Translation: Michael Meyer, 1961
Edition: Methuen
Review number: 36
The Master Builder is one of Ibsen's later plays, and presumably shares some of the themes and preoccupations of The Lady From the Sea, with which it shares the character of Hilde Wangel.
Halvard Solness is a well known builder, a master builder, who has driven many of his rivals out of business in the course of his long career. He is currently building a house for himself and his wife, Aline, to be a home to properly replace Aline's family house which burnt down some years ago killing his twin baby sons. This is to be the culmination of his artistry, and will be an unusual house with a tall spire - Solness has become more and more obsessed with spires as he has got older. (The obvious psycho-sexual idea is clearly intended here.)
Solness also has a predilection for the society of young women. His book-keeper is Kaja Fosli, who is engaged to Ragnar Brovik. Brovik is the son of one of the men forced out of business by Solness, and acts as a draughtsman to Solness. Brovik has completed some excellent designs for a new house, and Solness' approval will enable him to set up on his own and marry Kaja, neither of which are events Solness wants to happen. He has a morbid fear of young men coming up and overtaking his business, as he did to older men some years before. (There are shades of Ibsen's distrust for the younger generation of playwrights in this.)
This situation of building tension is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Hilde Wangel. Ten years before, when only fourteen, she watched Solness climb the spire of the new church in her home town. She managed to get him to promise to return to take her away in ten years time, a promise instantly forgotten by Solness but the mainstay of Hilde's emotional life. The ten years up, Solness did not appear, so Hilde came in search of him.
Now, though, she discovers that Solness is no longer the man she thought him to be. He has become terrified of heights, and will no longer climb spires as he used to - indeed, he has difficulty remembering that he ever did. She persuades him to climb the spire of the new house, but he falls, and is killed to end the play.
As can be seen, the play is full of symbols and resonances with Ibsen's own life. Apart from the distrust of young people, Ibsen also enjoyed the company of young women in his old age. It is thus more personal than many of his other plays, which deal with perhaps more universal themes. Having said that, the theme of aging is one which comes to us all in the end.
Showing posts with label Michael Meyer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Meyer. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 April 1998
Monday, 27 April 1998
Henrik Ibsen: The Wild Duck (1884)
Translation: Michael Meyer (Methuen, 1961) /Una Ellis-Fermor (Penguin, 1959)
Edition: Methuen, 1961 / Penguin, 1959
Review number: 35
The Meyer translation of this play is one of his poorest, and leaves it quite difficult to understand what it is about at all, even when familiar with several of Ibsen's plays. Ellis-Fermor makes it much clearer, partly because the Penguin Classics translations are principally intended to be read rather than performed.
The Wild Duck tells the story of two families, the Werles and Ekdals. The Ekdals are poor, Old Ekdal having been ruined in business by Haakon Werle. The young, idealistic Gregers, son of Haakon Werle comes to stay with the Ekdals after a quarrel with his father. He is aware, though the Ekdals are not, that Gina, wife of his contemporary Hjalmar Ekdal, was previously his father's mistress and that is why Hjalmar was provided with the funds to enable him to set himself up as a photographer. He reveals his knowledge, for he believes that no true marriage can be based on a lie as this one has been, and this causes the destruction of the household.
One of the strange things about the Ekdal household, and the idea with which The Wild Duck stops being a naturalistic play similar to the plays that had immediately preceded it, is that they have an attic containing all sorts of animals, and in particular a wild duck rescued from the hunting of Haakon Werle, unable to fly because of the injuries it received from his dog.
The other member of the household is Hjalmar and Gina's young daughter, Hedvig, who is going blind. The symbols of the wild duck and of Hedvig's blindness (due to a hereditary complaint, a common theme in Ibsen's work) are crucial to an understanding of the play. The wild duck symbolises something to do with freedom, which Old Ekdal has lost in his disgrace and which his son's household can never have because of his economic dependence on Werle. The bird has been crippled by Werle, and in its company Old Ekdal seeks his former happiness, as he carries out mock hunts, killing rabbits in the attic instead of the bears he once sought in the forest.
