Enrico
IV
By
Luigi Pirandello
Directed by Bonnie J. Monte
 |
| (Left to right) Michael Nicols
as Barone Tito Belcredi, Sherman Howard as Enrico IV,
Jenny Gravestein as Frida, Geoff Wilson as the Marquis
Carlo Di Nolli, Vivienne Benesch as Marchesa Matilda Spina,
and Herman Petras as Doctor Dionysius Genoni in ENRICO
IV. Photo © Gerry Goodstein. |
September 3 - 29
The Grand Delusion -- The hero of this 1922 masterpiece is
a twentieth-century Italian aristocrat, who awakens from a
riding accident believing himself to be Emperor Henry IV of
medieval Germany. Luigi Pirandello, Italy's greatest dramatist,
presents a hilarious and disturbing examination of the hall
of mirrors that is human existence, a tightrope walk on the
fine line between reality and delusion, sanity and madness,
love and hate.
Says director Bonnie J. Monte, "The character of Enrico (Henry)
IV is one of the greatest and most demanding roles for a male
actor in the canon of world literature. It requires an actor
of extraordinary skill and talent to portray the 40-something,
Hamlet-esque antihero of Pirandello's brilliant piece. Trapped
in a universe as infuriating, bewildering and treacherous
as any in the State of Denmark, Pirandello's Enrico IV rages
against a mysterious and unkind universe with rotten wit and
prowess equal to that of Shakespeare's tragic and droll hero,
Hamlet."
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