"New Drama"- a symbol for those innovations that have made themselves known in the European theater 1860-1890s years. Mainly this socio-psychological dramaturgy, which at the time of its inception was oriented towards naturalism in prose, for discussion in the theater of civically significant " topical» problems. However, despite the importance of naturalism and naturalistic literary theory (“Naturalism in the Theater” by E. Zola), as well as the attempts of a number of naturalists to transfer their novels to the stage, the “new drama” is hardly reducible to something unambiguous, so to speak, programmatic . She turned out to be sensitive to a variety of literary trends and offered her own, in this case specifically theatrical, interpretation of not only naturalism, but also impressionism and symbolism, which was influential throughout the 19th century. lines of romantic drama (to the prize-winner, R. Rolland, E. Rostand).

The "new drama" arose during the reign of " well made”, but far from the life of the plays, from the very beginning I tried to draw attention to its most burning, pressing problems. “New Drama” shifts attention from external action and twisted intrigue to the inner world of a person, the conflicts of his consciousness and conscience. Comes into focus not an action, but a conversation, assessments, reflection, analysis.

"New Drama" is new type conflict. The collision of a person and a reality hostile to him, which distorts the essence of his spirit. In the new drama, a special role is played by stage directions, which are transformed from a purely auxiliary means into constitutive elements of a dramatic text, functionally interconnected with the dialogue. The new drama actively uses stage directions such as “silence”, “silent”, “pause”, which mark key moments in the development of dialogues and stage action and allow the formation of subtext. This feature is also called "undercurrent" or "double dialogue". In the text of the new drama, there seem to be two levels, when the spoken words do not directly or even at all express the relationships of the characters or reveal the essence of the actions taking place. According to A.P. Chekhov, “ people have lunch, drink tea, and at this time their fates are broken».

Another characteristic feature of the new drama is the erasure of opposition "monologue - dialogue" the main thing is opposition dialogue-remark. The new drama features " principle of analytical composition", when the plot of the action is the event of the day, which has already happened before the start of the play, and the content of the drama is an analysis of the reasons. The language of the new drama is close to colloquial. Symbols are used to help you understand that something is wrong (the sound of a broken string, rustling). The problems of the new drama touch upon those moments of social life that are usually hushed up and hidden. Theater, according to the theorists of the new drama, should not serve as entertainment, it should reflect social problems and encourage thinking.

At the origins of the “new drama” is a monumental figure Henrik Ibsen, reformer European theater of the 19th century. (which built a bridge from Schiller-type dramaturgy to analytical drama), on the one hand, and “ iconoclast", whom his contemporaries, in terms of the degree of rejection of Christianity and militant individualism, compared, not without reason, with F. Nietzsche - on the other.

It should be noted that the search range of both Ibsen and the most significant European playwrights turn of XIX-XX centuries very diverse. So, for example, the early Ibsen is almost a contemporary of the era of “sturm and stress”, the work of V. Hugo of the 1830s, he is passionate about the problem Norwegian national identity. Then comes a period of infatuation S. Kierkegaard, then K. F. Hebbel, then R. Wagner, then Hegel. The late Ibsen, without changing the main theme of his work (the tragedy of the individualist trying to become “himself”), paves the way already post-naturalistic theater, unexpectedly in the interpretation of a number of motifs comes close to its seemingly antipode M. Maeterlinck

The son of a bankrupt merchant from the town of Skien, Ibsen began writing early. At the age of fifteen he began to write poetry, and finished his first dramatic work, a play in a romantic spirit called “Catiline,” when he was only twenty. Although “Catiline” did not bring success to Ibsen, the young author, having moved to Christiania, firmly decided to connect his future with the theater. The early period of Ibsen's work is devoted to national romantic dramas, glorifying the heroic past of the country: “Bogatyrsky Mound, “ Fru Inger from Estrot», « Feast in Solhaug», « Olaf Liljekrans" The fascination with antiquity is explained by the fact that from 1852 to 1857. Ibsen served as playwright and artistic director of Norway's first national theater in Bergen, whose organizers saw ancient Icelandic sagas and Norwegian folk ballads are material capable of displacing French salon plays from the Norwegian stage. However, even then Ibsen was more interested in living people, and not in the idealized heroes of the Middle Ages: “... my intention in general was to depict our life in ancient times, and not our world of sagas,” he wrote in the preface to the play “Warriors in Helgeland.” But this was the end of his career as a director and playwright working directly for the theater.

In the 1850s, Ibsen was not only a militant Norwegian patriot, but also an ardent supporter of the movement Pan-Scandinavianism. He writes poems and articles on political topics, calling for a fight against England, the main importer of capital to Norway (later K. Hamsun would also take anti-English positions), on the one hand, and Prussia, on the other. The indifference shown by Sweden and Norway during the defeat of Denmark by Prussia and Austria-Hungary showed the futility of Ibsen’s romantic hopes for the unification of Scandinavia and brought an end to his national-romantic period of creativity.

His European fame was brought to him by the poetic drama “ Brand"(Brand, 1865, post. 1885), written in Rome and dedicated to the problem of a heroic individual, a fighter against any form of public and personal falsehood, who, in order to succeed in life, learns the art of renunciation (from the church, fatherland, family, even himself ).

This dramatic portrait of a hero serving the “unknown gods” of his deeply individual, almost anarchic-heroic destiny was followed by Peer Gynt (1867, post. 1876). This is a kind of anti-Brand, the story of a disastrous rejection of Brand’s call to “be who you are” for the sake of the comfort of “bourgeois life.” " Per Gyn t”, unlike “Brand”, is transferred to a fairy-tale, fantasy world.

In 1873, " Caesar and the Galilean"(Kejser og galilaser, post. 1896) - Ibsen's last poetic drama with an emphatically philosophical concept; it is dedicated to Julian the Apostate, the tragic struggle of the Roman emperor with the course of history (in this case, with Christianity, which non-violently defeated Rome). Trying to fight Christianity and restore old pagan beliefs, sanctified by “tradition” and material beauty, Julian unwittingly paves the way for the Galilean...

Ibsen's most popular play in Russia was " doll house"(Et Dukkehjem, 1879). The scenery of Helmer and Nora's apartment immerses the viewer in a bourgeois idyll. It is destroyed by attorney Krogstad, who reminds Nora of the bill of exchange she forged. Torvald Helmer quarrels with his wife and blames her in every possible way. Unexpectedly, Krogstad is re-educated and sends a promissory note to Nora. Helmer immediately calms down and invites his wife to return to normal life, but Nora has already realized how little she means to her husband. She denounces the bourgeois family system. The play ends with Nora leaving. However, it should not be perceived as social, the play is written on real events, and for Ibsen the universal human problem of freedom is important.

The first drama written by Ibsen after A Doll's House is " Ghosts"(Gengangere, 1881). She uses many of the “Brand” motifs: heredity, religion, idealism (embodied in Mrs. Alving). But in “Ghosts,” critics note the significant influence of French naturalism.

In the drama written under the influence of impressionism and Shakespeare, “ Wild duck"(Vildanden, 1884) the idealist Gregers is contrasted with the humanist doctor, who believes that people should not be revealed everything that happens in their lives. "The New Hamlet" Gregers does not heed the doctor's advice and reveals his family's secrets, which ultimately leads to the suicide of his sister Hedwig.

In his later plays, the subtext becomes more complex and the subtlety of the psychological picture increases. The theme of the “strong man” comes to the fore. Ibsen becomes merciless towards his heroes. Examples of these plays are " Builder Solnes"(Bygmester Solness, 1892), " Yoon Gabriel Borkman"(John Gabriel Borkman, 1896).

Solnes the Builder is the most significant of Ibsen's late dramas. Solnes, like Ibsen, is torn between a high calling and the comforts of life. Young Hilda, reminiscent of Hedwig from The Wild Duck, demands that he return to building towers. The play ends with the fall of the builder, which has not yet been interpreted by literary scholars. According to one version, creativity and life are incompatible, according to another, this is the only way a true artist can complete his journey.