One thing is clear even in Meyer's translation: Ibsen was being distinctly critical of the idealistic view that ends justify means, and of insufficiently thought-out idealism. that places principles above psychological understanding. Gregers' revelations, made with excellent intentions, destroy the Ekdal family, particularly bringing misery to the innocent and doomed Hedvig, who cannot understand why her father is suddenly repulsed by her; she is too young to be told that he has just discovered that he might not be her father. The play is her tragedy, and her story is a powerful one.
Edition: Methuen, 1961 / Penguin, 1959
Review number: 35
The Meyer translation of this play is one of his poorest, and leaves it quite difficult to understand what it is about at all, even when familiar with several of Ibsen's plays. Ellis-Fermor makes it much clearer, partly because the Penguin Classics translations are principally intended to be read rather than performed.
The Wild Duck tells the story of two families, the Werles and Ekdals. The Ekdals are poor, Old Ekdal having been ruined in business by Haakon Werle. The young, idealistic Gregers, son of Haakon Werle comes to stay with the Ekdals after a quarrel with his father. He is aware, though the Ekdals are not, that Gina, wife of his contemporary Hjalmar Ekdal, was previously his father's mistress and that is why Hjalmar was provided with the funds to enable him to set himself up as a photographer. He reveals his knowledge, for he believes that no true marriage can be based on a lie as this one has been, and this causes the destruction of the household.
One of the strange things about the Ekdal household, and the idea with which The Wild Duck stops being a naturalistic play similar to the plays that had immediately preceded it, is that they have an attic containing all sorts of animals, and in particular a wild duck rescued from the hunting of Haakon Werle, unable to fly because of the injuries it received from his dog.
The other member of the household is Hjalmar and Gina's young daughter, Hedvig, who is going blind. The symbols of the wild duck and of Hedvig's blindness (due to a hereditary complaint, a common theme in Ibsen's work) are crucial to an understanding of the play. The wild duck symbolises something to do with freedom, which Old Ekdal has lost in his disgrace and which his son's household can never have because of his economic dependence on Werle. The bird has been crippled by Werle, and in its company Old Ekdal seeks his former happiness, as he carries out mock hunts, killing rabbits in the attic instead of the bears he once sought in the forest.
One thing is clear even in Meyer's translation: Ibsen was being distinctly critical of the idealistic view that ends justify means, and of insufficiently thought-out idealism. that places principles above psychological understanding. Gregers' revelations, made with excellent intentions, destroy the Ekdal family, particularly bringing misery to the innocent and doomed Hedvig, who cannot understand why her father is suddenly repulsed by her; she is too young to be told that he has just discovered that he might not be her father. The play is her tragedy, and her story is a powerful one.
Friday, 24 April 1998
Henrik Ibsen: Ghosts (1881)
Translation: Michael Meyer, 1962
Edition: Methuen
Review number: 34
At the time when Ghosts first appeared, it was considered extremely dangerous and indecent. The themes it contains of inherited illness (siphylis, though this is never directly stated) and hypocrisy were unacceptable to the later nineteenth century audience, even to those who considered themselves liberals and had championed Ibsen's earlier plays.
The story of the play is that of a young man, who returns home from the bohemian life of an artist because he is suffering from a mysterious illness. He has been brought up abroad, and has always believed, as the world in general has believed, that his father was a pillar of the community. He begins to fall in love with his mother's maid.
His mother is extremely alarmed when she realises what is happening. She is the only one who really knows what her dead husband was like, and she knows that he was in fact the father of the serving girl. There are parallels between her past history and the story of Nora in The Dollshouse; she too tried to leave her husband, though he was far more unpleasant than Nora's. She, however, was persuaded to return by the local church minister, with whom she had sought refuge. For the sake of her son, she spent the rest of her life covering up the truth about her husband.
The story very powerfully brings out its themes, but is very much less shocking than it seemed over a hundred years ago. It is still a play which makes one think about what you really inherit from your parents, anticipating Philip Larkin's famous poem by many years.
