One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard is:
If ever you think you see a play within a play sit tight, belt up, and hang on; you’re in for the ride of your life!
Too right. I adore trickery in theatre, and wondering where the stage ends, and performances begin.
The Everyman was the perfect forum for this production: entrances through the aisles, dialogue off-stage, and levels of acting and performance thickly layered like a rich oil painting. This was energetic, and involving: the chronology and stagemanship produced twists and deceit. Who knows what? And when?
Pirandello’s 1921 masterpiece, sculpted with telling Stoppardian flair, was at heart light and farcical, yet penetrated deeply.
It is the modern day, and yet everything before us is suggests past. Four youths are in the King’s court, in period dress, yet anachronisms abound and we learn that it’s a charade. 20 years previously several Italian aristocrats staged a pageant where guests were to come in character, as any bygone figure. The spurned lover of Matilda (who decides to come as Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, sworn enemy of Henry IV)… decides to be Henry IV. His research is absolute, and descends fervently into the role. An accident with his horse causes unconsciousness, but Henry carries on. From the programme:
It isn’t until he draws his sword, brandishing it in all earnestness, that it becomes clear he is no longer acting his part. The fall has plunged him into madness and he truly believes himself to be Henry IV
His sister, worried for his mind, pays actors to live as his courtiers, and keep up the pretence. On her deathbed, she sends a Doctor to visit the King, and he brings all the family. Matilda, (now 20 years older) comes with her lover Belcredi, her daughter Frida, and Henry’s nephew Di Nolli – son of Henry’s sister, and fiancée to Frida. Deeply anxious, they adorn in period clothes, acquire characters of the time, and become part of the fantasy. Assured of Henry’s insanity they leave the stage to form an elaborate plot to shock him back into the 21st century, leaving the King alone with his young minders.
A prompt wit, majestically delivered, and the staged court becomes just that: Henry was sane!
Confiding in his attendants, with humility and wisdom, Henry admits to having regained his identity some time before. Not wanting to leave a comforting environment, where life is past, and therefore the future known, he delighted in his mockery of his old acquaintances.
As night draws to a close, the bewildered boys give sympathy to their ruler and expert lighting transcends fantasy to become truth. Yet they breach his confidence, and all characters assemble with everything known. My disappointment that so much of the significant moments in the story (the throwing from the horse, the brandishing of the sword) happened prior to Scene 1 dissipated when arguments boiled to a conclusion, and Henry stabs Belcredi. Spontaneous, and impulsive, Henry’s glimpse of reality was too much – a dramatic clash, and he’s lapsed back into madness. History has repeated itself, as is destiny. Henry: ”we are what we were”
The play was Shakespearian; it was a philosophical treatise on themes of psychosis and reality. Henry mocked his visitors for fulfilling the desire of a madman, asking what was truly fantasy: ”let us not forget the other charade, the life we lead as puppets” Indeed, all of life is a stage and such piercing flashes of reason were common (”no amount of earnestness hides the masquerade”).
It also had Shakespearian devises, such as the power of portraiture to reflect, and replace actuality. More obviously, the King’s madness was a furtherance of Lear, inverting sanity to question rationality. Upon regaining his mind, Henry realised he’d been right all along and continued the charade. Whether mad or sane, there was no discontinuation in his action; both states became conjoined. In the end, the moment he stopped seeing himself in the portrait of Henry was unspecified and insignificant. What was rational for the mad, was rational for the sane.
Arguably the greatest accolade of them all, is “the greatest living playwright”, and Stoppard must be prime contender. This play was wonderfully him. The central importance of time, and metaphysical time at that is nothing simple. Yet the witticisms, the put downs and the humanity lulled your brain into thinking that it wasn’t thinking at all. But it was.
The cast had a kaleidoscope of credits, and impressive credentials. Francesca Annis (5 nominations for the BAFTA in ‘Best Actress’), Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars episodes I, II, III, V, VI), James Lance (Teachers, The Book Group, I’m Alan Partridge): an eclectic mix. They combined excellently, yet nothing took away from McDiarmid’s thrilling depiction of Henry.
The Donmar is a true theatrical powerhouse, and that in it’s first tour it chooses Liverpool is a coup. Gemma Bodinetz and Deborah Aydon’s first season at the Everyman promises a rich future, and they’ve set a fantastic standard to maintain. This truly was a pleasure to experience, and an inspirational piece of entertainment. It excited, left questions unanswered, yet probed deeply into insight. Lear tells us there’s reason in madness, and Henry adjoins: there's also madness in reason.
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