About the work
Henry IV (Italian Enrico IV) is a tragedy by Luigi Pirandello, premiered in 1922 in Milan. Alongside "Six Characters in Search of an Author", it is Pirandello's most significant work and a virtuoso play about madness, identity and the boundary between being and appearance.
Plot
During a costume pageant in which he plays the German Emperor Henry IV, a young nobleman falls from his horse and strikes his head. When he comes to, he genuinely believes himself to be Henry IV — and those around him, to spare the madman, maintain a complete medieval court for him for years. After twenty years we learn that the man has long since recovered but consciously goes on playing his role — the mask of madness has become his refuge from a world that once betrayed him. When his former lover, her new companion (his erstwhile rival) and a doctor try to "cure" him through a staged scene, the game tips over: the supposed madman stabs his rival — and now, to escape punishment, must remain forever in the role of the madman.
Cultural significance
Henry IV is a key work of modern theatre and the most famous expression of Pirandello's lifelong theme: the impossibility of distinguishing with certainty between reality and role, reason and madness. Pirandello, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, created in the title role one of the greatest challenges for actors. The play belongs to the standard repertoire of international stages.