Una commedia in tipico stile Pirandelliano, che tocca tutti i suoi temi chiave quali la follia come fuga dalla realtà e l'idea della vita come maschera. Maschera reale e non metaforica in questo caso, perché il protagonista (di cui intenzionalmente non ci viene mai detto il nome per aumentare il senso di straniamento), vive da vent'anni sotto le spoglie del re Enrico IV di Germania, prima per necessità e poi per scelta; ma si tratta davvero di una scelta, o forse l'unico modo per affrontare un'esistenza in cui non si riconosce più è continuare la farsa? La commedia è tutta giocata su questo equilibrio sottile tra verità e finzione, in cui di volta in volta l'una sembra prendere il sopravvento sull'altra.
L'azione si svolge interamente nella stessa stanza nel giro di poche ore ed il ritmo è piuttosto serrato, in un crescendo di di concitazione che porterà ad un finale inaspettato e ricco di pathos. Peccato solo che vista l'estrema brevità le atmosfere non siano così suggestive come in altre opere, l'ambientazione è un po' asettica.
Nonostante questa piccola pecca anche stavolta Pirandello non mi ha deluso, è una commedia che riesce a coinvolgere e spiazzare il lettore grazie alla profondità delle riflessioni e alla maestria con cui sono tratteggiati i personaggi. ( )

Ce drame en trois actes explore le thème de la folie et se déroule sur une journée. Il met en scène un personnage (jamais nommé) qui se prend pour l'empereur Henri IV du Saint-Empire depuis une chute de cheval survenue vingt ans auparavant. À l'instigation de son neveu le Comte de Nolli, son entourage se prête à sa folie et joue la cour de l'empereur. Lorsque la pièce commence, la soeur du personnage central, mourante, a fait venir un dernier docteur pour tenter de soigner son frère. Le docteur est accompagné de Frida, la fiancée de Nolli, de Matilda, la mère de Frida, ancien amour du personnage central, et de Belcredi, vieil ami du personnage central et amant de Matilda. L'intrigue se développe entre les scènes de cour, où chacun s'efforce de jouer plus ou moins bien son rôle, et les interrogations des personnages «sains d'esprit»...

AA man in early 20th century Italy enjoys the dramatic arts and plunges whole-heartedly into a planned medieval reenactment, learning the role of Enrico IV. He really gets into the character of the former monarch, who had a longstanding power struggle with Pope Gregorio VII in the 11th century. In the reenactment, the man and his friends participate in a costumed cavalcade, during which his rival for the love of Matilda, Balcredi, causes him to fall from his horse. He hits his head and when he comes to, he believes that he is truly Enrico IV. His nephew, the wealthy di Nolli, decides to recreate the world of Enrico IV in the small Italian community where the accident occurred, allowing his uncle to live on in his madness as the royal figure that he believes himself to be. He hires actors to accompany Enrico IV, and when the man's friends and relatives visit him, they dress in costumes of the epoch, and talk about things pertinent to the life of the former king. Now, twenty years later, the whole group of them (di Nolli, now-married Balcredi and Matilda, along with their daughter Frida, and the doctor they've hired to examine their friend and relative) have come to town to try and bring him out of his delusion once and for all by recreating the fateful scene of the cavalcade, only with Frida (the spitting image of her mother) playing the man's beloved Matilda from twenty years ago. They hope to stun him out of his delusion and bring him back to reality.

What they don't know is that their friend, while he was indeed crazy and convinced he was Enrico IV for a good twelve years, has since come around to reality, while choosing to keep on living in the delusion. He's noticed that we all play roles in life, and that we all wear one mask or another our relationships with the people around us. Once these roles fully come together in adulthood, we're just about as stuck in them as he has been in Enrico IV. His potential role in the real world, as a formerly-mentally-ill man who lost his lover to his rival at the same time that he lost his sanity, and who lived the past 12 years as an 11th century monarch, is too much for him to bear, and he has decided to keep on playing his role and living in the world that has been created around him. The visit of his friends and relatives brings him face to face with the reality that he has walled himself away from, and causes him to confront them about their supposed act of good will and the hypocrisy of forcedly unmasking him, when they themselves are playing their own ridiculous roles in life.

I read this play over a couple of weeks, during my morning and afternoon breaks at work. I sometimes wished I had more continuity, but in general I like sitting at my desk and looking up new words on the internet as I slowly read in Italian. I thought this play was wonderful. This is the second play by Luigi Pirandello that I've read, and like the first one, Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore, it tells a story and makes some serious observations on the human condition as well. I read somewhere that, despite obvious and striking similarities, Pirandello is generally not considered to have been a major influence on the famous existentialist writers of the middle half of the 20th century. This is remarkable to me. I suppose that in the European climate of the early 20th century, it makes sense that different people in different places would pursue similar currents of thinking at the same time; nonetheless, I can't help but think that the literary, creative classes of other Western European capitals would have read and discussed his plays and novels, and that his influence must have helped mold the thinking of future generations. His examination of the human experience and his investigations on the difficulty of interpersonal communication and understanding, and also his characters who despair at the roles they've been locked into and are forced to continue playing year after year, are all intimately related with our existence as humans. I'd like to find more information about the influence his work had on 20th century European thought, so that I could better understand how his plays and novels influenced other existentialist writers. Of special interest to me would be any possible connection with Argentine literature. Argentina experienced a massive influx of Italians during the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, and I wonder if Pirandello's works were brought to Argentina with any of the waves of immigrants, as well as how they might have been received by Argentine writers.

There was one moment in the play that I found particularly moving: after Enrico IV has come out to the actors who have been taking part in the extended reenactment, they're amazed that he's kept up with the act even after recovering his sanity. They suddenly realize that the old man who serves as Enrico IV's scribe and writed down the items of the day every night on medieval parchment is about to arrive. They laugh about how funny it is that this old man, perhaps slowly losing his touch with reality as he ages, comes every night to reenact the work of a scribe from he eleventh century. Enrico IV chastises them for laughing, saying that this man's devotion to him in his madness is far from funny, and that the seriousness with which he carries out his nightly work is sad and tragic if it is anything. They, who are play-acting in their jobs as paid actors in the indulgent fantasy of a wealthy man who wants to let his relative live on in a dream, think that they are able to escape their roles when they are off the clock, and laugh at the old man's seriousness. However, in Enrico IV's world, where everyone is locked into their own role (often, as in his case, a tragic one), they are no different from the old man who is the butt of their laughter. The old man then comes in and humbly complys with his nightly duty, as the actors look on.

I also enjoyed the fact that Enrico IV was never mentioned by his real name. The rigor of his separation from his actual, real existence reminded me a lot of Don Quijote's separation from Alonso Quijano. ( )