Submitting your good work to the knowledge base is easy. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

Moscow State Open University

Faculty of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication

Department of Linguistics

History of foreign literature

on the topic: “Ibsen’s dramaturgy”

Moscow 2010

• Introduction
• 2. Features of dramaturgy
• 3. Ibsen's late dramaturgy
• Conclusion

Introduction

The turn of the 20th century in the history of Western European literature was marked by a powerful rise in dramatic art. Contemporaries called the drama of this period “new drama,” emphasizing the radical nature of the changes that took place in it. The “new drama” arose in an atmosphere of the cult of science, caused by the unusually rapid development of natural science, philosophy and psychology, and, opening up new spheres of life, absorbed the spirit of omnipotent and all-pervasive scientific analysis. She perceived many different artistic phenomena and was influenced by various ideological and stylistic movements and literary schools, from naturalism to symbolism. “New Drama” appeared during the reign of “well-made” but far-from-life plays and from the very beginning tried to draw attention to its most burning, pressing problems. The origins of the new drama were Ibsen, Bjornson, Strindberg, Zola, Hauptmann, Shaw, Hamsun, Maeterlinck and other outstanding writers, each of whom made a unique contribution to its development. From a historical and literary perspective, the “new drama,” which served as a radical restructuring of the dramaturgy of the 19th century, marked the beginning of the dramaturgy of the 20th century.

1. The emergence of a “new drama” in Ibsen’s work

In the history of Western European “new drama,” the role of innovator and pioneer belongs to the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). His artistic creativity comes into contact with many literary movements and does not fit completely within the framework of any of them. In the 1860s, Ibsen began as a romantic, in the 1870s he became one of the recognized European realist writers; the symbolism in his plays of the 1890s brings Ibsen closer to the symbolists and neo-romantics of the end of the century. But in all his works, social and moral issues are acute, alien to consistent symbolism and neo-romanticism. Ibsen is rightfully considered the creator of psychological drama and the philosophical “drama of ideas,” which largely determined the artistic appearance of modern world drama.

Creative path Ibsen spans more than half a century. In 1849, he wrote his first romantic drama “Catalina”, and after it - in a national romantic spirit - “The Heroic Mound” (1850), “Warriors in Helgeland” (1857) and “The Struggle for the Throne” ( 1863). The top of it romantic creativity became the philosophical and symbolic dramas “Brand” (1866) and “Peer Gynt” (1867), staged philosophical problems the purpose and moral duty of man, and the adjacent philosophical drama on the historical theme “Caesar and the Galilean” (1873), which proclaimed the idea of ​​the “third kingdom” - a world of freedom, goodness and beauty, replacing paganism and Christianity.

And yet, despite the enormous importance of Ibsen’s romantic drama, his main artistic achievements lie in the field of realistic drama of the 1870-1890s, which received well-deserved recognition from readers and viewers around the world.

Ibsen began to move away from romanticism back in the 1860s in “The Comedy of Love” (1862), and even more so in “The Youth Union” (1869), a sharp satire on the political life of Norway.

In 1877, in the play “The Pillars of Society,” Ibsen takes a decisive step towards creating a social drama that mercilessly criticizes the spiritual state of Norwegian society.

During the period from 1877 to 1899, Ibsen created twelve plays: “The Pillars of Society”; "A Doll's House", 1879; "Ghosts", 1881; "Enemy of the People", 1882; "Wild Duck", 1884; "Rosmersholm", 1886; "Woman from the Sea", 1888; "Hedda Gabler", 1890; "The Builder Solnes", 1892; "Little Eyolf", 1894; "Yun Gabriel Borkman", 1896; “When We Dead Awaken,” 1899. They are usually divided into three groups, with four plays in each. If in the plays of the first group Ibsen focuses on social problems, then starting with “The Wild Duck” - on moral and psychological ones, filling the content of the works with symbolic meaning. At the same time, he often violates the strict composition characteristic of his social dramas, and pays more attention than before to the landscape, reflecting the mental state of the heroes.

The decisive condition for the emergence of a “new drama” in Ibsen’s work was his appeal to the problems of modern reality. His first social-critical drama “Pillars of Society,” deepening the satirical tendencies inherent in the “Youth Union,” exposes the vices of bourgeois society that prevent a person from “being himself” and realizing his destiny.

In posing the problem and resolving the conflict in his first “new drama,” Ibsen clearly relied on the artistic experience of his compatriot, writer and playwright Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1832-1910). He is often called "the pioneer of the 'new drama' in Norway."

According to G. Brandes, in Bjornson’s plays “Bankruptcy” and “The Editor” (both 1874) “for the first time our modernity spoke in full voice.” A. Strindberg called these plays “signal flares” of the “new drama.” Following “Bankruptcy” and “The Editor”, other problematic dramas by Bjornson were released: “The King” (1877), “Leonarda” (1879), “The New System” (1879), “The Gauntlet” (1883), “Beyond Our Strength” ", parts I and II (1883 and 1885), etc.

2. Features of dramaturgy

ibsen drama play literary

Ibsen’s awareness and identification of the deep internal contradiction between the “ideal” and “reality”, the appearance and essence of the surrounding world determined artistic structure his plays about modernity. Ibsen's drama, in fact, begins from the moment where the action of Bjornson's drama ends. The famous retrospective or “intellectual-analytical” form of Ibsen’s drama serves to “learn” the secrets of the past of his heroes. Remaining outside the scope of direct action, it is analyzed and exposed by them in the process of what is happening. “Learning” a secret dramatically disrupts the calm and prosperous course of their lives. If Björnson, even before the start of the main events, in the exposition, provides the necessary information about the characters of the play, then in Ibsen, the “exposition”, as a rule, extends to its entire action, and only in the last scenes does the secret become apparent. The revelation of what happened to the heroes in the past is caused by the events of the present, and the more secrets of their past are revealed to the reader or viewer, the clearer the reason that caused the catastrophe. In short, with the help of a retrospective technique, Ibsen reveals the true state of affairs hidden behind the shell of external well-being. “Learning” a secret is for him the most important way of exploring not only stage characters, but also life in general, in all the richness of its manifestations, contradictions and possibilities.

In his plays, Ibsen strives for absolute authenticity of what is happening. He emphasizes that his works are designed to “create in the reader or viewer the impression that this is real reality,” and demands from directors that their stage embodiment be “as natural as possible” and “everything should bear the stamp of genuine life.” The demand for truth in life is also important for the language of Ibsen’s drama. The playwright ensures that the characters' remarks exactly correspond to the speech forms of reality. Even more important to him is his extensive use of subtext.

The characters' remarks often contain additional meaning, shedding light on complex mental processes of which they themselves are sometimes not aware. Along with dialogue, pauses also carry semantic load in the characters’ speech, the role of which increases sharply in the playwright’s later plays.

Ibsen’s “new drama” found its artistic form in A Doll’s House. In “The Pillars of Society” the principle of retrospective composition has not yet been fully implemented by him. Bernik's exposure does not occur at the end of the play, but during the course of the action. In A Doll's House, Thorsten learns of Nora's "deed" that occurred long before the events of the play, in its last act. The tension is achieved not through exciting intrigue, but mainly through a subtle analysis of the heroine’s state of mind, anxiously awaiting her revelation.

At the end of the play, after a discussion with her husband, Nora discovers a new path in life. According to Shaw, thanks to the discussion at the end of the play, A Doll's House "conquered Europe and founded new school dramatic art."

The play, greeted with enthusiasm by readers, was immediately translated into German, English, French, Italian, Finnish and Russian. In 1879, it was staged in Norway, then in other countries, and enjoyed constant success with audiences everywhere.

At the same time, some conservative Norwegian critics accused the playwright of deliberately undermining the foundations of society with his A Doll's House. In response to them, Ibsen in his next play “Ghosts” showed what the desire to save a broken family union at any cost can lead to. The heroine of the play, Fru Alving, who suffered from adultery and drunken orgies of her husband, wanted, like Nora, to leave her family, but Pastor Manders persuaded her to stay.

Mrs. Alving never decided to enter into an open struggle with hypocritical public morality. The price for compromising her conscience was the fatal illness of her son Oswald, which he inherited from his dissolute father.

