Enrico IV

When Luigi Pirandello wrote his play Enrico IV (or Henry IV as it is generally translated into English) there must have been some confusion in the audience about which Henry IV the play was portraying.

In fact, there's confusion on stage in the play about which Henry IV is being discussed. English-speaking audiences might immediately think of England's King Henry IV, the subject of multiple plays by William Shakespeare. The character of Berthold in the play, however, at first thinks the monarch in question is Henry IV of France.

How could the characters in the play not know which king it is they're dealing with on stage? As the audience learns in the first scene, the Henry IV in the play is not the real Henry IV, a Holy Roman Emperor who famously feuded with the Pope, but rather a wealthy man who was thrown from his horse while enacting the role of Henry IV in a pageant. Waking up after severe head trauma, he thinks he really is the man he was portraying.

For years now, the man's family and friends have been keeping up the act that he really is Henry IV to appease his madness. He later reveals, however, that he recovered his memory and is well aware that he's not an emperor. In order to appease his family and friends, though, he continues to play the role. Everyone in the play is acting, and is even aware that they are acting, but none of them are able to give up the roles and just be themselves.

All of this is a metaphor for society as a whole, as Pirandello makes clear. Pirandello began his playwriting career as a part of an Italian movement known as the Theatre of the Grotesque in which characters resemble puppets with no control over their own destinies. That certainly sounds like Enrico IV! The movement was known for a number of other tropes as well, such as irresolvable love triangles and unfaithful women. Yup, the play has those, too.

Pirandello went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and today the Pirandello Society of America keeps his memory alive in this country. They also publish PSA, a journal that published my own Pirandello adaptation, Wedding Night, based on one of his short stories. That play, however, doesn't have people pretending to be dead emperors.

Wedding Night Zoom

My short play Wedding Night, which had a staged reading last year at Ancostia Playhouse in Washington, D.C., will be having a Zoom reading by Tiger's Heart Players on Sunday, January 28th at 3pm.

The play is loosely based on Luigi Pirandello’s short story “Prima notte,” and was recently published in PSA, the journal of the Pirandello Society of America. I previously saw a reading of the play over Zoom by the 36th Street Writers Block.

Wedding Night is being presented alongside three other short plays: Destination Funeral by Peter Andrews, Affair with a Fish (Act III) by Wayne Paul Mattingly, and The King Has No Pants On by Susan Price Monnot.

This will be my first time working with Tiger's Heart. Click here to access the reading on Zoom this Sunday. The meeting ID is 841 9692 2564. The passcode is 310747.

Wedding Night Published

My short play Wedding Night, which previously had a staged reading in D.C. at Anacostia Playhouse, is now published in PSA, the journal of the Pirandello Society of America.

The play is freely adapted from Luigi Pirandello’s short story “Prima notte,” which was first published in 1900. It follows a young woman saying goodbye to her mother on her wedding night. Both know the coming marriage will not be ideal, but as darkness descends, new possibilities emerge that no one ever anticipated.

My play is included alongside three other dramas also inspired by Pirandello short stories. These are If by Robert Brophy adapted from the story “Se…” (“If…”), Vilomah (a Sanskrit word meaning “against the order of things”) by Elisabetta Bracer adapted from “Quando si comprende” (“War”), and To the Moon and Back by Joshua Piper adapted from “Una Giornata” (“A Single Day”).

Early in his career, Pirandello began writing plays that were considered Theatre of the Grotesque. These plays used what he called “umorismo” which is a type of painful laughter that accompanies a sense of tragic bewilderment. Stefano Boselli, the Theatre and Performance Outreach Officer for PSA, mentioned Wedding Night’s connection to umorismo in a forward to the four plays.

Boselli, who also goes by the stage name Stebos, is a talented director in addition to being a scholar. He has directed original and classic works, including plays originally performed by the Theatre du Grand-Guignol.

Coming this weekend!

As I previously announced, I will be co-hosting a streaming program about The Pickwick Papers, the first novel of Charles Dickens. You can catch my first appearance this Saturday, May 27th, at 2:00 pm Eastern time. To register, click here.

The program is presented by the Rosenbach Library and organized by Edward G. Pettit, who brings in one of four rotating co-hosts to discuss a different installment of Pickwick each month. This Saturday, we'll be discussing chapters six through eight, which originally appeared in May of 1836.

Dickens included in this section his poem "The Ivy Green" which was allegedly written by the clergyman introduced in chapter six. The poem was subsequently set to music by Dickens's brother-in-law Henry Burnett, who married the author's favorite sister, Fanny, and might have been a model for the title character in Nicholas Nickleby.

Having fictional characters compose poems is not unique to Dickens. I did the same thing in my play The Love Songs of Brooklynites, which takes its title from a poem written by one of the piece's characters. That play had a staged reading last year by Vivid Stage in Summit, New Jersey, but there are no immediate plans for a full production.

By the way, I got some lovely feedback from the staged reading of Wedding Night at Anacostia Playhouse in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. Hopefully it will get a full production somewhere soon!

Wedding Night on Monday!

As I previously announced, my short play Wedding Night is receiving a staged reading on Monday at Anacostia Playhouse in Washington, D.C.

Tickets are now on sale. The show is pay-what-you-can, so if you're in the D.C. area, I hope you'll come out to see new work and support an important cultural institution in the Anacostia neighborhood.

Reneé L. Charlow is directing the evening of short work, which also includes A Day Outdoors by Steve Gold and Scott and Zelda Shapiro by Lawrence DuKore. The performance is scheduled to begin at 7:00 pm.

In Wedding Night, Shampa Basu plays Stella, a young woman saying goodbye to her mother Antonia (played by Sue Struve) after her marriage to an older man. Gabriel Alejandro plays the groom, Don, who has been married before in the past.

It's a dark, emotional show, and I hope the actors have a good time with it. The readings are a part of the theatre's "New Voices New Works" program that this time is investigating the theme "Love will make you do right/make you do wrong."

If you like what you see there, you might return for Anacostia Playhouse's mainstage show, 'Night Mother by Marsha Norman, now playing until May 14th.

Wedding Night in D.C.

I am pleased to announce that my short play Wedding Night will be getting a staged reading in May at Anacostia Playhouse in Washington, D.C.

Renee Charlow is set to direct the piece on May 8th as a part of the theatre's New Voices New Works program. The performance will begin at 7pm, and will also include A Day Outdoors by Steve Gold and Scott and Zelda Shapiro by Lawrence DuKore.

The theatre solicited plays from across the country that adhered to the theme "Love will make you do right/make you do wrong." The chosen plays will be presented on three subsequent Mondays, April 24th, May 1st, and May 8th. All tickets for the reading are pay-what-you-can. 

Wedding Night depicts a young woman saying goodbye to her mother and moving in with her new husband under less than ideal circumstances. As darkness descends, new possibilities emerge that none of the three ever anticipated.

If you're in the D.C. area in May, I hope you'll come out and see the play!