Edition: Methuen
Review number: 34
At the time when Ghosts first appeared, it was considered extremely dangerous and indecent. The themes it contains of inherited illness (siphylis, though this is never directly stated) and hypocrisy were unacceptable to the later nineteenth century audience, even to those who considered themselves liberals and had championed Ibsen's earlier plays.
The story of the play is that of a young man, who returns home from the bohemian life of an artist because he is suffering from a mysterious illness. He has been brought up abroad, and has always believed, as the world in general has believed, that his father was a pillar of the community. He begins to fall in love with his mother's maid.
His mother is extremely alarmed when she realises what is happening. She is the only one who really knows what her dead husband was like, and she knows that he was in fact the father of the serving girl. There are parallels between her past history and the story of Nora in The Dollshouse; she too tried to leave her husband, though he was far more unpleasant than Nora's. She, however, was persuaded to return by the local church minister, with whom she had sought refuge. For the sake of her son, she spent the rest of her life covering up the truth about her husband.
The story very powerfully brings out its themes, but is very much less shocking than it seemed over a hundred years ago. It is still a play which makes one think about what you really inherit from your parents, anticipating Philip Larkin's famous poem by many years.
Friday, 3 April 1998
Henrik Ibsen: The Pretenders (1864)
Editions: Methuen, 1964; Oxford University Press, 1962
Translations:Michael Meyer (Methuen); Evelyn Ramsden & Glynne Wickham (OUP)
Updated: 11 February 2000
Review number: 20
The Pretenders is another early Ibsen play, the earliest included in the Methuen series of Ibsen plays translated by Michael Meyer. It is a historical play dealing with a thirteenth century civil war in Norway. (The fact that it deals with Norwegian history is an explanation for its much greater popularity in Norway than elsewhere, though no knowledge of Norwegian history is needed to understand the play.)
Basically, the plot concerns a young king of slightly dubious legitimacy and the powerful nobleman who has acted as his regent since his birth. After his coming of age ceremony (at which his mother dramatically submits to trial by ordeal to prove his legitimacy), the King Haakon and his ex-regent Earl Skule start to drift apart, aided by the political manoeuvrings of the head of the Norwegian church, Bishop Nicholas.
Haakon has a radical new idea - to unite the whole of Norway as a country, to inspire people to care for the country as a whole rather than only their local neighbourhood; up to this point, the king has been viewed as the head of a group of local chieftains. Skule is enthralled by the idea, and seeks to make it his own. He is frustrated to realise that just as Haakon is more politically advanced than he is - as the man who conceived the idea - so Earl Skule is more advanced than his associates, who are unable to comprehend the idea of a united Norway. (After all, haven't the men of one town always been enemies of those of another?)
One of the main themes of the play is the meaning of patriotism, and the eventual victory of Haakon shows the capacity of the national idea to inspire. As an early work, there is not much criticism of nationalism, as you would perhaps expect of Ibsen later on, though the parochialism of the various parts of Norway could be seen as a criticism of the parochialism of Norway as a whole in Ibsen's time. Ibsen is perhaps most critical of the church; the bishop is the only character with no real nobility.
In some ways, Michael Meyer's translation is beginning to seem rather dated, yet Evelyn Ramsden and Glynne Wickham's does not, despite its greater age. This is because the OUP translation is much more aimed at production. (Meyer's translation has been staged, but I would imagine that it would seem rather stilted without further adaptation.) Ramsden and Wickham use stronger, more melodramatic words to emphasise the character of Bishop Nicholas, and the pivotal scene is much more clearly seen to be the one in which his spirit returns from hell to tempt Earl Skule into an act which will destroy the kingdom. The scene is distinctly like that in Peer Gynt in which Peer meets the ominous figure of the button moulder, also representing death and judgment.
Translations:Michael Meyer (Methuen); Evelyn Ramsden & Glynne Wickham (OUP)
Updated: 11 February 2000
Review number: 20
The Pretenders is another early Ibsen play, the earliest included in the Methuen series of Ibsen plays translated by Michael Meyer. It is a historical play dealing with a thirteenth century civil war in Norway. (The fact that it deals with Norwegian history is an explanation for its much greater popularity in Norway than elsewhere, though no knowledge of Norwegian history is needed to understand the play.)