Like A Doll's House, Ghosts is not only overtly tendentious, but also a deeply psychological drama. It gives an unusually subtle and acute psychological characterization of the heroine, who discovers with horror at the end of the play that in her family tragedy there is a considerable share of her own guilt. For Mrs. Alving, Oswald’s words that in parental home he "was deprived of the joy of life." At this moment, a terrible guess dawns on her. After all, such a “joy of life” was in full swing in her husband in his youth. Strictly following the rules of Puritan morality, she herself killed in him this joy of enjoying life. Ibsen sharpens the psychological conflict in the play to the extreme. He leaves his heroine on the threshold of a choice: should she ease her son’s suffering and, as she promised, give him poison, or leave everything as it is and thereby further aggravate her guilt towards him?

In Ghosts, Ibsen demonstrates mastery of the technique of constructing a play, using it to “self-expose” the heroine and condemn public lies. Drama is achieved by the maximum concentration of events in time and space, the unity of time and place, as in ancient drama. But unlike the latter, “Ghosts” uses the techniques of “new drama,” intellectual and psychological.

It greatly enhances the role of discussion, mood, and subtext; the inextricable connection between the past and the present is further expressed in artistic symbols.

In the drama “Enemy of the People,” criticism of ideas and living conditions hostile to man reaches its climax. Ibsen depicts in it an irreconcilable conflict between the spa doctor Thomas Stockmann, on the one hand, and the city authorities, public opinion, and the press, on the other.

It is also noteworthy that in disputes with his opponents, Dr. Stockman often resorts to argumentation characteristic of the biological science of that time. He compares human society with the animal world and talks about “poodle people” and “mongrel people” standing at different stages of development, often using Darwinian terms “cultivated nature” and “primitive nature”, “struggle for existence”, “natural selection”, etc. The impact of the ideas of biological determinism also affected Ibsen's other “new” plays. Both Dr. Rank in A Doll's House and Oswald in Ghosts are victims of their fathers' unhealthy heredity.

And although the appeal to the topic of heredity is in no way a defining feature of the “new drama” of Ibsen, who experienced a keen interest primarily in the problems of the spiritual life of the individual (even in “Ghosts,” the most “naturalistic” of the playwright’s plays, his focus is not a hereditary disease of a son, and a spiritual drama of a mother), nevertheless, the naturalistic motives that sounded in it gave grounds for naturalist playwrights to see in him their spiritual father. When, from the mid-1880s, predominantly moral and psychological problems came to the fore in Ibsen’s work, and at the same time, the role of artistic symbols, then another literary movement - symbolist - laid claim to the writer.

Symbols in Ibsen’s “new drama” appeared long before symbolism fully declared itself in drama. The rotten bottom of the “Indian Woman” in “Pillars of Society”, the fire in the orphanage in “Ghosts”, the “poisoned sources of spiritual life” in the play “Enemy of the People” - all these are not just vivid details of the depicted reality, but also poetic images-symbols , summarizing real life phenomena with the help of allegory, metaphor, and allegory.

“The Wild Duck” is Ibsen’s first play in which the spiritual appearance and fate of the characters is revealed with the help of allegory and poetic symbols. First of all, this refers to the image of a wounded bird living in the attic of the Ekdahls’ house. The fate of almost every character is somehow related to this symbol. The businessman Werle shot a wild duck while hunting and then gave it to Hjalmar. In the same way, he “handed over” his mistress Gina to him. An avid hunter, Ekdahl, says about wounded animals: “... they dive to the bottom... into the very depths... and never come up again.” So is Hjalmar. He is offended by fate and hopelessly attached to fruitless illusions. This symbol relates differently to the image of Hedwig. The girl is connected with the wild duck by a feeling of inner kinship; and at the end of the play she accepts the death intended for the wild duck. “The wild duck is Hedwig,” Ibsen wrote about his heroine. The image of a forest built in the attic of a house is also multifaceted. This is a symbol of the illusions by which its inhabitants live. For Ekdal they replace life in free nature. Yalmar serves as a refuge from life's disappointments. For Hedwig, this is a magical, fairy-tale world that gives food to her poetic imagination.

In Rosmersholm a different kind of symbolism predominates. Comparison symbols give way to symbolic pictures of the heroes’ state of mind. The famous white horses of Rosmersholm, according to legend, appearing before a misfortune occurs, are a terrible symbol of death and the omnipotence of the past, that mystical power that the mistress of the estate, who threw herself into the whirlpool, retained over the souls of its living inhabitants. When the “secret” of the mysterious suicide is revealed, another tragedy occurs - the suicide of the play’s heroes, Rosmer and Rebecca, about which the old housekeeper says: “The deceased took them.”

In Rosmersholm, unlike previous works, peace of mind characters are explored not so much through their past actions, but through elucidation of the motives and motivations that moved them.

In-depth psychological analysis serve as symbols reflecting vague states of mind who have gained irresistible power over the characters of the play.

Starting from Rosmersholm, exploration of the depths mental life becomes perhaps the most important task of the playwright, but philosophical and ethical problems still remain the focus of his attention. The ethical problem of freedom and personal responsibility is discussed by Ibsen in the plays “The Woman from the Sea”, “Hedda Gabler”, “John Gabriel Borkman”. Ellida Wangel in “The Woman from the Sea” experiences a strange, incomprehensible melancholy caused by memories of the sea and a meeting with an unfamiliar sailor to whom she swore an oath of love and fidelity, but is freed from the power of fatal and mysterious forces after her husband, Doctor Wangel, who initially tried to keep her near him by force, gives her complete freedom of action. Hedda Gabler, who, according to Ibsen, is “a type of modern person who acts impulsively, inexplicably, and suffers from a lack of purpose in life,” is tormented by the desire “at least once in her life to decide the fate of another person.” Hedda's revolt against philistinism in the name of “beauty and perfection” is painful, decadently perverted. In the character of John Gabriel Borkman, Ibsen embodies tragedy extraordinary personality who wasted her mental strength. From the very beginning, the dream of universal happiness and well-being of people is connected by the hero of the play with the greedy desire to “seize all sources of power in the country.”

For Borkman, the harsh retribution for the desire for unlimited personal power, which he placed above morality, is lonely old age and premature death.

Condemnation of the cult " strong personality"in Ibsen's late dramaturgy was directed against the ideas of F. Nietzsche, known to him from his presentation

G. Brandes in his famous essay “Aristocratic Radicalism” (1889).

G. Brandes, who glorified the name of the German philosopher not only in Scandinavia, but throughout Europe, was deeply concerned by his idea that the true creators of spiritual culture are individual geniuses. This idea resonated in the soul of the Norwegian playwright, as it largely corresponded to his individualism. However, the lack of ethical foundations in Nietzsche’s teachings, contempt for democracy, and the denial of Christianity as a “religion of slaves” evoked the condemnation of Ibsen, who was brought up on the humanistic traditions of national and European culture.

In addition to the debunking of Nietzsche's superman, an important motive in Ibsen's late dramaturgy is the painful revaluation of the heroes' past. In 1895, Ibsen wrote: “Universal recognition gives me a certain satisfaction, but it does not bring me happiness or joy.” A difficult drama is experienced by the heroes of his latest works, who, through cruel self-denial, managed to realize their spiritual calling and at the same time suffer from the fact that joining the happy sides everyday life with its simple human joys is inaccessible to them.

3. Ibsen's late dramaturgy

New features emerge in the poetics of Ibsen’s late drama. Much of what happens to the characters can hardly be explained rationally and receives a purely symbolic interpretation, and the ideological and philosophical content of the plays is expressed not in the real, as before, but in a generalized conditional plane. And at the same time, even in the most “symbolic” plays, such as “The Builder Solnes” and “When We Dead Awaken,” despite the features of symbolism and even irrationalism, the intellectual-analytical principle still dominates. Like all of Ibsen’s “new drama,” they are distinguished by a high humanistic pathos that denies the cult of refined, aestheticized art.

And although the symbolism of the later plays seemed to link them closely with the Symbolist drama of this time, Ibsen himself was categorically against their being interpreted as Symbolist. “I’m not looking for symbols, but portraying living people,” the playwright emphasizes.

“The Builder Solnes” is a philosophical and psychological play. As before, Ibsen expresses in it the idea that a person, while remaining “himself,” must strive for the ideal of freedom, happiness and perfection. However, the content of the play is revealed in the actions and thoughts of the characters, filled with deep symbolic meaning (Hilda’s request to Solnes, their dreams of “castles in the air on a rocky foundation,” Solnes’s ascent to the tower), and the characters themselves, while maintaining human specificity and persuasiveness, are perceived as symbols of the unknown secrets of the soul.

