ago?  The British Theatre wanting to capture the ‘zeitgeist’ of modern European drama  can best explain the early productions that were staged in Britain. In a post- First  World War Britain, where the ideas of Sigmund Freud were being embraced  into the culture, it seems fitting that audiences should be drawn to a play that  explores the boundaries of illusion and reality in such a profound way. Freud had  revealed the multi-dimensionality of personality, as well as the unconscious. It was  Pirandello’s transformation of these thoughts from theory to artistic creation that  was so timely for audiences throughout Europe.  However, the play was perceived to be problematic in terms of its staging, which  could account for it not being revived in London again until nearly twenty years  after Pirandello’s death and nearly a decade after the Second World War. The  plot was deemed to be complex, with the opening of the play taken up with the  exposition of plot and details relating to Henry IV and his relationship with Pope  Gregory. Indeed, writing about the 1953 London revival in The Daily Mail, Cecil  Wilson commented that ‘even the Italian Ambassador, Signor Brosio, confessed in  the interval that he could hardly find his way through the maze.’  The rationale for the subsequent revival in 1974 was attributed by some of the  critics to the general interest in the ideas of R. D. Laing at the time. Michael  Billington, writing in the Guardian, was struck by the production’s ‘extraordinary  resonant modernity’:  …when Henry claims that the madman “can challenge your logic with a logic of his  own” and that the sane man says a thing can’t be while the madman says everything  can be, we are plunged straight into the world of R. D. Laing  The Guardian, 21 February 1974  Irving Wardle noted that ‘in Langian terms, he (Henry) has retreated into the  eleventh-century masquerade as a strategy for living in an unlovable situation.’  When Billington saw the play again, during its revival at the Wyndham’s Theatre  in 1990 in the latter years of the Thatcher Government, it appeared to him to be ‘a  tougher, harsher work about a man trapped inside a historical mask, denied wife,  child or ordinary human contact.’ A solitary protagonist, viewed by an audience  who’s Prime Minister had told them there was ‘no such thing as Society’.  7Photograph by Ivan Kyncl  Ÿ Ian McDiarmid as Henry IV  in Tom Stoppard’s version of  Pirandello’s HENRY IV, Donmar  2004  Henry IV in a new version by Tom Stoppard at  the Donmar Warehouse, 2004  Michael Grandage, the Donmar’s Artistic Director and the director of HENRY IV,  recognised the problematic areas of the play - as discussed in the previous  section – feeling that the original play was a somewhat impenetrable piece for a  contemporary theatre audience. This is why he commissioned Tom Stoppard to  create a new version of the play; to bring it to life and make it watchable. The key  creative decision made when conceiving this new version of the play was to place  HENRY IV’s Medieval Court against a contemporary backdrop. The production  is therefore set in 2004 as opposed to the 1920s – the setting contemporary  to Pirandello at the time of writing the play. The production has been given a  deliberately modern feel, with, for example, the ‘aristocrats’ appearing in this  season’s Georgio Armani designs when they arrive at Henry’s court.  ‘This translation flows; it has passion and humour. You can hear Tom Stoppard’s  voice in the play.’  Charlie Westenra, Assistant Director  8section  3  Key concepts and ideas in  the Pirandellian play  This section looks at the fundamental concepts and ideas behind Pirandello’s plays  – with particular reference to Henry IV. See how many of these ideas you can  identify when you watch the Donmar’s production of the play.  The Face and the Mask  The main idea behind most of Pirandello’s plays is that Life (or reality or time) is  fluid and indefinable and that man uses reason to give life definition. But, because  life is indefinable such concepts are illusions. Man is sometimes aware of this  illusionary nature of his concepts, but ‘anything without structure fills him with  dread and uncertainty’.2 The drama that Pirandello created from this idea is usually  described with reference to the face and the mask. The face represents the  complex suffering of the individual; the mask represents the external form and  social laws. For Pirandello, all social institutions and systems of thought – from  religion and law to philosophy and morality – are ways in which society creates  a mask, fixing the face of man by classifying him. As well as the mask being put  on the face by the external world, Pirandello believed that it could often be the  construct of internal demands. The mask can sometimes be literal, as in his play  Six Characters in Search of an Author, or take the form of costumes, make-up and  props, as in Henry IV. It can also be a metaphorical concept.  The Theatre of the Looking Glass  Man’s acceptance by society of a superimposed identity is the concept behind  Pirandello’s teatro dello specchio (theatre of the looking glass). The image of the  mirror and reflection occurs in most of his plays. However, the reflecting mirror is  the inner eye as well as the eye of the world.  The portraits of the young Henry and Matilda hung in the throne room exemplify  this idea:  LANDOLF: they’re paintings to the touch. But to Himself, seeing as he never  touches them…to him they’re more like, whatsits, representations  of – yes – what you’d see in a mirror. That one is him just as he  is, in this throne room which is right in every detail, no surprises,  see? If it was a mirror, you’d see yourself in the eleventh century.  So that’s what he sees. Himself. So it’s like mirrors reflecting back  a world which comes to life in them, like it will for you, you’ll see,  don’t worry.  HENRY IV by Tom Stoppard, Act One.  9Costruirsi – building yourself up  When Pirandello’s characters put on their masks to hide their shameful faces, they  are building themselves up into a role, such as the role of the madman as taken  on by the nobleman in Henry IV. This is what Pirandello’s term costruirsi refers to.  The term becomes even more complex when considering the way in which Henry  builds himself into a role: he is not simply playing Henry IV; he is playing the older  Henry IV playing the young, 26 year old Henry of the portrait, from which he longs  to be freed. With his dyed hair and his rouged cheeks, he enacts a masquerade  within a masquerade.  