Basically, the plot concerns a young king of slightly dubious legitimacy and the powerful nobleman who has acted as his regent since his birth. After his coming of age ceremony (at which his mother dramatically submits to trial by ordeal to prove his legitimacy), the King Haakon and his ex-regent Earl Skule start to drift apart, aided by the political manoeuvrings of the head of the Norwegian church, Bishop Nicholas.
Haakon has a radical new idea - to unite the whole of Norway as a country, to inspire people to care for the country as a whole rather than only their local neighbourhood; up to this point, the king has been viewed as the head of a group of local chieftains. Skule is enthralled by the idea, and seeks to make it his own. He is frustrated to realise that just as Haakon is more politically advanced than he is - as the man who conceived the idea - so Earl Skule is more advanced than his associates, who are unable to comprehend the idea of a united Norway. (After all, haven't the men of one town always been enemies of those of another?)
One of the main themes of the play is the meaning of patriotism, and the eventual victory of Haakon shows the capacity of the national idea to inspire. As an early work, there is not much criticism of nationalism, as you would perhaps expect of Ibsen later on, though the parochialism of the various parts of Norway could be seen as a criticism of the parochialism of Norway as a whole in Ibsen's time. Ibsen is perhaps most critical of the church; the bishop is the only character with no real nobility.
In some ways, Michael Meyer's translation is beginning to seem rather dated, yet Evelyn Ramsden and Glynne Wickham's does not, despite its greater age. This is because the OUP translation is much more aimed at production. (Meyer's translation has been staged, but I would imagine that it would seem rather stilted without further adaptation.) Ramsden and Wickham use stronger, more melodramatic words to emphasise the character of Bishop Nicholas, and the pivotal scene is much more clearly seen to be the one in which his spirit returns from hell to tempt Earl Skule into an act which will destroy the kingdom. The scene is distinctly like that in Peer Gynt in which Peer meets the ominous figure of the button moulder, also representing death and judgment.
Thursday, 2 April 1998
Henrik Ibsen: Peer Gynt (1867)
Edition: Methuen
Translation: Michael Meyer, 1963
This is one of the best known of all Ibsen's plays, though perhaps more for the music by Grieg than for the actual play. It's an early play, and is not at all like Ibsen's later works; it is very full of images and not at all realistic; a large part of the action is dramatisation of the imaginings of the main character.
In many respects, the play examines, in Peer, the opposite side of human nature to that scrutinised in Ibsen's previous play, Brand. The character of Brand is too inflexible, too unyielding, too focused on ideals while the character of Peer is almost totally concentrated on the life of the imagination and the stories that he tells. No ideals, almost no morals, no conventions enter his mind. He seduces the bride at a wedding, sets up a new religion in the Arabian desert, attempts to become king of the trolls.
The trolls are an important part of the play, symbolising what Peer so nearly becomes - totally amoral and self-centred. He is offered citizenship (along with the hand of the troll-king's daughter), but refuses to allow himself to be maimed in the way they insist (harming his eyes). So far he will go - wearing a tail, acting in a troll-like way - but no further. What saves Peer is the love of two good women - his mother, Aase, and the pure and innocent Solveig. She ends up waiting her whole life for him to return from his trip abroad, which leads him to an insane asylum in Egypt as well as the Arabian desert.
One perennial critical question about Peer Gynt is to name the moment at which Peer dies - is it in the lunatic asylum, or in the shipwreck on the journey back to Denmark, or after returning to the arms of Solveig. Michael Meyer thinks it is the asylum, because afterwards he is continually meeting characters symbolising death (the button-moulder, who remakes unworthy souls, and the stranger on ship who appears during the storm which wrecks it). I'm not sure I agree. There are so many things which take place in the imagination of Peer before this that to say something cannot really be happening doesn't make much sense.
Translation: Michael Meyer, 1963
This is one of the best known of all Ibsen's plays, though perhaps more for the music by Grieg than for the actual play. It's an early play, and is not at all like Ibsen's later works; it is very full of images and not at all realistic; a large part of the action is dramatisation of the imaginings of the main character.
