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New version
by
Tom Stoppard
Dircted by
Micahel Grandage
Designed by Christopher
Oram
Cast
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
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Donmar Wharehouse
29 April - 26 June 2004 |
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Henry IV is not
the medieval German emperor of that
name, but a twentieth-century Italian
aristocrat who suffered a head injury
in a fall from a horse during a costume
pageant, in which he had been dressed
as Henry IV. He went mad as a result,
and his family arranged for him to be
kept in a remote house by an entourage
who play up to his fantasy, dressing
the part and learning the history of
the time. They find it easy enough,
once in the swing of it; for Henry is
every inch the emperor.
Twenty
years have passed when the action of
the play begins. His family arrive with
a psychiatrist, hoping to cure him.
They have come only now because Henry's
sister has recently died, leaving as
her last wish a request that the family
should try to help him. The psychiatrist
forms a plan to shock henry back into
his wits. But as the play proceeds,
it becomes clear that Henry is no longer
mad, but playing a part; love and jealousy,
attempted murder, old conspiracies and
feelings, enter into the complexity
of his pretence, and are brought to
a head by the family's visit and the
open tensions between its members. Tom
Stoppard has preserved the simplicity
of the Pirandello's dramatic line, and
enhanced its humour. The complexity
exists in both the original and reorganised
versions, though in Stoppard's version
Pirandello's easy evocation of now-surpassed
psychological theory comes to seem part
of the joke.
No member
of the cast allows the quality of performance
to drop below the Donmar's perennially
high standard, though Ian McDiarmid
- acting superbly, credibly, movingly
as the fantasy Henry IV - sometimes
allows his voice to drop so low that
he is completely inaudible to all but
a few lucky folk in the front row towards
which he happens to be turned. The part
demands dynamic range: but not to that
extent.
AC Grayling |
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