HENRY: A woman who wishes she were a man…an old man who wishes  he were young…None of us lies or pretends – what happens is,  in all sincerity, we inhabit the self we have chosen for ourselves,  and don’t let go. But while you’re holding tight, gripping on to your  monk’s robe, Monsignor, from out your sleeve something  slithers without you noticing: your life!  HENRY IV by Tom Stoppard, Act One  ⁄ Francesca Annis  as Matilda in Tom  Stoppard’s version of  Pirandello’s HENRY IV,  Donmar 2004  A play about time.  The passing of time is a central theme in  Henry IV. Henry has a need to live in his  youth; yet at the same time he has lost  eighteen years of his original life, including  the twelve years after the accident that  have been stolen from him - when he was  oblivious to his existence.  ‘Henry IV’ is a play about the process of time,  its relativity, and its constant and unstoppable  passing. It is also about a man’s most critical  experience of time’s passing – aging. The  process of growing old – of becoming a  series of other persons, physically as well as  psychologically, of remembering what one  once looked like and acted like – is dealt  with graphically. The fixity of one’s image  in the past (as represented concretely by the  paintings of Henry and Matilda) is contrasted  with the change of image in the present,  including the use of makeup in a futile attempt  to stop the change of time and make life  conform to the image of the past.’  Dreams of Passion: The Theatre of Luigi  Pirandello by Roger Oliver, page 131  10Themes of Madness, Reality & Illusion  MATILDA: ‘I’ll never forget it, those faces…distorted, appalled in the face of his  fury, which was no longer a masquerade but madness unmasked -  HENRY IV by Tom Stoppard, Act One  Henry’s madness is inextricably linked to notions of reality and illusion. There is no  doubt that Henry’s madness resulted from the knock to his head acquired during  the fall from his horse at the pageant. However, we discover that he is ‘playing’  the madman when he declares himself sane in Act II; yet he laughs ‘insanely’  according to the stage directions in Act III as he takes Frida in his arms prior to  his ‘mad’ act of killing Belcredi. Before killing Belcredi, Henry has the choice of  dropping his persona as Henry IV; after it, he will be trapped inside the persona, as  he was when his madness was real. The theatrical metaphor has been extended:  the mask has become a reality and he must now give his performance as Henry IV  forever.  Discussion Point  Our culture seems to have become  pre-occupied with glimpsing into the  ‘real’ world of other people’s lives,  from exposes of celebrities in tabloid  newspapers, to reality TV shows. To  what extent are we presented with  ‘real’ or ‘constructed’ truths through  these media?  Practical Excercise  How would you approach playing the role of Henry IV? Give particular thought to  how you would contrast your performance as the ‘real’ Henry with the ‘mad’ Henry.  In pairs, put your ideas into practice by rehearsing this short section form Act II,  where Henry brings to a close his audience with the ‘aristocrats’ in their feigned  guises. Take it in turns to play Henry, with the other person taking on the role of  director.  HENRY: “ …(to the Doctor) What I think, Monsignor, is that ghosts for the most part  are fragments of the unconscious escaping from our dreams, and sometimes when we  see them wide-awake, in broad daylight, they startle us. I’m always frightened in the  night when they appear – so many disjointed images, people laughing, riders got down  from their horses…I’m frightened sometimes by the blood pounding through my vains  in the stillness of the night, like the heavy thud of footsteps in distant rooms… but  I’ve kept you standing here long enough. My respects, Duchess, and regards to you,  Monsignor.  (Matlida and the Doctor bow in return, and leave. Henry closes the door and turns  around, changed.)  What a bunch of wankers! I played them like a piano with a different colour for every  key – I only had to touch them – white, red, yellow and green – and that other one,  Peter Damien! – Ha! I saw through him alright! He didn’t dare show his face again!”  HENRY IV by Tom Stoppard, Act Two  11section  4  The role of set design and  costume in HENRY IV  Setting and costume are integral both to Henry’s creation of his Medieval world  and to Pirandello in his creation of the world of the play.  Design concepts for the production  The Throne Room – where the play opens – is where Henry receives his visitors  and gives his performance. The text intimates that it has been built to give the  impression of being in an 11th century palace – but behind the scenes has the  trappings of twenty fi rst century living – such as electricity. As mentioned earlier,  the Donmar’s production has been given a deliberately modern feel, with, for  example, the ‘aristocrats’ appearing in this seasons Armani designs when they  arrive at Henry’s court, emphasising the notion of all the characters – not just  Henry – building themselves up into a role to present themselves to society. This  contemporary style of dress will also emphasis the confl ict between past and  present in strikingly visual terms.  Observation point  After you have seen the production, assess the overall visual impact of the play, in terms of the  way set and costumes were used to highlight the central ideas of the piece.  Design concepts for ‘the play within a play’  The counsellors stress the need for the visitors to wear medieval costumes when  they meet Henry and enter his illusionary world. As the counsellors dress Matilda,  Belcredi and the Doctor for their meeting with Henry, they emphasise that the  person they have chosen to represent is unimportant: different people often  meet Henry in the same costume as the same historical character. As Landolf  says, Henry ‘doesn’t take in faces, only clothes’. In a society so pre-occupied with  ‘surface’ values, it is natural that such an assumption should be made.  When the visitors fi nally meet Henry, he comments on his dyed hair colour as if it  were real. The stage directions read that he ‘shows Matilda his hair colour, almost  coquettishly’ saying ‘Look! Still blond!’ Yet later in the scene he intimates that he  is aware of the construction that he has created:  HENRY: We all hug our idea of ourselves to ourselves. As our hair turns  greyer, we keep pace with the colouring bottle. It is of no  consequence that I fool nobody. You, Duchess, don’t fool yourself  or anybody else – perhaps the image in your mirror, just a tiny bit.  I do it to amuse myself. You do it in earnest. But no amount of  12ÿ Orlando Wells as Di  Nolli in Tom Stoppard’s  version of Pirandello’s  HENRY IV, Donmar 2004  Discussion Point  Read the following extract from a newspaper  article printed recently on the front page of The  Times newspaper:  ‘ “I have measured out my life with photo  opportunities”. The thoughts, no doubt, of David  Beckham as he responded last night to the latest  outburst of publicity by courting more publicity.  He went to the Royal Albert Hall, in the close and  affectionate company of Mrs Beckham, wearing a  new and dramatic haircut. Gone was the Legolas  look, banished the ponytail., a no-hair haircut  redolent of Buddhist humility….he also wore rosary  beads in case anybody missed the point…The  couple were described as being “very touchy-  feely”. Their affection, like everything else in their  lives, seems to have little reality until performed in  public.’  ‘The Beckhams stage a command performance, by  Simon Barnes, The Times, 20th April 2004.  How conscious do you believe Beckam’s decision  was to ‘construct’ an image for the public on this  occasion?  What sort of ‘mask’ did he wish to represent to  them and what props and costume did he use to  achieve this?  earnestness stops it being a masquerade, and  I’m not referring to your cloak and coronet.  I’m talking about a memory of yourself you  want to hold tight, the memory of a day gone  by when to be fair-haired was your delight  – or dark haired if you were dark. The faded  memory of being young.’  HENRY IV by Tom Stoppard, Act One  Observation point  After you have seen the production, assess  the overall importance of the portraits to the  play’s central themes and ideas.  The Portraits  A key feature in the room is two ‘portraits’. In this production  they are represented as old style, sepia photographs,  as opposed to paintings, in order to emphasise the  contemporary feel of the play. The photos are of Henry and  Matilda – the woman he loved at the time of the accident  – as they appeared in Medieval dress at the masquerade.  13  Photograph by Ivan KynclInterview  Su-Fern Lee - the Donmar’s volunteer in the Development  Department - interviews the Designer of HENRY IV,  Christopher Oram and asks him about his inspiration for  the play  SFL: Henry IV by Tom Stoppard, Can you tell me  how you started work on HENRY IV?  CO: Well HENRY has been quite a challenging  show to research. First of all, there is the  assumption that it is about Henry IV of England.  Everyone assumes that it is by Shakespeare,  or assumes it is a version of the Shakespeare  story about Falstaff. In fact, you are looking at a  whole different era and the truth about Henry IV  of Germany is that he lived in the 11th century  and that consequently he is practically un-  researchable. He is very old, about 1000 years  old, and lived in a period closer to the Roman  Empire than to the medieval world. Hardly  anything from that period still exists and what  does exist is gothic cathedral art, manuscripts and  a few paintings. So trying to find out about him  is very difficult. There is only one picture which  claims to be Henry IV, but it is a generic medieval  figure with a crown and could practically be  anybody!  This is both good and bad – on one level, nobody  knows if I get it wrong, and I feel in reasonably  safe territory. But the play is not just about Henry  IV of Germany, it is a madman in 2004 thinking  that he is Henry IV. So the costumes are not  historical re-enactment costumes and are not the  real clothes of the period, but are actually carnival  costumes from a fancy dress party. There is also  within the context of the play, a sort of cheat in  that to support Henry’s madness, people have  created this world around him so that the scenery  is in fact scenery and the costumes are in fact  costumes.  In terms of the scenery, I have made a particularly  strong choice with the scale of the columns in  HENRY IV - I wanted them to look big and epic.  The less you put on the stage, the bigger the  space seems. So I am playing a game to try and  create a sense of claustrophobia by using massive  architectural elements that I hope suggest the  world is even bigger than what is actually visible.  We are going to dwarf these characters with the  pillars in the same way Henry’s mania dwarfs the  play. The scale of the environment is reflective of  his megalomania and the fact that he truly thinks  he is Henry IV.  SFL: Is everything being especially created for  this show?  CO: Everything is being specially made - all the  medieval stuff and the costumes of 11th century  German Royalty. But the costumes are made for  people from Italy, so they are light weight fabrics  as opposed to say coarse wool. We are creating  everything in lightweight linens because the play  is set in Italy, and we have a fantastic excuse to  change things. I think the girls don’t have to have  period medieval slippers, they can have lovely  stilettos because they would want to look taller  and more graceful and elegant. So I can really  dress them up! The balance is to enjoy the cheat,  and not be painfully accurate about the whole  thing.  There is a line in the play that is very unhelpful  - it says the characters have the best costume  makers in Italy make their costumes. It’s difficult  for us because we had a really strict budget for  this! I know that if one were these people, the  costumes would probably be more ornate and  that they would spend more money on them. I  had to make choices aesthetically and financially  and you realise that the more you embroider  something the more it costs. Put simply, we had  to choose where we were going to energise the  resources we had. For this show we needed  contemporary costumes and period costumes  and an awful lot of other stuff. It’s a lot to manage  for a teeny tiny theatre with a teeny tiny budget.  14SFL: And the play has a large cast as well.  CO: Yes, it is a very large cast, which is part of  the excitement of doing it. It’s not one of those  plays with only two people where everything is  very static. Here you have a lot of people running  around and a lot of big costumes.  