The action of the play “When We Dead Awaken,” the most conventional among Ibsen’s works, unfolds in real and symbolic terms simultaneously. The upward movement from act to act, from the sea coast through the treeless wasteland and onto the mountain cliffs, records the spiritual aspiration of the heroes.

Their past and present are expressed in symbols (work on the sculpture “Rising from the Dead”, Irena’s appearance, by the time new meeting with Rubek never being able to recover from her illness, the death of heroes on the way to the mountain peak, etc.). The situation in the play itself is important for Ibsen not as such, but as an occasion to speak out on the global problems of the artist’s life and work.

But no matter what features appear in Ibsen’s “new drama,” its foundations remain unchanged. Ibsen created modern drama, imbuing it with social, philosophical and moral issues. He developed its artistic form, developed the art of dialogue, introducing lively colloquial speech into it. In his scenic paintings of everyday life, he made extensive use of symbolism, greatly expanding the visual possibilities of realistic art.

Ibsen's work is the starting point of modern drama. Shaw considered himself a student of Ibsen. Ibsen's early followers were Strindberg and Hauptmann. The symbolism of Ibsen's drama inspired Maeterlinck. No one managed to escape Ibsen's influence, not even Chekhov.

New stylistic features of Ibsen's later plays are organically included in the general artistic system of his dramaturgy of the 70s and 80s. All their symbolism and all that vague haze with which they are surrounded is the most important component of their overall color and emotional structure, giving them a special semantic capacity. In a number of cases, the carriers of Ibsen's symbolism are any tactile, extremely specific objects or phenomena that are connected by many threads not only with the general concept, but also with the plot structure of the play. Particularly indicative in this regard is the wild duck with a wounded wing living in the attic of Ekdahl’s house: she embodies the fate of a man whom life has deprived of the opportunity to strive upward, and at the same time plays an important role in the entire development of the action in the play, which bears the title with deep meaning "Wild duck".

In 1898, eight years before Ibsen’s death, the seventieth birthday of the great Norwegian playwright was solemnly celebrated. His name at this time was one of the most famous literary names throughout the world, his plays were staged in theaters in many countries.

In Russia, Ibsen was one of the “masters of thought” of progressive youth starting in the 90s, but especially in the early 1900s. Many productions of Ibsen's plays have left a significant mark on the history of Russian theatrical art. The Moscow Art Theater performance “The Enemy of the People” in St. Petersburg on March 4, 1901 was a major public event. The production of "A Doll's House" in the theater had a huge resonance

V.F. Komissarzhevskaya in Passage - with V.F. Komissarzhevskaya in the role of Nora. Ibsen's motifs - in particular, motifs from Peer Gynt - were clearly heard in the poetry of A. A. Blok. “Solveig, you came skiing to me...” - this is how one of Blok’s poems begins.

And as the epigraph to his poem “Retribution,” Blok took the words from Ibsen’s “The Builder of Solnes”: “Youth is retribution.”

Conclusion

And yet the main tendency of the “new drama” is in its desire for a reliable depiction, a truthful show inner world, social and everyday features of the characters’ lives and environment. The exact coloring of the place and time of action is its characteristic feature and an important condition for stage implementation. The “New Drama” stimulated the discovery of new principles of performing arts, based on the requirement of a truthful, artistically accurate reproduction of what is happening. Thanks to the "new drama" and its stage embodiment in theatrical aesthetics, the concept of the “fourth wall” arose when an actor on stage, as if not taking into account the presence of the viewer, according to K.S. Stanislavsky, “must stop acting and start living the life of the play, becoming its protagonist,” and the audience, in turn, believing in this illusion of verisimilitude, watch with excitement the easily recognizable life of the characters in the play.

“New Drama” developed the genres of social, psychological and intellectual “drama of ideas”, which turned out to be unusually productive in the dramaturgy of the 20th century. Without the “new drama” it is impossible to imagine the emergence of either expressionist or existentialist drama, or Brecht’s epic theater, or the French “anti-drama”. And although more than a century separates us from the birth of the “new drama,” it still has not lost its relevance, special depth, artistic novelty and freshness.

List of used literature

1. Dzhivilegov A., Boyadzhiev G. History of the Western European Theater. M., 1991

2. Encyclopedia of Symbolism: Painting, graphics and sculpture.

Literature. Music / Comp. J.Cassou. M, 1998

3. French symbolism: Drama and theater. St. Petersburg, 2000

4. Karelsky A.V. Metamorphoses of Orpheus: Conversations on the history of Western literature. Vol. 1: French literature of the 19th century. M.: Russian. state humanist University, 1998

5. Western European theater from the Renaissance to the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. M.: RSUH, 2001

6. Spanish drama of the 50-70s. and socio-historical development of the country. //Iberiaca. Culture of the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula in the 20th century. L., 1989

7. Austrian novella of the 19th century. M., 1959

8. History of German literature, vols. 1-5. M., 1962-1976

9. German short story of the twentieth century. M., 1963

10. Zhirmunsky V.M. Essays on the history of classical German literature. L., 1972

11. Golden ratio: Austrian poetry of the 19th-20th centuries in Russian translations. M., 1977

12. History of literature of Germany. M., 1980

13. History of literature of the GDR. M., 1982

14. Ristikivi K. Essays on the history of Estonian literature. Tallinn, 1997

15. Polish romantic poem of the 19th century. M., 1982

16. History of Polish literature. vol. 1-2. M., 1968-1969

17. Craig G.E. Memoirs, articles, letters. M, 1988

18. Literary manifestos and artistic practice: Reader / Comp. A. Sokolov. M., 1998

19. Admoni V.G. Henrik Ibsen. M., 1956

20. Ibsen G. Collected Works, vols. 1-4. M., 1956-1958

21. Heiberg H. Henrik Ibsen. M., 1975

22. Bely A. Crisis of consciousness and Henrik Ibsen. In the book. Bely A. Symbolism as a worldview. M., 1994

23. Berdyaev N. Henrik Ibsen. In the book. Berdyaev N. Philosophy of creativity, culture and art. T. 2. M., 1994

24. Yursky S. Gedda Gabler and modern terrorism. In the book. Yursky S. An attempt to think. M., 2003

25. Maeterlinck M. Plays. M., 1958

26. Maeterlinck M. Plays. M., 1972

27. Shkunaeva I. Early theater of Maurice Maeterlinck; Maeterlinck Theater at the beginning of the 20th century. - In the book: Shkunaeva I. Belgian drama from Maeterlinck to the present day. M., 1973

28. Maeterlinck M. Blue Bird. L., 1975

29. Maeterlinck M. The Mind of Flowers. M., 1995

30. Morshchiner M. S., Zhitomirskaya Z. V. Henrik Ibsen: Bibliographic index for the 50th anniversary of his death. M., 1956

31. Khrapovitskaya G. N. Ibsen and Western European drama of his time. M., 1979.

32. Neustroev V.P. Strindberg. Drama of life // Literary essays and portraits. M., 1983.

33. Andreev L.G. Maurice Maeterlinck // One Hundred Years of Belgian Literature. M., 1967.

34. Shkunaeva I.D. The early theater of Maurice Maeterlinck // Belgian drama from Maeterlinck to the present day. M., 1973.

35. Zingerman B.I. Essays on the history of drama of the 20th century. Chekhov, Strindberg, Ibsen, Maeterlinck,

36. Maeterlinck M. Uninvited. Blind. Monna Bath

Posted on Allbest.ru

...

