Enrico IV

Don't ask me why the plays of Luigi Pirandello, Italy's most revered 20th century playwright and one of the world's great dramatists, aren't given half the stage time of those of Chekhov, Ibsen and Shaw, those other deservedly-exalted titans of modern dramatic literature. Never mind, just grab this opportunity to go to The New Jersey Shakespeare Theater's production of Enrico IV, and see one of the Italian master's most challenging and complex plays.

Written in 1922, Enrico IV, is a tragi-comedy of the highest melodramatic order. While it doesn't rank with the author's better-known works, Six Characters in Search of an Author and Right You Are if You Think You Are, it is unparalleled as an exercise in self-delusion. And except for its chilling climax, it is very funny, indeed. In rather atypical Festival fashion, the supporting players appear as dramatically equipped as are the principals to plunge into Pirandello's turbulent psychological waters. It makes for a totally enthralling experience.

Sherman Howard, making his first appearance with the Festival, knocks our socks off as the painful and complex (insane?) 20th century aristocrat masquerading as the Holy Roman Emperor Enrico IV (1050 - 1060) of medieval Germany. No less masterful in his deceit is Michael Nichols, as the condescendingly worthy victim of Enrico IV's fantasy. Together they bring out the essence of the play's inevitable and inscrutable resonance.

Enrico IV is, in fact, as jolly good a mystery as they come, one that will keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat the entire time. Bonnie J. Monte's delightfully calculated direction, using her own adaptation of a 1922 translation by Edward Storer, is brimming with amusing pomp and preposterous circumstance, making good use of the highly theatrical venue. The wonder of Pirandello is that he can still spin hip contemporary audiences from one level of reality to another. The ingeniously witty play's amazing insights about the complexities of the mind, and its dramatically thickened plot, never seem like archaic theatrical ploys.

Thrown from a horse at a costumed pageant, the aristocrat awakens to the belief that he is, indeed, this medieval king he was pretending to be. His wealthy, half-humoring, fully obliging friends, having provided him with a villa in the Italian countryside for the past twenty years replete with costumed courtiers, embark on a daring plan to shock him back to reality. Little do they know that he regained his memory about twelve years before but has embarked on his own plan of vengeance on those who caused his fall, namely the woman he loved and his rival. However contrived and sometimes tedious with exposition, one walks out saying "What a plot and what a play."

Howard, a West Coast resident who apparently works primarily in television (probably best known as Roy, "the Junior Mint guy" on TV's "Seinfeld"), should be enticed to return to the Festival. With his floor mop of hair framing his wild eyes, his hands and body in constant accord with his conflicted and agitated mental state, he appears in full and artful control of Pirandello's most enigmatically devious character. Besides the taunting skepticism of Nichol's impressive baron, the other actors who also stand out are the elegantly attired (the handsome costumes by Hugh Hanson are distinct assets) Vivienne Benesch, as the Marchesa who harbors a secret and Jenny Gravenstein (another debut at the Festival), as her petrified bordering on hysteria daughter Frida. Excellent are Herman Petras, as the know-it-all by-the-book doctor, as well as the company of conspirators played by Robert Hock, Michael Stewart Allen, Jeffrey M. Bender, Jay Leibowitz and Kevin Rolston. Just as you can rely on Charles T. Wittreich, Jr's impressive medieval castle chambers to create the right illusion, you can rely on Pirandello to make that setting tingle with mystery and delusion.