In many respects, the play examines, in Peer, the opposite side of human nature to that scrutinised in Ibsen's previous play, Brand. The character of Brand is too inflexible, too unyielding, too focused on ideals while the character of Peer is almost totally concentrated on the life of the imagination and the stories that he tells. No ideals, almost no morals, no conventions enter his mind. He seduces the bride at a wedding, sets up a new religion in the Arabian desert, attempts to become king of the trolls.
The trolls are an important part of the play, symbolising what Peer so nearly becomes - totally amoral and self-centred. He is offered citizenship (along with the hand of the troll-king's daughter), but refuses to allow himself to be maimed in the way they insist (harming his eyes). So far he will go - wearing a tail, acting in a troll-like way - but no further. What saves Peer is the love of two good women - his mother, Aase, and the pure and innocent Solveig. She ends up waiting her whole life for him to return from his trip abroad, which leads him to an insane asylum in Egypt as well as the Arabian desert.
One perennial critical question about Peer Gynt is to name the moment at which Peer dies - is it in the lunatic asylum, or in the shipwreck on the journey back to Denmark, or after returning to the arms of Solveig. Michael Meyer thinks it is the asylum, because afterwards he is continually meeting characters symbolising death (the button-moulder, who remakes unworthy souls, and the stranger on ship who appears during the storm which wrecks it). I'm not sure I agree. There are so many things which take place in the imagination of Peer before this that to say something cannot really be happening doesn't make much sense.
Wednesday, 4 March 1998
Henrik Ibsen: Emperor and Galilean (1870)
Edition: Methuen, 1986
Translation: Michael Meyer, 1986
Emperor and Galilean is Ibsen's longest play, consisting of two five act parts, Caesar's Apostasy and Julian Emperor. It is also the last history play he wrote, being a fairly accurate account of the career of the Roman emperor, Julian the Apostate.
Julian was brought up a Christian and as heir (Caesar) to the Empire by Constantius, who had murdered most of Julian's family for political reasons. He was sickened by the hypocrisy and pettiness of the Christian church of the time, much as Ibsen was in his own day, and was attracted by the comparitively virtuous pagans. He became involved with a pagan mystic, Maximus, who told him that he would be the founder of the "third empire", following the pagan Roman empire and the Christian empire of the Galilean, Jesus.
He became Emperor and began to restore the pagan religion of Rome. His persecution of the church brought unity, purity and virtue back to it. He found that he might rule men's bodies, but the Galilean ruled men's hearts. Evenutually he was killed in a campaign against the Persian empire, and was succeeded by the Christian Jovian, so that his reforms came to nothing.
Emperor and Galilean occupied Ibsen over many years. It doesn't seem to me to be as great as many of his other plays; perhaps the historical nature of the play constrained him too much, making it impossible to alter the plot to make his points more telling. It deals with the themes of choice and freedom which were extremely important to Ibsen, and which it shares with other plays from the same period, notably Brand and Peer Gynt. Both these plays work better in my opinion, and Ibsen's abandonment of the historical form from this time onwards perhaps shows that he agreed.
Translation: Michael Meyer, 1986
Emperor and Galilean is Ibsen's longest play, consisting of two five act parts, Caesar's Apostasy and Julian Emperor. It is also the last history play he wrote, being a fairly accurate account of the career of the Roman emperor, Julian the Apostate.
Julian was brought up a Christian and as heir (Caesar) to the Empire by Constantius, who had murdered most of Julian's family for political reasons. He was sickened by the hypocrisy and pettiness of the Christian church of the time, much as Ibsen was in his own day, and was attracted by the comparitively virtuous pagans. He became involved with a pagan mystic, Maximus, who told him that he would be the founder of the "third empire", following the pagan Roman empire and the Christian empire of the Galilean, Jesus.
He became Emperor and began to restore the pagan religion of Rome. His persecution of the church brought unity, purity and virtue back to it. He found that he might rule men's bodies, but the Galilean ruled men's hearts. Evenutually he was killed in a campaign against the Persian empire, and was succeeded by the Christian Jovian, so that his reforms came to nothing.
