Ibsen's Theatre: Aspects of a Chronicle and a Quest

IBSEN'S THEATRE: ASPECTS OF A CHRONICLE AND A QUEST LISE-LONE MARKER FREDERICK J. MARKER AS WE GATHER in various places this year to ponder, commemorate, and read papers to one another about the significance of the sesquicentennial of Henrik Ibsen's birth,. there is presumably no one who would any longer dispute the fact that Ibsen's plays belong, permanently and securely, to the theatres .of the world. In a rather special and particular sense, however, Ibsen's "own" theatre may be thought of as being the Scandinavian theatre, from the context of which he emerged as a dramatist and to which his works have never ceased to bear a seminal relationship. At the ouISet of his career, as a stage director in Bergen and subsequently in Christiania (now Oslo), Ibsen developed a keen sense of the practicalities and performance conditions of the living theatre that never left him. These early experiences as a director sharpened his extraordinary sensitivity to the poetry of environment in the theatre. Directing the first productions of his own early saga dramas, he taught himself to write a carefully visualized, highly charged physical mise en scene into his plays, aimed at concretizing the psychological states and spiritual conditions of his characters, and designed to create a specific mood that would enhance and strengthen the spiritual action. Cos- * A shorter version of this paper was presented as part of the Ibsen sesquicentennial celebrations at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). 345 346 LISE-LONE MARKER, FREDERICK J. MARKER tumes, settings, props, and lighting effects remained, from the beginning of his career to its end, the syntax of his dramatic poetry. Henry James once referred to Ibsen as "a sort of register of the critical atmosphere, a barometer of the intellectual weather,'" and in this sense the lively stage history of his plays, in Scandinavia as elsewhere, stands as a kind of vivid chronicle in miniature of the changing theatrical styles and audience tastes of the past century. Viewing the monument from a slightly different angle, one discovers that the plays have also continued to represent, especially to directors and designers in Scandinavia, a stimulating and sometimes daunting but always inescapable challenge. From the pioneering naturalistic productions of William Bloch and his contemporaries in the eighties, through such twentieth-century stylizations as Gordon Craig's remarkable rendering of The Pretenders in Copenhagen, and down to Ingmar Bergman's imaginative contemporary paraphrases in our own time, the inspiration of the plays has animated a multidirectional quest for theatrical fooms and images which could accommodate and amplify Ibsen's vision on the stage. It is to a few selected examples of this chronicle of changing approaches and this quest for renewed theatrical expressiveness that this paper will address itself. As might perhaps be expected, some of Ibsen's earlier and less familiar plays have enjoyed an especially full and interesting stage life within Scandinavia. Among these, The Pretenders, the first of his dramas to gain a permanent place in the repertory of the Scandinavian theatre, boasts an unusually fascinating production history that would in itself provide an eloquent chronicle of changing theatrical tastes and styles. This expansive, five-act historical drama, the last in the series of early Ibsen plays that draw upon the colourful pageantry of Norwegian history and saga for their subject matter, portrays the irresistible power of a great calling, as Haakon, the unswerving believer in his own heroic destiny and in his ability to effectuate his great kingly thought, contends with the vacillating and reflective Skule for Norway's throne. The first production of this play, which was the last that Ibsen himself ever directed, was given at Christiania Theatrewhere he functioned as artistic consultant at this time- early in 1864, and was an immediate success. P. F. Wergmann was called on to design new scenery for the production, and even the services of a local antiquarian were enlisted in order to obtain the correct thirteenthcentury Norwegian flavour. The task of the play's first designer and director was thus not only to articulate the dramatic and atmospheric values of Ibsen's multiple, boldly contrasted stage pictures...