SFL: With so many people on stage does that  mean that your set is very pared down?  CO: I have done nine shows here at the Donmar  and I have a pretty good understanding of how  the stage works. You can’t fill it with scenery,  because although it can look fabulous from the  front two rows of the theatre, three-quarters of  the audience don’t sit there. I would feel terrible  if people in the audience couldn’t see properly or  felt excluded from show. When I am approaching  a design, I start with the barest space and then  bring in elements that are going to support the  world of the play. I leave a clear stage to allow  a director or choreographer to create pictures  through movement. I work very closely with  directors for the design, in order to create the  right atmosphere. We live in the world where the  computers can generate images that are simply  beyond construction, and audiences are used to  that, so it’s best not to compete.  SFL: How much input do you get from the  director?  CO: A lot! My collaboration with Michael  (Grandage) stretches back over twenty  productions so we are almost to the point of  being non-communicative because I know how he  works.  SFL: How did you collaborate with Armani,  who supplied the modern day costumes?  CO: There is no way we could have done the  show without their contribution. To be honest,  we were breaking the costume budget with  the medieval costumes alone. This is a hugely  ambitious costume show for the Donmar  Warehouse. Without the help of Armani, I would  be pacing up and down Oxford Street, going into  Oxfam and buying up suits that sort of look smart!  Suddenly, we have the opportunity to get the real  thing. No matter what anyone thinks of these  clothes, they are the clothes that these people  would wear. They are upmarket, smart, beautiful  and true to the world of the play.  SFL: Did you have to brief the Armani  designers to give them the background of the  play?  CO: Certainly in terms of the characters. For  example, Robert (Demeger) is playing the doctor  so obviously he can’t wear shorts and sandals.  He’s got to look like he just arrived from Harley  Street. Di Nolli (Orlando Wells) is in mourning, so  there are obviously limitations there as well. But  within that context we can choose anything that  is in the Armani shop. Matilda (Francesca Annis)  is in slacks, a jacket and a scarf. It’s an extreme  contrast - this group from the 20th century  collides with the Medieval world. There are strong  contemporary colours and softer historical ones  and they jar against each other. When the group  arrives in their beautifully tailored, brightly coloured  clothes in this very medieval gothic environment,  they look fantastic and shocking and bizarre.  15section  5  Pirandello in relation to  other theatre practitioners  Pirandello and Stoppard  Tom Stoppard has said that any similarities to Pirandello in his own work should  not be considered as proof of direct literary infl uence, but as evidence of the  ‘impossibility’ for any contemporary Western playwright ‘to write a play that is  totally unlike Beckett, Pirandello, Kafka…’3  It is one of Stoppard’s early works, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, that  has been identifi ed as the play which most clearly shares themes and situations  evident in Pirandello’s two best-known plays, Henry IV and Six Characters in  Search of an Author. All three plays use theatre as a metaphor: in Henry IV Henry  is both actor, director and playwright in the enactment of his life; in Six characters  in Search of an Author the characters interrupt a rehearsal of another play, looking  for an author to give life to their own; in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,  the protagonists are caught in a script being written by someone else.  As Pirandello did in Six Characters in Search of an Author and Henry IV, Stoppard  gives an added dramatic life to characters who have already been written:  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Two characters who, like Henry, are imprisoned in a timeless void.  Pirandello and Stanislavski  Pirandello formed his own company of actors whom he taught using Stanislavski’s  techniques. Indeed, Stanislavski’s book, Building a Character, discusses the  process of creating a character as being an act of construction, which is not  dissimilar to Pirandello’s concept of costruisi.  Practical Exercise  Choose one character from Henry IV. Drawing on your knowledge of Stanislavski, how would you  approach the physical realisation of this character - in terms of expressions, movement and speech  - in performance?  16Pirandello and Shakespeare  Parallels can be drawn between Henry IV and Hamlet. Hamlet’s reference to  art holding a mirror up to nature seems synonymous with Pirandello’s teatro  dello specchio (theatre of the looking glass). Just as Hamlet uses the play, ‘The  Mousetrap’ to catch the conscience of Claudius, so Pirandello forces a crisis of  recognition to catch fi rst the consciences of some of his characters and then his  audience.  Pirandello and Pirandello  Identity and the dual nature of the human personality was an issue that concerned  Pirandello personally. Before marrying his wife, Antonietta, he wrote to her alerting  her to the two sides of his own personality:  ‘There are almost two people within me. You already know one of them; not even  I know the other one very well…..The former is taciturn and continually lost in  thought; the latter speaks with ease, makes jokes and isn’t adverse to laughing and  making other laugh…I am perpetually divided between these two persons….Which  of the two will you love the most, my Antonietta?’4  Discussion Point  ‘The Playwrights who follow Pirandello are frequently better artists, but none would have been  the same without him…In his insights into the disintegration of personality and the isolation of  man, he anticipates Samuel Beckett; in his unremitting war on language, theory, concepts, and the  collective mind, he anticipates Eugene Ionesco; in his approach to the confl ict of truth and illusion,  he anticipates Eugene O’Neill (and later, Harold Pinter and Edward Albee); in his experiments with  the theatre, he anticipates a host of experimental dramatists, including Thorton Wilder and Jack  Gelber; in his use of the interplay between actors and characters, he anticipates Jean Anouilh; in  his concept of man as a role-playing animal, he anticipates Jean Genet. The extent of this partial list  of infl uences marks Pirandello as the most seminal dramatist of our time…’  Robert Brustein, ‘The Theatre of Revolt’  These comments of Robert Brustein’s were published over thirty years ago, a few years before  the 1974 revival of Henry IV at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Which playwrights’ work that you have  seen and/or studied appears to build on Pirandello’s dramatic style?  