Pirandello's Henry IV

Pirandello's Henry IV

Plays
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
*
Enter a Free Man
* •
The Real Inspector Hound
*
After Magritte
* •
Jumpers
* •
Travesties
*
Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land
*
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
*
Night and Day
•
Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoot's Macbeth
*
The Real Thing
•
Rough Crossing
•
Hapgood
Arcadia
•
Indian Ink
•
The Invention of Love
*
Voyage: The Coast of Utopia Part I
*
Shipwreck: The Coast of Utopia Part II
*
Salvage: The Coast of Utopia Part III
*

Television Scripts
A Separate Peace
•
Teeth
•
Another Moon Called Earth
Neutral Ground
•
Professional Foul
•
Squaring the Circle

Radio Plays
The Dissolution of Dominic Boot
“M” Is for Moon Among Other Things
If You're Glad, I'll Be Frank
•
Albert's Bridge
Where Are They Now?
•
Artist Descending a Staircase
The Dog It Was That Died
•
In the Native State

Screenplays
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Shakespeare in Love (with Marc Norman)

Fiction
Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon

*Available from Grove Press

BY LUIGI PIRANDELLO

A NEW VERSION BY TOM STOPPARD

New Version copyright © 2004 by Tom Stoppard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that
Pirandello's Henry IV
is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and all British Commonwealth countries, and all countries covered by the International Copyright Union, the Pan-American Copyright Convention, and the Universal Copyright Convention. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.

First-class professional, stock, and amateur applications for permission to perform it, and those other rights stated above, must be made in advance to Peters, Fraser & Dunlop, Drury House, 34–43 Russell Street, London, WC2B 5HA, England, ATTN: Kenneth Ewing, and paying the requisite fee, whether the play is presented for charity or gain and whether or not admission is charged.

Printed in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stoppard, Tom.

Pirandello's Henry IV
I
by Luigi Pirandello ; a new version by Tom Stoppard.— 1st ed.
            p. cm.

eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9534-0

1. Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, 1050–1106—Drama.   2. Psychotherapist and patient—Drama. 3. Aristocracy (Social class)—Drama. 4. Italy—Drama. I. Title: Pirandello's Henry the Fourth. II. Stoppard, Tom. III. Pirandello, Luigi, 1867–1936. Enrico IV. English. V. Title.
PR6069.T6P57 2005
822′.914—dc22

2004063842

Grove Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

This version was prepared with the help of a literal translation by Francesca Albini, commissioned by the Donmar Theatre, and with further assistance from Simonetta Wenkert. I take sole responsibility for the departures from Pirandello.

Tom Stoppard's new version of
Henry IV
by Luigi Pirandello was commissioned by and first performed at the Donmar Warehouse, London, on April 29, 2004. Michael Grandage, artistic director; Nick Frankfort, executive producer; Tobias Round, general manager. The cast was as follows:

HENRY IV
   Ian McDiarmid

LANDOLF
   James Lance

HAROLD
   Stuart Burt

ORDULF
   Neil McDermott

BERTOLD
   Nitzan Sharron

GIOVANNI
   Brian Poyser

DI NOLLI
   Orlando Wells

BELCREDI
   David Yelland

DOCTOR
   Robert Demeger

MATILDA
   Francesca Annis

FRIDA
   Tania Emery

It was directed by Michael Grandage; the designer was Christopher Oram; the lighting design was by Neil Austin; the music and sound score was by Adam Cork; and the sound designer was Fergus O'Hare.

Pirandello's Henry IV

The throne room. There are two full-length, life-size modern 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
   Next—the throne room!

HAROLD
   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 getups—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 1580s.

HAROLD
   Forget the 1580s.

ORDULF
   Think the ten hundreds.

LANDOLF
   Work it out; if Canossa was January 1077 . . .

BERTOLD
   I'm fucked.

ORDULF
   Royally.

BERTOLD
   I've been reading up the wrong . . .

LANDOLF
   Sad. We're four hundred years behind you. Ahead of you. You're not even a twinkle in our eye.

BERTOLD
   (
angered
) You got any idea how much stuff I read in the last two weeks about Henry IV of France?

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
   The Count Di Nolli? He's the one who gave me the job. Why didn't he . . . ?

ORDULF
   He must have thought you knew.

LANDOLF
   . . . 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
   Forget the bishops. The bishops are not the problem, the problem is we don't know who you are.

BERTOLD
   So what am I playing?

ORDULF
   Um, 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
   No, I won't, 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 it's a puppet show. 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 take up space. It's in the books—the barons had it in for Henry for surrounding himself with young bloods not quite premier league, so that's us. Royal hangers-on, do anything for him, like a drink, a few laughs . . .