The Scandinavian Theatre: A Short History by Frederick J. Marker, Lise-Lone Marker (review)

488 LETTERS IN CANADA 1976 The Green/anders' Saga. Translated by George Johnston. Oberon Press. 48. $7.95 cloth The Greenlanders' Saga tells of three successive voyages to North America by Norsemen from Greenland at the end of the tenth century. The saga, found in a fourteenth-century manuscript, has been translated into English numerous times, most recently as a Penguin paperback. Professor Johnston's new rendition is for the saga connoisseur. He is sensitive as few scholar/translators are to the kind of prose in which Icelandic narratives were composed, a prose which resembles verse in its economy of expression, density of meaning, and elusive, siren rhythm which catches and holds the hearer. The overall effect is just right. Johnston with rare exception (perhaps 'mighty big' on p 14 is one) maintains the dignified, serious tone of the Norse author, keeping close to the original and echoing where possible its vocabulary and sentence structure. He follows his usual practice (The Saga of Gisli, 1963; The Faroe Islanders' Saga, 1975) of preserving the abrupt shifting back and forth from past to present that is characteristic of saga style; here he even adopts the voice and shifting tenses of the oral story-teller for his introduction. Johnston believes that a translator should make no more concessions to the reader than the original narrator would have. He sometimes makes fewer, however, for English pronouns are not as precise as their Norse counterparts and become a cause of confusion for the novice who is likely to get lost on the very first page. Johnston never over-interprets, never supplies gratuitous information, and succeeds thereby in never diluting the reader's sense of being part of the old story and among Icelanders, even if he occasionally pushes this virtue too far. The translation, although it presents itself as a story and not as a piece of scholarship, is accurate and generally free of typographical errors (the one possibly confusing slip is brother's for brothers' on P 34). There is one annoying bit of non-conformity: the designers at Oberon Press have for some reason removed needed accents from all capital letters (e.g. Olafr, Islendingab6k), not so venial or acceptable in Icelandic as the omission of accents over capitals in French. (ROBERTA FRANK) Frederick J. Marker and Lise-Lone Marker. The Scandinavian Theatre: A Short History. Oxford: Blackwell and Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield 1975. xiii, 303, illus. £7.50; $21.50 Glittering court decor, virtuoso romantic acting, meticulous naturalistic detail, bold stylized images, vigorous physical expression - these are HUMANITIES 489 among the outstanding features typical of different epochs in Scandinavian theatre history. The vitality of productions and originality of the artists who created them are excellently reported by Frederick j. Marker and Lise-Lone Marker in their short history. The value of this study is especially great because neither in English nor in a Scandinavian language has there been a book presenting a comprehensive account of theatre in the Scandinavian countries. The Markers have limited the scope of their study to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway - a justifiable decision. Proceeding in chronological order, they present an account of events and personalities from the church drama of the Middle Ages to the work of director Ingmar Bergman in our decade. Starting with a medieval church painting of a grotesque devil and finishing with photographs of Bergman's austere A Dream Play in 1970, the fifty illustrations provide proof that there have been significant changes of style and individual achievements through the centuries. A comparative method is used to call attention to influences and parallel developments . The Markers are respected for their individual and collaborative schol-' arly work. Lise-Lone Marker has written on David Belasco; Frederick j. Marker on Hans Christian Andersen and Kjeld Abell. Their special interest in Danish theatre has led to studies of Edvard Brandes, johanne Luise Heiberg, and William Bloch. Now they draw upon their own research as well as works on specific periods, productions, and artists by such outstanding Scandinavian historians as Agne Beijer, Gosta M. Bergman, Robert Neiiendam, Torben Krogh, and 0yvind Anker. The result is a colourful and informative presentation of theatrical traditions and innovations in a...