Similar documents

Theoretical aspects subtext in the work of playwrights. The originality of Chekhov's dramaturgy. Specifics of Ibsen's creativity. Practical analysis of subtext in the dramaturgy of Ibsen and Chekhov. The role of symbolism in Chekhov. Displaying subtext in Ibsen's dramaturgy.

course work, added 10/30/2015


History of Western European literature. Turn of the 20th century. Dramatic art. Naturalistic theater. Ibsen's school. Bernard Shaw on the "new drama". The creative path of Shaw the playwright. "Pygmalion" by B. Shaw as one of the most striking works of the "new drama".

abstract, added 10/21/2008


History of the theatrical process at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The emergence of a "new drama". Principles of the poetics of "intellectual drama" by B. Shaw. The plays "Pygmalion" and "Heartbreak House" are examples of intellectual drama. Reflection of the “paradox” technique in plays.

thesis, added 07/23/2017


Development of drama at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Formation of a "new drama". The problem of artistic harmony and the problem of harmonious social life. Depiction of global, timeless, eternal conflicts in drama. The idea of ​​reviving the cult theater.

abstract, added 05/19/2011


The formation of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov as a playwright, artistic ideas and forms of his creativity. Description of the specifics of Chekhov's dramaturgy. The evolution of the drama "Ivanov" from its first to its second edition. Study of literary prototypes of the image of the main character.

thesis, added 07/17/2017


Study of the stages of formation folk drama, elements of drama in calendar rituals, round dance games. Characteristics of the features of peasant family and wedding rituals. Study of scenes and comic dialogues of the heroes of the robber drama "The Boat".

test, added 12/22/2011


Ibsen's work links centuries - in the literal sense of the word. Its origins are in the ending, pre-revolutionary 18th century, in Schiller’s tyrannical struggle and in Rousseau’s appeal to nature and to ordinary people.

abstract, added 05/16/2004


Based on the plays "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen and "Mistress Julie" by August Strindberg. Love is the most inexplicable human feeling. Many volumes of poetry and prose have been devoted to it, but it is never fully understood.

topic, added 02/27/2005


Based on the plays "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen and "Mistress Julie" by August Strindberg. A man and a woman are halves of something whole, and the more they argue about who is better, who has more rights, the more inferior they are.

essay, added 01/04/2005


Emile Zola is a French writer, publicist and political activist. Works by Maupassant, Flaubert, Dickens, Balzac, Bayle (Stendhal), Mérimée, Thackeray, Proust, Mann, Joyce, Ibsen, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Wilde, Collins, Poe, Verne, Sand and Brontë.

The topic of “Meyerhold and Ibsen” has not yet become the subject of special study, falling into the context of a conversation about the director’s interaction with the new drama. And here, in accordance with the historical realities of the director’s theatrical biography, next to Chekhov, Hauptmann, Maeterlinck, Blok, Ibsen retreated into the shadows. Meanwhile, Ibsen played a significant role in the development of Meyerhold's creative individuality; The director did not forget about Ibsen even when he no longer staged his plays. Here is later evidence from the memoirs of Sergei Eisenstein: “He adored Ibsen’s Ghosts. Played Oswald countless times.”* Or his - from lectures at VGIK in 1933: “Meyerhold has a great love for Ibsen’s play “Nora”, he staged it eight times”**. In both cases, Meyerhold's student exaggerated the number of these “times.” But the five stage versions of “Nora” carried out by Meyerhold are a worthy argument in favor of involuntary exaggeration. And Meyerhold really never ceased to “adore” “Ghosts”. “When I staged “The Lady with the Camellias,” he told A.K. Gladkov in the 1930s, “I was always pining for psychological mastery Ibsen.<…>It was after working on “The Lady” that I began to dream of staging “Ghosts” again and thoroughly enjoying Ibsen’s high art.”***. The phenomenon of Ibsen in Meyerhold's work is seen in the fact that stage communication with his dramaturgy sometimes became a kind of preliminary action of the next round of Meyerhold's path, a launching pad for the transition to new aesthetic positions. The founder of the new drama more than once opened the way for Meyerhold to a new theatrical language. The fifth stage version of “Nora,” staged in April 1922, five days before the famous “The Great Stuffy Cuckold,” a manifesto of theatrical constructivism, is extremely clear in this regard.

* Eisenstein on Meyerhold: 1919-1948. M., 2005. P. 293
** Ibid. P. 291.
*** Gladkov A. Meyerhold: In 2 vols. M., 1990. T. 2. P. 312.

But let's go in order. Having started his independent activities in Kherson in 1902 as an actor, director and entrepreneur (together with A. S. Kosheverov), in the first season Meyerhold staged performances “according to mise-en-scène Art Theater", which at that time was not considered plagiarism, but was marked with a quality mark. Later, Meyerhold correctly called this approach “a slavish imitation of the Art Theater,” justified by its short duration and the fact that, nevertheless, “it was an excellent school of practical directing”*. Meyerhold reproduced on the Kherson stage almost the entire repertoire of the first four seasons of the Moscow Art Theater, including productions of three plays by Ibsen. But if the reconstruction of Chekhov's performances was organic to Meyerhold's understanding of Chekhov's theater at that time, then with Ibsen the situation was different. Meyerhold did not like the production of his plays at the Art Theater, which he announced back in January 1899 in a letter to Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko in connection with the rehearsals of “Hedda Gabler”, saying that the “play of tendencies” cannot be staged in the same manner as the “play of moods”. Later, in a programmatic article in 1907 “On the history and technology of the theater”, he formulated Ibsen’s problem of the Moscow Art Theater with the utmost clarity: the impressionism of “Chekhov’s images thrown onto the canvas” was completed in the creations of the Moscow Art Theater actors; this did not work with Ibsen. They tried to explain him to the public as if he was “not clear enough to them.” Hence the constant and disastrous desire of the Moscow Art Theater to enliven Ibsen’s supposedly “boring” dialogues with something - “food, cleaning the room, introducing laying scenes, wrapping sandwiches, etc.” “In Edda Gabler,” Meyerhold recalled, “in the scene of Tesman and Aunt Julia, breakfast was served. I remember well how deftly the performer of the role of Tesman ate, but I involuntarily did not hear the exposition of the play**.

* Meyerhold V. E. Articles, speeches, letters, conversations: In 2 hours. M., 1968. Part 1. P. 119.
** Meyerhold V. E. Heritage. Vol. 1. M., 1998. P. 390.

The structure of Ibsen’s drama did not consist, like Chekhov’s, of a thousand little things that make life warm (“Listen... he doesn’t have vulgarity,” Chekhov told Stanislavsky. “You can’t write such plays”). But the directors of the Moscow Art Theater believed that it was very possible if we added our own to this “vulgarity,” that is, everyday life flesh. That’s why, in staging the play “When We, the Dead, Awaken,” Nemirovich-Danchenko went so overboard with the everyday details of resort life—table d’hôtes, French cyclists and live dogs—that he forever discouraged Meyerhold from staging it. Although, after the premiere of “The Dead” at the Moscow Art Theater, he wrote down in his diary Rubek’s remark from the first act, full of his own symbolic premonitions: “There is some special meaning hidden in everything you say”*.

* Ibid. P. 573.

Of the three Ibsen performances of the Moscow Art Theater repertoire that appeared on the Kherson stage - “Hedda Gabler”, “Doctor Shtokman”, “Wild Duck” - only “Shtokman” was truly dependent on the Art Theater original - the only victory for Stanislavsky, an actor and director, in the production Ibsen. The Kherson version was also a triumph. Of course, Alexander Kosheverov-Shtokman could not keep up with Shtokman-Stanislavsky, whose comic character only spurred lyrical inspiration in his relentless pursuit of truth. But he tried his best, and the impression, according to the reviewer, was “huge, overwhelming, exciting”*. Just as in the Art Theater, the pinnacle of the performance was the fourth act, where Shtokman was confronted by “a very motley crowd,” assembled according to the Moscow Art Theater and Meiningen recipes: “Many sketch roles,” the reviewer wrote, “are entrusted to the best artists, and the rest are disciplined to the point of artistry.” *.

* Faculty Ya. [Feigin Ya. A.] Art theatre. "Wild duck". Drama in 5 acts by G. Ibsen // Moscow Art Theater in Russian theater criticism: 1898-1905. M., 2005. P. 222.

As for “Hedda Gabler” and “The Wild Duck”, they were dependent on the Art Theater only by the commonality of staging technique, adapted to convey a life-like situation, as, indeed, the stage directions of Ibsen himself. Meyerhold's feeling from these plays was already different, but he did not yet know how to embody it. Director Meyerhold had not yet found a way to convey such plays as “The Wild Duck”, so he reconstructed the Moscow Art Theater performance. But Meyerhold the actor, and therefore Meyerhold the artist, acutely sensed its impending need.

* Ibid. P. 572.

