Theatre
Michael Portillo - The man who would be king
Published 24 May 2004
Theatre - Pirandello and Stoppard make fools of the sane in an eloquent homage to the Bard. By Michael Portillo
Henry IV
Donmar Warehouse, London WC2
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, we can never be sure how mad the prince of Denmark really is. Similarly, in Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV, the man who during a medieval pageant 20 years ago struck his head in a fall from his horse, and who ever since has believed himself to be the 11th-century German emperor, appears insane. Yet there is method in his madness, and his perceptions are unnervingly insightful. The playwright keeps us guessing. At first you would swear the man's a fruitcake, dressed in sackcloth and ranting against his sworn enemy Pope Gregory VII, who has excommunicated him. Later, you are swayed by his lucidity and feel stupid that you were ever taken in by the masquerade.
In the end, it is difficult to be sure. Perhaps, as with the Dane, the assumption of a lunatic disposition masks an agenda of vengeance. Or maybe it is the craving for revenge that has destroyed his wits.
For Pirandello, this guessing game was not designed merely to amuse. His wife Antonietta, following a series of calamities, lost her reason in 1919, about the time that he turned to writing for the theatre, and Henry IV premiered in 1922. In her tortured mental state, Antonietta made vile accusations against her husband and their daughter. Pirandello wrote his play in a state of bitterness. The insane can be deceitful and destructive, he seems to say. Yet the piece is also full of compassion. Somehow, we are always on the side of the mad impersonator of the medieval king. He seems a pretty straight sort of guy, compared to the flatterers who make up his "court" and the group of former friends that arrives to play tricks and shock him back to sanity.
Pirandello makes fools of the sane, not the mad. All those who enter Henry's prec-incts must dress in 11th-century costume, impersonate an abbot or countess, and pretend that their host is engaged here and now in a feud between Crown and church (one that actually reduced Henry to begging the pope's absolution by getting down on his knees in the thick snow outside Canossa Castle in 1077).
It is the madman who seems to be living out a truth. The visitors are unconvincing actors in his pantomime. Their motives for attempting to rescue him from insanity appear less philanthropic than egotistical.
For example, Matilda (played by Francesca Annis) attracted Henry's unrequited love before his riding accident. Evidently, she has come on a greedy hunt for evidence that he is still obsessed with her, to compensate for the disappointments of her current relationship with Belcredi (David Yelland). Yet, at other times, the sane take on the look of innocents, victims in a vicious game that Henry is playing, lured into his mousetrap.
Tom Stoppard's new translation eloquently highlights the old play's many ambiguities. Henry lives "as a madman of sound mind", "as sane as a hatter". He plays his visitors like "a kiddy piano", just as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tried to play Hamlet like a pipe. The script is vigorous and quick. But there is tenderness, too, when Henry and his "courtiers" gather under a lamp, converted in their imagination to moonlight, a scene affectionately borrowed from Shakespeare's hilarious drama (in A Midsummer Night's Dream) of Pyramus and Thisbe. We tumble through the changes of mood and perception in two acts of 40 minutes each. The jokes and epigrams tumble out as fast now as they did when Stoppard was young, but in his maturity we are given no time to rest and savour his cleverness.
The Pirandello/Stoppard text lampoons our sadness at ageing. We struggle to arrest the march of time. We dye our hair and live out fond memories from our bygone youth. The portraits that we had painted in our prime mock our faded beauty. But if we yearn to put back the clock 20 years, why is it lunacy to take up residence in the 11th century?
Ian McDiarmid's Henry is full of shocks. When we least expect it, he turns from whispers to shouts. Is he dangerous? His extreme volatility keeps us on edge. He has us laughing, and then plunges us into pathos. He cuts a pathetic figure, almost physically repulsive. Yet, even in the moments of his weakest whining, he dominates the action. The others, with their best-laid plans, never control the agenda. We lurch from pity to contempt for Henry, with horror yet to come. He assaults us with wild and whirling words, but we hang on every one of them. It is truly a beautiful performance. Annis and Yelland also offer fine interpretations of their deeply flawed characters.
Michael Grandage's direction moves us along at a pace. With up to ten characters on stage at once, the movement and dialogue are slick and precise. Henry appears on stage last of all the characters, by which time our anticipation is intense. And Grandage ensures that the hero's entrance is memorable.
This Henry IV entertains and disconcerts. Stoppard has given us a translation that does credit to Pirandello, and also pays homage to the Bard.
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