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In this meeting of two of the twentieth century's greatest playwrights, Tom Stoppard has reinvigorated Luigi Pirandello's masterpiece of madness and sanity. After a fall from his horse, an Italian aristocrat believes he is the obscure medieval German emperor Henry IV. After twenty years of living this royal illusion, his beloved appears with a noted psychiatrist to shock the madman back to sanity. Their efforts expose that for the past twelve years the nobleman has in fact been sane. With his mask of madness removed, the aristocrat launches an offensive to deflect their unwanted attention. While Pirandello's characters race linguistically about in Stoppardian dervishes, battling for the upper hand-and the greatest laughs-one question emerges: What constitutes sanity? ... Read more

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Pirandello's savage comedy from 1921 reflects the warp of European reality after World War I and advances his philosophical arguement that reality is never a rock certainty, only a subjective creation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Entertaining, but subtelties lost on a theatre novice
Adapted for a 90-minute production, Enrico IV is a quick read that is rewarding although lacking in comparison to other great plays.We are offered a brief glimpse into the world of an (apparently very wealthy) Italian nobleman who has taken on the role of the 11th century Holy Roman Emperor Heinric (Henry, Enrico) IV.The role begins as a psychotic episode initiated by a horsing accident and continues as his madness fades and `Enrico' chooses the role over what he views as the absurdity of reality.Pirandello offers other themes as well in this short study: the nature of actor versus character, reality versus illusion, and the place of psychology in a world that prefers madness to rationality.

This adaptation appears to have been developed for theatre and students of theatre.Although I enjoy theatre, I am not a student of the form and therefore claim under-appreciation through ignorance.As it stands, the conclusion seems obvious and no character seems as powerful as `Enrico.'I would have also enjoyed the deleted historical exposition concerning the alternate reality chosen by `Enrico.'Are there actual similarities between the historical figure and the actor?Did the historical figure possess characteristics the actor wished to see in himself?

Overall, this appears to be a `must read' for students of theatre based on other reviews, but merely a `pleasant read' for everyone else.Quick and entertaining, but lacking the explicit depth of some of the better-known plays.

Pirandello's Art: A Kingly Paradox
Enrico IV (Henry IV), is probably Pirandello's second most known play, right behind his immaculate Six Characters In Search of an Author. The play takes place in the "throne room" of a man who thinks he is Enrico IV (the Holy Roman Emperor) ever since he fell off a horse at a masquerade party.His friends and former lover return with a doctor and try to cure him of his insanity.They humor him at the beginning, then they try to find a way to resolve his mental problem.Eventually Enrico reveals that he is indeed not insane, but regresses (voluntarily?) back into his mask of playing Enrico IV.This play beautifully presents Pirandello's common themes and contains a beautifully operatic ending just as I expect from the Italian master.I recommend this book for any Theatre, English, or Comparative Literature student.This edition and translation of the book leave out a lot of useless historical references and create a very clean reading of the play.I highly encourage you to read Pirandello, anything and everything you can find, he is truly a genious of the theatre. ... Read more

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Luigi Pirandello(1867-1936) An esayist, novelist and short-story writer, he eventually took up playwriting and quite simply became the founder of modern drama as we know it, a fact that brought him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. The plays in this volume are Six Characters in Search of an Author, Right You Are (If you Think So) and Henry IV. ... Read more

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Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) is best known in the English-speaking world for his radical challenge to traditional Western theatre with plays such as Six Characters in Search of an Author.. This book argues for the centrality of the character in all of Pirandello's writings - novels, short stories, and essays as well as plays. It explores the different ways in which his fictional and dramatic characters struggle to sustain an identity of their own, tell their life-stories, and assert themselves before their most prominent antagonist, the author himself. ... Read more

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The second of a two-volume set containing English translations of Luigi Pirandello's original Sicilian plays, retaining the names of the original characters, their dialogue, other perculiarities of the Sicilian tongue, and the nature and flavour of their mores. ... Read more

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tr various hands ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pirandello at his best with some of his early works.
All four plays contained in this volume represent the quintessential Pirandello: poetic, humoristic, the ever present Pirandello theme:the certainty of the uncertainty.Also important to note is"Grafted" - one of his early works which was never translatedinto the English language before."The Other Son" also importantsince it was made into a movie in the late 70's (part of a trilogy)- a filmabsolutely worth watching for any Pirandello fan. ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more