Thus, his Hjalmar Ekdal was created in, perhaps, an unconscious polemic with the performance of V. I. Kachalov, who limited himself to a satirical exposure of the hero, portraying him as a “petty braggart and liar” *, a characteristic figure that evokes bursts of disgusting laughter in the viewer. Such a sober realistic approach to this and other roles in Stanislavsky’s “The Wild Duck”, although it revealed, according to the critic Pyotr Yartsev, Meyerhold’s future collaborator at the Officers’ Theater, Ibsen’s drama “to the point of complete clarity,” but “killed the soul in it”** . Meyerhold contrasted the “type - a stupid, capricious parasite”*** (my italics - G.T.) played by Kachalov with a paradoxical set of properties of the hero. His Yalmar was “ridiculous, pitiful, outrageously selfish, weak-willed, charming and powerful,” virtuoso “in refined begging.” “At times it seemed that Hjalmar really was, just as Hedwig portrays him. He experienced the girl’s death tragically.”**** It was not a type or even a character, but a kind of vibrating combination of human essences, which ultimately led Meyerhold to abandon the theater of types in favor of a symbolic theater of synthesis in connection with the proposed production at the Studio Theater on Povarskaya (1905) of another Ibsen play “Comedy” love"*****.

* Yartsev P. Moscow letters // Ibid. P. 226.
** Ibid. P. 227.
***Verigina V.P. Memoirs. L., 1974. P. 79, 80. **** See: Meyerhold V. E. On the history and technology of theater (1907) // Meyerhold V. E. Articles... Part 1. P. 112.
***** See: Meyerhold V. E. Heritage. Vol. 1. P. 484.

Indicative of Meyerhold's dissatisfaction with Russian translations of Ibsen's plays. He was the first to stage “Hedda Gabler” in a new translation by A. G. and P. G. Ganzen, having previously entered into correspondence with P. G. Ganzen on this subject * (at the Art Theater the play was translated by S. L. Stepanova-Markova **). Also indicative is his desire to play Levborg*** in the spirit of Stanislavsky, whose manner here, quite unexpectedly, was not at all similar to the sharp character that the head of the Moscow Art Theater invariably instilled in his actors. In the 1921 article “The Loneliness of Stanislavsky,” Meyerhold, in support of the announced title, recalls the “sophisticated techniques of melodramatic acting” in his Levborg, echoing the late awareness of the adept of the acting technique of the Art Theater, critic Nikolai Efros (in the monograph “K. S. Stanislavsky” , 1918) the unusualness of such a performance of the “brilliantly dissolute and dissolutely brilliant Levborg,” before which everything else in the performance paled. It is also indicative that Meyerhold realized already in his first “Hedda Gabler” the inappropriateness of the pragmatically rejecting approach to the heroine of the play, which he insisted on in the mentioned letter to Nemirovich-Danchenko. Meyerhold did not yet know how to embody the metaphysics of Beauty on stage, but its significance in the paradigm of Ibsen’s drama was noted by him in an interview in 1902 in connection with the upcoming production of Hedda.****

* See: History of Russian drama theater: In 7 volumes. M., 1987. T. 7. P. 545.
** See: Meyerhold V. E. Articles... Part 2. P. 31.
*** Efros N. K. S. Stanislavsky: (characterization experience). P., 1918. P. 88.
**** See: Meyerhold V.E. Heritage. Vol. 1. P. 565.

Before the start of the second Kherson season, Meyerhold announced that from now on the main attention of the team he led would be turned to a new drama, to a new direction, “splitting the shell of life, revealing the hidden core behind it - the soul, connecting the everyday with eternity”*.

* Meyerhold V.E. Heritage. Vol. 2. M., 2006. P. 48.

This meant a course towards theatrical symbolism, taken under the influence of Alexei Remizov, whose “mental influence” on the young Meyerhold led to the invitation of an old acquaintance to Kherson as a literary consultant (Remizov also took the initiative to rename the Kherson enterprise into the “New Drama Partnership”).

It is generally accepted to consider Meyerhold’s first symbolist experience to be the production of “Snow” by Art. Przybyszewski. By and large, this is undoubtedly true - the Kherson “Snow” had all the signs of a conventional director, including the scandal that accompanied the performance in the auditorium and in the press. But, as materials recently published in the 2nd volume of May Erhold’s legacy show, signs of a new theatrical language first appeared in the production of Ibsen’s “Women from the Sea.” She managed without a scandal, but the Kherson viewer, accustomed in the first season to a distinct life-like appearance, was dissatisfied. Reviewers too. The director's erasures in Ellida's remarks in her scenes with Vangel and the Stranger (Unknown) consistently cut off the explanatory everyday development of the dialogue, making the text of Matern and Vorotnikov's translation concise and mysteriously meaningful*. The critics did not like the “uncertainty of the actors’ play”, the images, which, in her opinion, were “in most cases poorly defined, unclear”**, and at the same time the geometric arrangement of individual mise-en-scenes - Ellida had to make her final choice in a small enclosed space in the center of the stage . During the 1903/04 season, the Partnership was going to stage many of Ibsen's plays. “The Builder Solnes” and “Brand”, “Rosmersholm”, “Peer Gynt” and even “Caesar and the Galilean” were announced. But Meyerhold's protracted illness and dissatisfaction with the translations prevented these plans. In reality, “Nora”, “Little Eyolf”, “Ghosts” were staged.

* Ibid. P. 74.
** Quoted from: Ibid. P. 75.

We will talk about Meyerhold’s first “Nora” a little later in connection with its second stage version for V.F. Komissarzhevskaya. As for “Ghosts,” its production was significant for Meyerhold primarily for the long-awaited role of Oswald, which became one of Meyerhold’s most significant creations as an actor.

“Ghosts” (as “Ghosts” were called in the first Russian translations) were also included in the plans for the first Kherson season, but were under a censorship ban, which was lifted only towards the end of 1903, and Meyerhold immediately staged the play, giving, after some time, the basis to compare his playing with the much more famous and famous Russian Oswalds - Pavel Orlenev and Pavel Samoilov, not to mention even more famous foreign performers. “Meyerhold is the best Oswald I have ever seen,” said Valentina Verigina. “He had the special elegance of a foreigner who lived in Paris, and he felt like an artist.” His sadness and anxiety grew without hysteria. His courtship of Regina did not bear the slightest shade of vulgarity. In the last action, cold despair was heard in the dry sound.”* Meyerhold, who actively used neurasthenia (Treplev, Johannes Fockerath) and pathology (Ivan the Terrible) in his previous roles, excluded them from the role, which, it would seem, they should have been included in one way or another in any interpretation of it, and this Most likely, he says that, unlike Ibsen’s hero, who was obsessed with a complex of bad heredity, Meyerhold was obsessed with a beauty complex.

* Verigina V.P. Decree. op. P. 79.

True, it should be borne in mind that the description of Meyerhold’s student does not refer to the production of 1904, but to the performance in the Poltava summer of 1906 - that is, after the symbolist experiments of the Studio on Povarskaya and in anticipation of the theater on Ofitserskaya. Treating the play in a symbolic key, Meyerhold here for the first time applied a coloristic approach to characterizing the characters, which was later used in Hedda Gabler. “Oswald was dressed all in black for all three acts, while Regina’s dress glowed bright red” - only “a small apron emphasized her position as a servant”*. The production was created under the sign of independence, self-sufficiency of a theatrical work.

* Volkov N. Meyerhold: In 2 vols. M., 1929. T. 1. P. 246.

The Poltava performance was staged for the first time “without a curtain*, a columned hall was used as a decoration”, “on the proscenium there was a piano, sitting at which Meyerhold Oswald conducted the last scene”*. The cold solemnity and tragic festivity of the production could already be interpreted as the “dwelling of the spirit” of the hero, which Yuri Belyaev soon did when depicting Meyerhold’s Hedda Gabler performed by Komissarzhevskaya.

With this “Hedda Gabler,” staged in November 1906, Meyerhold made his debut at the Officer’s Theater. The play, which was performed with constant success by Meyerhold's troupe in the provinces - in Kherson, and in Tiflis, and in Poltava - the capital's critics, as if by agreement, unanimously opposed the malicious attacks of the director. Fascinated by the fantastic beauty of the performance (“some kind of dream in colors, some kind of tale of a thousand and one nights”), having come to their senses, they invariably asked: “But what does Ibsen have to do with it?” *, “Ibsen has to do with it, I ask?!”**. The reasoning of the symbolist Georgy Chulkov, who supported Meyerhold’s quests, looks especially curious today. Trying to justify the “decadent atmosphere,” he asked his colleagues to pay attention to the fact that assessor Brakk, who arranged the Tesmans’ apartment, “knows Hedda’s tastes.”*** To say that the “apartment” was arranged by the director Meyerhold and the artist Nikolai Sapunov, who knew his tastes, is not made up my mind.