Emperor and Galilean occupied Ibsen over many years. It doesn't seem to me to be as great as many of his other plays; perhaps the historical nature of the play constrained him too much, making it impossible to alter the plot to make his points more telling. It deals with the themes of choice and freedom which were extremely important to Ibsen, and which it shares with other plays from the same period, notably Brand and Peer Gynt. Both these plays work better in my opinion, and Ibsen's abandonment of the historical form from this time onwards perhaps shows that he agreed.
Tuesday, 3 March 1998
Henrik Ibsen: Brand (1866)
Translation: Michael Meyer, 1960
Edition: Methuen, 1960
Edition: Methuen, 1960
Brand is a fairly early Ibsen play, in this translation part of the Methuen plays series. This and its companion in the volume Ibsen Plays 5, Emperor and Galilean, are among the earliest Ibsen translations attempted by Meyer, and are clearly meant for performance rather than publication. Both plays are fairly severely cut; in Brand's case, this is to remove the discussion of nineteenth-century Norwegian politics which is likely to be tedious to a modern, non-Scandinavian audience.
The central character is a pastor of the Norwegian state church. He returns to his ancestral home, a small, remote village in a valley overshadowed by the dangerous mountains which surround it. As he arrives, the villagers are on the verge of starvation, and he shows no pity for their state, refusing to give them the food they crave. He blames them for putting the needs of the body above the duty of the spirit, which in his mind is due to a hard and vengeful God. He does, however, show great personal courage in crossing the fjord in a storm to give a householder his last rites. This act leads the villagers to ask him to become their pastor. He is mocked by the gypsy girl, Gerd, who tells him that the "ice-church" up in the mountains is far greater and more beautiful than the ugly village church.
In the second act - Brand has a lot of plot! - he has married a woman named Agnes and has a son, Ulf. The son is dying, and the doctor tells Brand and Agnes that he will live if they leave the village and move to the south. After a struggle within himself, viewing this as temptation to give up his calling, Brand refuses to leave the village, and Ulf dies. The third act takes place the following Christmas, when Agnes decorates their house in the way that the child loved. Brand tells her that she must give up her attachment to the dead child and devote herself to his calling, as he (and, indeed, society in general) believed a wife should. A gypsy woman arrives, begging for clothing to warm her freezing young son, and Brand makes Agnes purify herself by giving up all the clothing she has left which belonged to Ulf, her last reminders of her child.
By the fourth act, Agnes too has died, and Brand is putting his energy into building a larger and more beautiful village church. As the work comes to completion, Brand falls into despair as he realises that the church can never be big enough or beautiful enough. He rejects the building, at the moment which everyone around him thinks is his time of triumph. He leads the villagers away from the church into the mountains. Up in the mountains, the villagers abandon him when he is unable to minister to their physical needs - there is a clear contrast with the story of Christ feeding the five thousand, where the gospels say he had compassion on the crowd because of their hunger. Finally, he is left alone with Gerd, who leads him to the ice-church. She fires a rifle and the noise breaks the balance that keeps the ice and snow in a church-like shape, and Brand is destroyed by an avalanche to end the play.
Brand is an incredibly bleak play. There are really no admirable characters; Agnes comes closest perhaps to being so. It is of course a strong attack on the human consequences of the hard-heartedness that so often characterises evangelical Protestantism. Brand has an inadequate picture of God, one which perhaps reflects his own personal inadequacies. Even he, at times, finds the self-sacrifice that he feels his God demands of him almost two much to bear, notably in the second and third acts.
Ibsen's feelings about religion and personal freedom (characters are constantly asked to make choices when they feel there is no choice) play a major role. The ice-church probably represents the negation of love; Brand's uncompromising devotion to duty completely kills off the love which he should feel towards Agnes and Ulf, to the villagers, and above all to his God. (Contrast Peer Gynt in Ibsen's next play, who abandons all that might be considered duty for extreme self-indulgence.)
Altogether, Brand is a challenging play to read, but I felt it was well worth it.
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