A horse-riding accident has left a wealthy Italian nobleman scarred with a strange delusion—he believes himself to be Emperor Henry IV of Germany. For twenty years his friends and servants have pandered to his fantasy, dressing as medieval courtiers and disguising his Umbrian villa as Henry's royal palace. At last the clouds of amnesia seem to be lifting, and Henry recovers part of his memory. But will he be able to regain his former identity, or is Henry trapped in the realm of his imagination, forever doomed to play the king? Pirandello's tragicomic masterpiece will be presented in new adaptation by Robert Brustein.
SYNOPSIS
Twenty years ago, a group of friends costumed themselves as historical characters and rode in cavalcade. A young aristocrat, dressed as the Holy Roman Emperor Enrico IV, fell from his horse and hit his head, fixing his assumed identity. Frozen as Enrico, he has lived for the last decades as an Emperor surrounded by his servants. In his castle he installs great effigies of himself and his lover, dressed as Enrico and Matilda of Tuscany, the historical Enrico's rival.
After two decades of isolation, a group of outsiders—his nephew, the woman he once loved, her lover, her daughter, and a doctor—burst into his fantasy world. They plan to shock Enrico into a realization of reality by substituting a live body for the faux-Matilda. Enrico, though, has a few surprises up his sleeve, and he and his visitors see their identities warp and shift as madness proves catching.