* Siegfried [Stark E. A.] Opening of the theater by V. F. Komissarzhevskaya // Meyerhold in Russian theater criticism: 1892-1918. St. Petersburg, 1997. P. 428.
** Azov V. [Ashkinazi V. A.] Opening of the theater by V.F. Komissarzhevskaya. “Hedda Gabler” by Ibsen // Ibid. P. 63.
*** Ch. [Chulkov G.I.] Theater V.F. Komissarzhevskaya: “Hedda Gabler” by Ibsen // Ibid. P. 65.

The perception of Meyerhold's productions at Ofitserskaya by the capital's critical workshop was subject to the evaluation criterion that had developed in the pre-director's theater. According to him, the content and form of a dramatic performance were causally dependent on the play. Thus, A.R. Kugel, although he believed, unlike other critics of the play, that the stylization that was becoming fashionable was quite applicable to the production of Hedda Gabler, he understood it exclusively in the spirit of Ibsen’s setting remarks, characterizing the everyday environment of the play. Now, if the director had depicted on stage a “tent of stylized philistinism”, contrasting with the ideal of the heroine, everything, in his opinion, would have stood in its place. But he “stylized not the environment in which Gabler lives. And the one that she supposedly already achieved in her dreams. The play therefore became completely incomprehensible, upside down; the ideal became reality. It came out catchy and loud, but the meaning disappeared. Here is an example of a correct artistic idea, placed upside down.”*

* Kugel A.R. Theater profiles. M., 1929. S. 84-85.

Not to mention the fact that Kugel’s interpretation of Ibsen’s play and its central image is not at all indisputable (the critic, unlike the director, does not seem to have felt that Hedda’s longing for Beauty is not at all ideal), Hedda’s immersion in a setting that she had already achieved “in their dreams,” might not “reverse” the meaning of the play, but universalize it through defamiliarization.

Recognizing in 1926 Meyerhold’s “The Government Inspector” as deeply corresponding to Gogol’s poetics, Kugel might have thought that translating comedy to a “metropolitan scale” and showing “bestiality in the graceful guise of Bryullov’s nature” is a method first used in “Hedda Gabler,” which he rejected. . Moreover, in staging it, Meyerhold had no intention of neglecting the problem inherent in the play and the “soul of the author” (V. Ya. Bryusov’s formula). In his own words, he just wanted to “take away the idea that she (Hedda) is restless from the narrowness of bourgeois life, an idea that would certainly appear if given an ordinary setting,” especially the “tent of stylized philistinism” proposed by Kugel. It was important for Meyerhold to show that “Hedda’s suffering is not the result of the environment, but of another, world longing” * that cannot be satisfied in any situation.

* [Explanation of Meyerhold’s speech at the evening of the Literary and Artistic Society at the Faculty of History and Philology] // Speech. 1906. 10 Dec.

And yet, there was a critic who was able to evaluate Meyerhold’s performance as an independent, self-sufficient stage work. It was Yuri Belyaev. “The experience with Hedda Gabler,” he wrote, “struck me in its boldness. The director completely threw everyday life out of the play and symbolically stylized Ibsen. It was for this treatment that he suffered the most. But neither the cold indifference of the public nor the hot rebuke of the reviewers could kill the ideas. An idea, once launched into the world, took on a mysterious life of fluid and somehow disturbed the imagination. They asked: “So, perhaps soon Ostrovsky and Gogol will be symbolized?” But why, in fact, not try to symbolize “The Thunderstorm” or “The Inspector General”?”*.

* Belyaev Yu. About Komissarzhevskaya // Meyerhold in Russian theater criticism. P. 79.

Thus, Ibsen revealed to the director the path of his future path. Meyerhold, using the key constant of modernity - stylization, as Yu. D. Belyaev prophesied, “symbolized” both “The Thunderstorm” and “The Inspector General”.

In December 1906, Meyerhold corrected “A Doll’s House” for Komissarzhevskaya, a play in which she had played with victorious success since 1904 in a household production by A.P. Petrovsky. Meyerhold, like most of his contemporaries, considered Nora Komissarzhevskaya one of her signature roles and, knowing that the actress had entered into an alliance with him because she always rejected everyday life, he intended to defuse it, giving room for Komissarzhevskaya to remain in the spiritual essence of the image. But the few reviewers of this performance again tried to separate the “former sorceress” from the director, who staged the play “at the end of the stage, in a draft wind, in some narrow passage,” and forced the actors who played “bas-reliefs” to leave “not through the doors, but into the folds of the green curtain"*. In vain G.I. Chulkov assured the audience and the actress herself that “in the new stage conditions” she felt “freer and more inspired”**. Komissarzhevskaya did not think so.

*Cit. by: Rudnitsky K.L. Theater on Ofitserskaya // Creative heritage of V. E. Meyerhold. M., 1978. S. 188, 189.
** Quoted from: Ibid.

In the summer of 1907, before the Moscow tour of the theater on Ofitserskaya, she asked the director to “change the color of the room and make it warm” so that the usual impression of “a cozy soft nest, isolated from the real world” would be created*. In other words, the actress returned to her original position: again the usual everyday pavilion and no deviations from the author’s remarks. “Remember,” she inspired, “when staging Hedda Gabler, I said that her stage directions must always be followed exactly. Now I can definitely say that there was more truth in my words then than I myself imagined. Every word of Ibsen's remarks There is bright light on the way to understanding his things”** (emphasis mine. - G. T.). Leaving aside such a fundamental problem as the actress’s awareness of her inability to play outside of everyday life (“only walking on the ground,” she seemed “floating in the clouds”***), let’s try to figure out whether every word of Ibsen’s remarks illuminates the meaning of his plays.

*Cit. by: Volkov N. Decree. op. T. 1. P. 321.
** Quoted from: Ibid. P. 320.
*** S. Ya. Tours of V. F. Komissarzhevskaya. “Lights of Midsummer Night” //Russian Word. 1909. 16 Sep. Quote by: Kukhta E. A. Komissarzhevskaya // Russian acting art of the twentieth century. St. Petersburg, 1992. Issue. 1. P. 58.

The playwright’s stage directions for both “Hedda Gabler” and “Nora” and many of his other plays in this series undoubtedly leave them within the boundaries of everyday theater of the 19th century. Following them means giving up the manifold possibilities of directorial interpretation that these plays offered to the twentieth century. But “A Doll’s House” is also extremely rich in remarks of another kind - those that precede or accompany the heroine’s remarks and build the pattern of her movements and the score of her feelings. These remarks really cast a bright light not so much on the essence of the play as a whole, but on the role of Nora. That’s why actresses, including Komissarzhevskaya, found this role easy even in pre-director’s theater. The number of such remarks in A Doll's House is almost limitless. From the monosyllabic words that pepper Nora’s entire role—“jumping up,” “quickly,” “covering his mouth with her hand”—to lengthy, effective instructions to the performer: “Nora closes the door to the hallway, takes off her outer dress, continuing to chuckle with a quiet, contented laugh. . Then he takes out a bag of macaroons from his pocket and eats a few of them. He carefully walks to the door leading to his husband’s room and listens”; “busy with her thoughts, she suddenly bursts into quiet laughter and claps her hands”; “wants to rush to the door, but stops indecision”; “with a wandering gaze, he staggers around the room, grabs Helmer’s domino, throws it over himself and whispers quickly, hoarsely, intermittently,” etc.