17section  6  The Rehearsal Process  Approaching rehearsals for HENRY IV  Michael Grandage doesn’t present his overall concept for a production to his  cast at the start of the rehearsal process. He likes to get straight into exploratory  rehearsals where the individual actors can begin discovering the play and find  their characters. The production is given space to grow, rather than having a vision  imposed on it. On this occasion, the design concept was discussed as it plays  such an integral part in the production. The company also spent the first four days  of rehearsal with Tom Stoppard, working out some of the complexities of the  text –such as the chronology of Henry’s life - as well as collectively going through  some of the more basic details such as the geography of the house/palace. (The  counsellors drew up a map of the house, which was referred to during the early  part of the rehearsal process).  One issue that Michael did focus on in the early stages of rehearsal was locating  the world of the play and helping the actors discover the texture for this world;  finding an energy for the lines that were flying across the space – not out of hate  - but out of the Latin temperament of the play’s culture.  As in rehearsals for any play, there have been times when the director and the  actors have been presented with an obstacle as to how a particular line should  be said or what it means. In these instances, they have gone back to the literal  translation of Pirandello’s play (translated word for word from his original) for  guidance. If this strategy didn’t help them to find a creative solution, they would  invariably decide to ‘ask Tom’ next time he visited the rehearsal room. That is one  advantage of working on a version of a classic text created by a contemporary  writer: they can be with you in the rehearsal room to guide you on your journey.  ‘The rehearsal process has involved discovering Stoppard’s and Pirandello’s  intentions and making them our own.’  Charlie Westenra, Assistant Director  Inside the rehearsal room  The following observations were made during a rehearsal of Act II that took place  three weeks into the five-week rehearsal period. The approaches taken by the  director and the actors during this rehearsal might help you in your own practical  exploration of the play, or in rehearsals for other texts that you might be working on.  18Working on entrances  Act II is set in ‘Another room in the  villa. Adjoining the throne room,  furnished in a plain antique style’.  Michael was keen for the actors to  show the curiosity of entering the  room – yet another room in the palace  - for the fi rst time.  Michael also worked on balancing  the needs of the actors with the  requirements of the scene. For  example, Robert Demeger, playing the  Doctor, felt he had a lot of energy to  dispel as he entered the scene - which  had built up during his meeting with  Henry IV from where he’d just come  – and felt he needed to enter before  Belcredi and Matilda. However, the  scene is opened by Belcredi, who  needs to be in a strong position on  stage in order to do this.  Photograph by Ivan Kyncl  Ÿ David Yelland as Belcradi in Tom  Stoppard’s version of Pirandello’s  HENRY IV, Donmar 2004  Observation point  When you go to see the production, observe  the entrances and positioning of the  characters at the start of Act II. Can you  determine the creative decisions that were  fi nally made about how to open this scene  and what this communicates to the audience?  Identifying required levels of energy  MATILDA: I’m telling you he recognised me. When he  looked into my eyes, he knew me.  Michael was captivated by the energy that he felt between  Belcredi and Matilda as Belcredi blocks Matilda’s attempts  to convince him that Henry recognised her. He liked the  ‘fi re’ that he saw between the two of them; this was the  fi rst time that the actors had created this moment during  rehearsals. By identifying this electrifying moment, created  for the fi rst time during this rehearsal, the director is  supporting his actors and enabling them to locate the same  energy in subsequent rehearsals and performances.  19Helping the audience to receive plot information  David Yelland, the actor playing Belcredi, noted that the altercations between  himself and Matidla are always about who has the last word, rather than a dispute  about the subject matter. As Michael pointed out, dramatically, we need both so  that the audience ‘gets the point’.  Clarifying characters’ intentions for saying lines.  Rehearsals offer the opportunity for the director and/or actors to realise the  meaning of lines and moments of action that the text doesn’t make clear for them.  During this rehearsal, Francessa Annis- playing Matilda - David and Michael, all  seemed unclear as to why the stage directions say there is an ‘awkward pause’  after Matilda’s line, ‘Or perhaps you have another explanation why he took an  instant dislike to you?, referring to Henry’s attitude towards Belcredi at the  meeting from which they have just come. Why is there a pause? Why doesn’t  Belcridi come back with a witty retort, as is characteristic of his nature? And what  is the other explanation for Henry having taken a dislike to Belcredi? Is it because  Henry realised that Belcredi and Matlida were lovers? Is the line said by Matilda  simply a way to try and get Belcredi to shut up? This was one of the instances  where the literal translation was referred to. Pirandello’s stage directions read:  From the tone of the question, the implied answer must be clear: ‘Because he  understood that you’re my lover’. BELCREDI understands this perfectly, and at  once becomes lost in a vain smile’. Nobody felt that this was how the line should  be played. It was decided to consult Tom Stoppard - their living writer- when he  came into rehearsal the following day.  