Denmark and the Modern Drama

DENMARK AND THE MODERN DRAMA THE POSITION OF THE MODERN DRAMA IN DENMARK today suggests a conviction that the drama is a part of the national cultural life which deserves not only encouragement but also subvention by central or municipal government. Although the principle that the Danish stage has an obligation specifically to Danish drama may be implicit in this conviction , there is no chauvinistic desire to emphasize Danish plays at the expense of more renowned works by foreign authors. The Danish drama enjoys considerable largesse on several levels from the body politic, but most plays presented in Denmark are of foreign origin. Curiously enough, the legitimate stage is, quantitatively speaking, not the first medium of drama for the Danish public. There are half a dozen theaters of serious intent for the nearly one million inhabitants of the Danish capital, as well as highly respectable municipal theaters in the three next largest cities (Aarhus, pop. 118,000; Odense, pop. 110,000; Aalborg, pop. 85,000), traveling companies, and organizations which arrange theatrical performances for school children in both cities and villages-but the legitimate theaters in toto give fewer plays annually than are broadcast by the Danish state radio. The modem drama since Ibsen, and particularly the native Danish drama, has found an expansive and grateful medium in the ether. During the 1957-58 season, no fewer than one hundred different plays were read over the radio and thirty-five were transmitted by television. In each case, half were by Danish playwrights, a noticeably higher proportion than on the stages of the country, which show a preference for plays from France and the United States. The majority of Danish plays read were contemporary; a small minority were taken from the classical Danish repertoire (Holberg, Johan Ludvig Heiberg, J. C. Hostrup). Kaj Munk (1898-1944), Denmark's leading dramatist during the thirties and early forties, was represented by six plays; Kjeld Abell (b. 1901) by two (one of which was his masterpiece Anna Sophie Hedvig), Hans Christian Branner (b. 1903) by two; and Leck Fischer (1904-1956), C. E. Soya (b. 1896), Finn Methling (b. 1917), and the older Johannes V. Jensen (1873-1950) by one each. Of the foreign plays read, only four were not post-Ibsen: Shakespeare 's The Tempest, Sheridan's School for Scandal, Moliere's Misanthrope -and Ibsen's A Doll's House. The rest constituted a variegated representation of Western drama: plays by Giraudoux, Anouilh, and Geraldy; John Drinkwater, Ernest Raymond, and James Bridie; G. B. 51 52 MODERN DRAMA May Shaw, Sean O'Casey, and J. M. Synge; Dylan Thomas; Samuel Beckett; Arthur Miller-whose The Crucible was, unexpectedly, the sole American drama read; Sergio Pugliese; F. Garcia Lorca; the Swiss Friedrich Diirrenmatt and the German Peter Hirche. The other Scandinavian countries were represented by the Icelander, Johann Sigurjonsson; the Swedes, Sigfrid Siwertz, Par Lagerhist, Bo \Viderberg, and Bjorn-Erik Hbijer; the Norwegians by Tormod Skagestad, Odd Eidem, and Tarjei Vesaas. In addition to these plays, all given in Danish translation, one, by Hjalmar Soderberg, was broadcast in the original Swedish, and three, by Ibsen, Gunnar Heiberg, and Terje Stigen, were broadcast in Norwegian from recordings made in Sweden and Norway respectively . Of the Danish plays given on television, four were from the classical Danish repertoire. Modem Danish dramatists again included Munk, Fischer, Soya, and Methling. American drama led the foreign offerings, with plays by Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, and William Saroyan. Other dramatists translated were Shaw, Synge, Louis Verneuil, Georges Courteline, the Dutch Jan de Hartog, and the Swedish Werner Aspenstrom. That the same ratio between domestic and foreign authors obtained with the television performances and the plays read suggests clearly that the policy of the state radio is to divide time and honors equally between Danish and non-Danish playwrights. The broad selection of plays, and in particular the generous inclusion of contemporary Swedish and Norwegian drama is indicative of the earnestness with which the administration of the Danish state radio takes its educational function as well as its role as a contributor to better understanding among the Scandinavian countries. Intellectuals and friends of Northern cooperation have often deplored the fact that the...