Observation point  When you see the production, try and identify the fi nal decisions made by the company regarding  this sequence.  Invisible links and the ‘mental highlighting pen’.  When directing, Michael encourages the actors to detect the ‘invisible links’ in the  text: those key moments that thread the through line of action together. One such  moment occurs during the following exchange between the Doctor and Belcredi,  when the Doctor refers to a key element of the action which will occur later in  the scene: Frida’s appearance in the costume worn by her mother, Matilda, in the  portrait; the ruse whereby Henry is to be ‘shocked’ out of his madness in Act III.  DOCTOR: Let’s not rush things. We have to wait till it’s dark and it won’t take  a minute to set up. If we can give him a shock and snap the thread  that binds him from his delusion, give him back what he longs for  – he said it himself; you can’t stay twenty-six for ever! – and free  him from his prison – that’s the way he sees it –  BELCREDI: - he’ll be cured! Saved by the alienation technique!  20DOCTOR: His clock stopped, and we’re checking our watches for the  critical moment when…with a quick shake, we might get his  clock ticking again, after all this time.  Robert noted that he would need to get his ‘mental highlighting pen’ out for  this sequence, accentuating its importance to the audience in relation to the  action that follows.  Realising visual signifi ers in performance  Michael encouraged the actors to maximise the visual impact of Frida’s  entrance dressed as the young Marchese of Tuscany: -  MATILDA: She’s me! My god, can you see? Stop there, Frida! She’s my  portrait come to life!  The image of Frida in her costume remains the focus of the following scene,  encapsulating in 3D Belcredi’s argument that ‘the younger generation still  have to go through what we went through…..get older, make more or less the  same mistakes.’  BELCREDI: Look at her! (he points at Frida) – centuries ahead of us, the  Marchese Matilda of Tuscany.  Observation point  As you watch this scene in production, identify how the stage picture created by the actors  highlights the visual importance of this scene.  21Practical Work on the Text  In a group, read through the following extract from the opening of Tom Stoppard’s version of HENRY IV.  The scene introduces us to Henry’s counsellors, Landolf, Harold and Ordulf. They are introducing a new  counsellor, Bertold, to life at Henry’s palace.  Extract 1  ACT ONE  The Throne Room. There are two full-length,  life size portraits, of a young man and a young  woman dressed as Henry IV and Matilda,  Countess of Tuscany. Harold, Landolf, Ordulf  and Bertold - wearing the costumes of  eleventh-century German knights - enter.  LANDOLF HAROLD Next - the throne room!  The throne room of the Emperor’s  Palace at Goslar!  ORDULF Or could be Hartzburg ...  HAROLD ... or Worms, depending.  LANDOLF Depending on where we are in the  story - he keeps us on the hop.  ORDULF Saxony ...  HAROLD Lombardy ...  LANDOLF The Rhine...  ORDULF Keep your voice down  LANDOLF He’s asleep  BERTOLD Hang about. I’m confused. I  thought we were doing Henry IV.  LANDOLF So?  BERTOLD Well, this place, these get-ups  - it’s not him  ORDULF Who?  BERTOLD The King of France, Henry IV.  LANDOLF Whoops.  ORDULF He thought it was the French one.  LANDOLF Wrong country, mate, wrong  century, wrong Henry.  HAROLD It’s the German Henry IV, Salian  Dynasty.  ORDULF The Holy Roman Emperor.  LANDOLF The Canossa one - walked to  Canossa to get absolution from the  Pope. Church v State, that’s the  game round here, day in, day out.  ORDULF Emperor at home to Pope -  HAROLD Pope away to Anti-Pope -  LANDOLF King away to Anti-King -  ORDULF Like war with Saxony -  HAROLD Plus with revolting barons  LANDOLF His own kids ...  BERTOLD Now I know why I’ve been feeling  wrong in these clothes, these are  not your French 1580’s.  HAROLD Forget the 1580’s.  ORDULF Think the ten-hundreds.  LANDOLF Work it out, if Canossa was  January 1071 ...  BERTOLD I’m fucked.  ORDULF Royally.  BERTOLD LANDOLF I’ve been reading up the wrong ...  Sad. We’re four hundred years  ahead of you, you’re not even a  twinkle in our eye.  BERTOLD (angered) You got any idea how  much stuff I read about Henry IV of  France in the last two weeks?  HAROLD Didn’t you know Tony was our  Adalbert, Bishop of Bremen?  BERTOLD What Adalbert? - no one told me  anything!  LANDOLF Well, when Tony died, at first the  young Count  BERTOLD HAROLD LANDOLF The Count Di Nolli? He’s the one ...  He must have thought you knew.  ... first he thought the three of us  would do. Then Himself started  moaning - “They’ve driven out  Adalbert!” - he didn’t realise  “Adalbert” had died on us, he  thought the Bishops of Cologne  and Mainz had booted him out,  Tony I mean, all clear so far?  BERTOLD Wait. Bishop Tony of what?  ORDULF You’re fucked.  HAROLD The bishops are not the problem,  the problem is we don’t know who  you are.  BERTOLD So what am I playing?  ORDULF Urn, Bertold.  BERTOLD Bertold who? Why Bertold?  LANDOLF Himself kept yelling, “They’ve  driven out Adalbert, so get me  Bertold! I want Bertold!”  HAROLD We eyeballed each other - who  dat?  LANDOLF Never heard of him.  ORDULF And here you are.  LANDOLF You’ll be great.  BERTOLD Forget it, which way’s out?  HAROLD No, no, relax.  LANDOLF This’ll cheer you up - we don’t  know who we are either. He’s  Harold, he’s Ordulf, I’m Landolf,  that’s what he calls us so that’s  who we are, you get used to it. But  who are we really? ... Just names  of the period. Same with you, I  suppose, Bertold. Tony was the  only one with a proper character,  the Bishop of Bremen. He was a  good Bishop, too, God rest him.  HAROLD Always reading himself up.  LANDOLF And he bossed Himself about,  not himself, Himself, his Majesty,  he was like his teacher. With us,  we’re his Privy Counsellors but  we’re only here to fill space. It’s  in the books - the barons had it in  for Henry for surrounding himself  with young toffs not quite out of  the top drawer, so that’s us. Royal  hangers-on, do anything for him,  like a drink , a few laughs ...  BERTOLD Laughs?  HAROLD Just do what we do.  ORDULF It’s not as easy as it looks.  LANDOLF Bit of a waste really. We’ve got the  scenery, we’ve got the costumes,  we could put on proper shows,  history’s always popular, and  there’s enough stuff in Henry IV  for several tragedies. But us four  - we’re stranded, nobody gives  us our moves, nothing to act, it’s  that old form-without-content. All  we can do is ... this. We’re worse  off than the real ones. They were  given sod all to play, true, but they  didn’t know that, so they just did  what they did because that’s what  they did. Life. Which means, look  after number one. They sold titles  and stuff. And here we are, great  outfits, handsome surroundings,  shame about the puppets.  HAROLD No, fair do’s, you have to be ready  to come out with the right answer  or you’re in trouble.  LANDOLF Yeh, that’s true.  BERTOLD Well, that’s it, innit? How’m I  supposed to give him the right  answer when I’ve been learning  the wrong Henry?  HAROLD You’ll have to put that right right  off.  ORDULF We’ll all pitch in.  HAROLD There’s lots of stuff on him, a quick  skim will do you for now.  22Discussion Points  What strategies does Stoppard use in his writing to introduce the audience to the central ideas of the play?  How would you defi ne the style and genre of the extract? Justify your response with examples from the dialogue and action  Now read through the second extract, in which Matilda, Belcredi and the Doctor are costumed by the counsellors in  preparation for their meeting with Henry.  Extract 2  LANDOLF Yes sir - and says he brings the  dead to life, practises all the  diabolical arts - he’s terrifi ed of  him.  DOCTOR Paranoia, quite normal.  HAROLD He’d lose control.  Dl NOLLI (to Belcredi) We can wait outside  - it’s only the Doctor who has to  see him.  DOCTOR Dl NOLLI DOCTOR MATILDA What, you mean on my own?  They’ll be with you!  Ah, no, I thought the Countess ...  1 do - I am - I’m staying - of course  I’m staying, I want to see him  again!  FRIDA What for, Mummy? - please come  ...  MATILDA (imperiously) Stop it - this is what  I came for. (to Landolf) I’ll be ... the  mother-in-law, Adelaide.  LANDOLF Right. Bertha’s mother, fi ne, you  won’t need any more than a cloak  and a coronet ... (to Harold) Get on  with it, Harry.  HAROLD What about the Doctor?  DOCTOR Yes ... we thought, the Bishop ...  Bishop Hugo of Cluny.  HAROLD Abbot of Cluny, sir - right ...  LANDOLF He’s been here lots of times.  DOCTOR Lots of... ?  LANDOLF No problem, it’s a simple costume.  DOCTOR But...  LANDOLF He won’t remember you, he  doesn’t take in faces, only the  clothes.  MATILDA That should help.  DI NOLLI We’ll go, Frida - come on, Tito.  BELCREDJ If she’s staying, I’m staying.  MATILDA I don’t need you here.  BELCREDI I didn’t say you need me - I’d  like to see him again, too, any  objections?  LANDOLF If might look better if there were  three of you.  HAROLD BELCREDI So, what’s he ... ?  Oh, just fi nd something simple for  me  LANDOLF (to Harold) A Clunatic.  BELCREDI A CIunatic? What’s that?  LANDOLF The Abbot of Cluny’s retinue - in a  Benedictine habit, (to Harold) Go,  go! (to Bertold) You, too - and keep  out of sight for the rest of the day.  No - wait - (to Bertold) bring in the  costumes he gives you. (to Harold)  And then go and announce they’re  coming - Duchess Adelaide and  Monsignor Hugo of Cluny, got it?  (Harold and Bertold exit.)  Dl NOLLI We’ll make ourselves scarce.  (Di Noll! and Frida exit.)  DOCTOR (to Landolf) He likes me, doesn’t  he? - I mean, Hugo of Cluny?  LANDOLF Yes, don’t worry, Monsignor has  always been received with the  greatest respect here. You don’t  worry yourself either, my lady. He  never forgets that you both spoke  up for him when he’d been waiting  two days in the snow, half frozen  outside Canossa and the Pope let  him in fi nally ...  BELCREDI And what about me?  LANDOLF You just keep back and act  respectful.  MATILDA BELCREDI MATILDA I wish you’d wait outside.  Aren’t you getting a bit... ?  Whatever I’m getting, I’m getting.  Leave me alone.  (Bertold returns with the  garments.)  LANDOLF Ah - wardrobe! The cloak for the  Marchese.  MATILDA LANDOLF Wait, I’ll take off my hat.  (to Bertold) Lose the hat. (to the  Matilda) May I?  MATILDA LANDOLF Aren’t there any mirrors here?  Outside. If your ladyship would  rather see to herself... ?.  MATILDA That would be better, let me have  it, I’ll be back in a minute.  (Matilda takes her hat and goes  out with Bertold who is carrying  her cloak and coronet. Meanwhile  the Doctor and Belcredi put on the  Benedictine robes as best they  can.)  BELCREDI I wasn’t frankly expecting to join  the Benedictines. It’s a pretty  expensive form of insanity, this!  DOCTOR BELCREDI None of them come cheap.  Yes but when there’s a fortune at  one’s disposal ...  LANDOLF You’re right, sir - we have an  entire costume department,  everything perfectly made from  period patterns. It’s my personal  responsibility to commission  trained costumiers. We spend a  mint.  (Matilda re-enters wearing cloak  and coronet.)  BELCREDI Ah! - beautiful! You look like a  queen.  MATILDA You look like an ostrich in holy  orders. Take it off.  BELCREDI DOCTOR MATILDA Have you seen the Doctor?  I know, it’s too bad ... never mind ...  No, the Doctor’s fi ne ... but you,  you are ridiculous!  DOCTOR (to Landolf) Does he receive people  often?  LANDOLF It depends. Sometimes he  demands to see this or that  character, and then we have to fi nd  somebody who’s willing ... Women,  too.  MATILDA BELCREDI Oh? - women as well?  You don’t say. In costume?  (pointing at Matilda) Like that?  LANDOLF Well, you know, women who’ll do  it.  BELCREDI Ah. (to Matilda) Watch yourself  - this could be tricky.  (Harold enters, gesturing for  silence.)  HAROLD His Majesty the Emperor!  (Ordulf and Harold take their  positions. Ordulf holds the imperial  crown, Harold the sceptre with the  eagle and the orb with the cross.  Henry IV enters)  23Discussion Points  How many of Pirandello’s key concepts listed in Section Three can you identify in this extract?  How important are the elements of design, ie set and costumes, to this extract?  Practical Exercise  Divide into smaller groups and choose either extract one or extract two to work on. Explore the  scene practically, using the following six headings as a guide for your approach to the work:  n Working on entrances and exits  n Identifying the different levels of energy required throughout the scene  n Helping the audience to receive plot information  n Clarifying characters’ intentions for saying lines.  n Identifying the invisible links that thread together the through line of action  n Maximising the visual impact of the piece through the staging of characters  Present your ‘work in progress’ to the rest of the group. Can they identify the creative decisions  you have made under each of the six headings from seeing your performance?  24section  7  Follow-up material  Assessing the production  You may find the following questions useful as a springboard for discussion after  seeing the production.  ‘Once the characters have left the stage, the mirror reflects back to the audience  images of themselves, as they confront their relationship with what they have just  seen, as well as the reality of their own lives’  ‘Dreams of Passion: The Theatre of Luigi Pirandello by Roger Oliver, page 9.  • In your opinion, in what way did the production ‘reflect back’ images of the  contemporary world in which we live?  • Which aspects of the production did you enjoy the most?  • Identify how the acting skills of two of the performers enhanced your  appreciation of the production?  • Assess the contribution that Christopher Oram’s set and costume designs made  to the production.  Ideas for further practical work  If you have enjoyed working on Henry IV, you may want to investigate some of the  following plays that explore similar concepts:  Six Characters in Search of an Author Luigi Pirandello  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Tom Stoppard  Hamlet William Shakespeare  The Maids Jean Genet  Queen Christina Pam Gems  25section  26  8  Brief biographies of non-fictional  characters referred to in the script  Emperor Henry IV: Bertha of Susa: Matilda of Tuscany: Abbot Hugo of Cluny: Peter Damien: Henry came to the throne as a child and his mother, Agnes,  acted as regent. She came under suspicion of adultery with  the Bishop of Augsburg and had to be removed. To this  piece of factual history, Pirandello adds the fiction that the  accusation of adultery was brought by Peter Damien (see  below).  Pirandello is interested in what happened to Henry when he  was twenty-six, namely his penance to Pope Gregory VII.  Pope Gregory, by then Henry’s arch enemy, brought him  to his knees, literally, as he knelt in the snow at Canossa  hoping the Pope would give him an audience. His wife,  Bertha, knelt with him and Bertha’s mother, Adelaide,  went with the Abbot of Cluny to plead with the Pope and  his ally, Countess Matilda of Tuscany.  Wife of Henry IV. Bertha’s Mother, Adelaide Margravine of  Turin, is the character Matilda chooses to present herself  as when received by Henry.  Matilda inherited her title after her father’s murder in 1052,  and the subsequent death of her older brother and sister.  It was at Matilda’s ancestral castle of Canossa that Henry  was forced to humble himself before Pope Gregory VII in  1077. It is Matilda of Tuscany whom the Marchesse Matilda  dressed up as during the fateful pageant where Henry was  knocked from his horse, and who is represented in the  portrait that hangs in the throne room.  Hugo was Abbot from 1049 to 1109 and was godson to  Henry IV. He was advisor to nine different Popes; he and  his Cluniac monk, Gregory (later Pope Gregory VII) were  instrumental in promoting the powerful revival of spiritual  life throughout western Europe which characterises the  eleventh century. The Doctor presents himself as Abbot  Hugo of Cluny at his meeting with Henry.  Had a long association with Henry IV, including lecturing the  young king on his obligations towards the Roman Church  and persuading him not to divorce Bertha in later life.section  9  Bibliography and suggestions for  further study  ‘Henry IV’, Pirandello, in a new version by Tom Stoppard (Faber), 2004  ‘Henry IV’, Pirandello, translated by Julian Mitchell (Methuen), 1979  ‘Luigi Pirandello’, Susan Bassnett, Macmillan, (1983)  ‘Bloom’s Major Dramatists: Luigi Pirandello’, Edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea  House Publishers (2003).  ‘The Theatre of Revolt’, Robert Brustein, Methuen (1970).  ‘Dreams of Passion: The Theatre of Luigi Pirandello’, Roger Oliver, New York  University Press (1979).  ‘Pirandello’s Theatre: the recovery of the modern stage for dramatic art, Anne  Paolucci, (2002)  ‘The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard’, Edited by Katherine E. Kelly,  Cambridge University Press, (2001).  ‘Building a Character’, Stanislavski, (Methuen 1991).  Credits  Study Guide written by Sophie Watkiss and edited by Leona Felton  Photographs by Ivan Kyncl  With thanks to Malcolm Jones, Theatre Museum, Covent Garden  Endnotes  1 Page 125, Dreams of Passion: The Theatre of Luigi Pirandello, Roger Oliver, New  York University Press (1979).  2 ‘The Theatre of Revolt’, Robert Brustein, Methuen (1970).  3 Quoted in Emmanuela Tandello on Pirandello’s Influence on Stoppard, ‘Bloom’s  Major Dramatists: Luigi Pirandello’, Edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House  Publishers (2003).  4 Quoted in ‘Dreams of Passion: The Theatre of Luigi Pirandello’, Roger Oliver, New  York University Press (1979).  27About the Donmar Warehouse –  a special insight into the theatre  In just a decade, the Donmar has become  one of London’s leading producing theatres  and has earned an international measure of  acclaim that far exceeds the size of our 250-  seat theatre.  Quality writing, coupled with inspired  directorial vision, has always been the  cornerstone of the Donmar’s repertoire  and the foundation on which we have  built our award-winning programme. This,  along with the Donmar’s commitment to  and reputation for artistic excellence, has  established the theatre as a magnet for  renowned artists from around the globe.  As we embark on our second decade under  the leadership of Artistic Director Michael  Grandage, we look ahead to an era in which  European classics will sit alongside our  exciting and eclectic mix of high definition  revivals, new plays and musicals. As  ever, the high artistic standards, which  distinguished our first ten years, will be our  benchmark for the seasons to come.  For more information about the  Donmar’s Education Activities,  please contact:  Development Department,  Donmar Warehouse,  41 Earlham Street,  London WC2H 9LX.  T: 020 7845 5815,  F: 020 7240 4878,  E: friends@donmarwarehouse.com.  Photograph by Ivan Kyncl  Francesca Annis as Matilda in Tom  Stoppard’s version of Pirandello’s  HENRY IV, Donmar 2004