Even N. Ya. Berkovsky correctly noted the enormous importance that pause, facial expressions, gestures, and poses have in Ibsen’s dramas. For Meyerhold, this property of Ibsen, accumulated in “The Burrow,” became fundamental in comprehending the laws of theatrical composition proper during the period of traditionalism (1910s). “Will they soon write down the law on theater tablets: words in the theater are just patterns on the canvas of movements?”** he wrote in his 1912 programmatic article “Balagan.” Ibsen’s play fully corresponded to this law, as well as to the “primary elements of theater” identified by Meyerhold: the power of mask, gesture, Movement, intrigue”***. “Nora” can be staged in a domestic setting, as was the case in Meyerhold’s first edition in 1903; can be stylized, as was the case in the play with Komissarzhevskaya; or - without scenery at all, as in 1922 - the script (pantomimic), i.e., the actual theatrical structure of its action is inevitably preserved. After all, Nora’s “doll house” is not the soft ottomans of a cozy nest, which Komissarzhevskaya asked Meyerhold to return to her, but a fictional world where, according to the heroine, she was placed first by her father, then by her husband. Just like the masks of a doll-daughter and a doll-wife, which she wore to please them.

* See: Berkovsky N. Ya. Articles about literature. M.; L., 1962. P. 230.
** Meyerhold V. E. Articles... Part 1. P. 212.
*** Ibid. P. 213.

Already in the first Kherson edition of “Nora,” staged according to the rules of the Art Theater, outlining the usual life-like series of stage action, the director emphasized theatrically electrifying moments. Already here we can see traces of the perception of “Nora” as a certain model of a theatrical play proper, i.e. one that, if you “shake the words out of it” (Meyerhold), will retain a clear pattern of pantomimic action. Key moments were staged in the foreground. There was a fireplace there - the launching pad for the exposition of the play (Nora's conversation with Fru Linne) and for the denouement (when Helmer threw at him the promissory note returned by Krogstad). “Is it not possible to make a fire break out when Sazonov (performer of the role of Helmer - G. T.) throws paper there?” * Meyerhold asked himself in the director’s copy, and this, of course, is not a thirst for verisimilitude, but a need for theatrical effect.

* Meyerhold V.E. Heritage. Vol. 2. P. 182.

In Meyerhold’s first “Nora” there was also a “narrow passage”, which caused ridicule from the reviewer of the second edition, where the characters appeared. The director immediately felt that in this play the comings and goings of the characters - Fru Linne, Krogstad, Dr. Rank, Nora herself - were not parading around the stage, but key moments of stage intrigue, building up the field of theatrical tension - right up to Dr. Rank's death and the final Nora leaving the doll's house. Ibsen’s “Nora” is an ideal example of the “only correct”, according to Meyerhold, path of dramatic composition - “movement gives birth to an exclamation and a word”*. And finally, "Nora" corresponds to the support that the director considered necessary for the reunion in theatrical script primary elements of the theater - reliance on the subject. “So, a lost handkerchief,” he said, “leads to the Othello script, a bracelet to Masquerade, a diamond to the Sukhovo-Kobylin trilogy.”** The letter is to “Nora,” he forgot to add.

* Meyerhold V. E. Articles... Part 1. P. 212.
** Meyerhold V. E. Theater sheets. I. // Ibid. Part 2. P. 28.

The director's initial awareness of the key significance of the letter dropped into the mailbox by Krogstad is quite obvious. In the just published mise-en-scène of the Kherson “Nora”, a “letter box” is perhaps the main requirement for the mount. For Ibsen, this box is an off-stage object, although it is clear that the climax of the play falls on the stage directions associated with the letter dropped into it: “the letter is heard falling into the box, then the steps of Krogstad are heard descending from the stairs, gradually the steps freeze below. Nora runs back into the room with a suppressed cry to the table in front of the sofa. Short pause. Letter!.. In the box! (He timidly creeps again to the front door.) Lying there... Torvald, Torvald... now there is no salvation for us!

Meyerhold makes the mailbox a “character” and also a stage one. This lattice box was clearly visible from the living room to both the actors and the audience. He became almost the main character of the production, the center of attraction of all the effective lines of the play, in which the audience, together with Nora, “watched how the fatal letter was dropped into this box in the middle of the second act,” and continued, like Nora, to closely follow him, visible through the bars, until “at the end of the third act Helmer went to take out the mail”*.

* Meyerhold V.E. Heritage. Vol. 2. P. 180.

The third and fourth editions of “Nora” (in June 1918 and August 1920) are considered passing. The first of them was staged at the Petrograd Theater of the House of Workers by the young artist Vladimir Dmitriev, a student of the director according to Kurmastsepa, where, according to Meyerhold’s installation, future theater artists and directors studied together in order to equally master previously separated professional skills. Meyerhold supervised the work of his student. The second - in the First Soviet Theater named after. Lenin in Novorossiysk immediately after Meyerhold’s release from the dungeon of Denikin’s counterintelligence. In both cases, the choice of “Nora” was predetermined by its above-mentioned properties - the extremely clear theatrical structure made the play indispensable for both educational and mobile productions.

But Meyerhold’s fifth “Nora,” which has already been mentioned twice, became a theatrical legend, mainly thanks to the memoirs of S. M. Eisenstein. Listing on two pages some of the people and things that he had seen in his time, and naming the names of Chaliapin and Stanislavsky, Mikhail Chekhov and Vakhtangov, Shaw and Pirandello, Gershwin and Jackie Coogan, lunch with Douglas Fairbanks and a ride in the car with Greta Garbo, General Sukhomlinov in the dock and General Brusilov as a witness at this trial, Tsar Nicholas II at the opening of the monument to Peter I and much, much more, Eisenstein declared that none of these impressions would ever be able to erase from his memory and surpass according to the effect of three days of rehearsals by Meyerhold “Nora” in the gymnasium on Novinsky Boulevard:

“I remember the constant shaking.

It's not cold

it's excitement

These are nerves that have been strained to the limit.”*

* Eisenstein on Meyerhold. P. 288.

This is about rehearsals. No less impressive is the surviving information about the production itself. The fact is that Meyerhold, in connection with the unjustified closure of the RSFSR First Theater (by the way, immediately after the premiere of Ibsen’s “Youth Union”), worked in the frozen gymnasium of the former gymnasium, without having a stage platform to which he could practically prepared by the "Magnanimous Cuckold". And “Nora,” rehearsed in three days, was destined to capture this site (his former one on Sadovo-Triumfalnaya). Teaming up with the Nezlobinites, who were also sitting without a stage (the main roles were played by Nezlobinsky actors shivering from cold and fear), Meyerhold sent five of his students on the day of the unannounced premiere - S. Eisenstein, A. Kelberer, V. Lutse, V. Fedorov and Z. Reich - capture the stage and, guided by his plan, prepare the installation for the performance by evening. This installation stunned even seasoned theatergoers. Meyerhold simply turned the inside out of the scenery dumped in the back of the stage - parts of pavilions, grate rules, etc. - so that the inscriptions looked at the viewer - “Nezlobin No. 66”, “side 538”, etc. Quite trivial theater furniture was also used - dusty, broken chairs, in general, what was found in the pockets of the stage - for organizing playing points. Against the backdrop of a well-organized bedlam, to the friendly laughter of the audience, the performer of the role of Helmer with imperturbable calm uttered the well-known remark: “It’s good here, Nora, it’s cozy”*. Even the then Meyerhold adept, critic Vladimir Blum, could not resist asking: “Is this production a parody or quackery?”**.

* On the eve of the Cuckold // Poster TIM. 1926. No. 1. P. 3.
** Sadko [Blum V.I.] “Nora” in the “Actor’s Theater” // Izvestia. 1922.

Yes, Meyerhold’s fifth “Nora” was in some ways a parody, somewhere it bordered on quackery - the play was called “The Tragedy of Nora Helmer, or how a woman from a bourgeois family chose independence and work,” and she played this ultra-revolutionary the woman of Nezlobin's premier, Bronislava Rutkovskaya, is a luxurious diva of the Art Nouveau era, who interested Meyerhold no more than the reverse side of Nezlobin's scenery. But five days later, Meyerhold’s trio, which immediately became famous - Ilyinsky, Babanova, Zaichikov - “Il-ba-zai”, as A. A. Gvozdev called it, will appear on the battlefield stage, and in the incomparable production of “The Generous Cuckold” will demonstrate to the public, that the action of “undressing” the theater, undertaken in “Nora,” was a prelude to constructivism and was carried out for the actor, so that he, like Komissarzhevskaya once in the role of Nora, would again become the master of the stage.

Laura Cole / Monument to Henrik Ibsen at the National Theater of Norway in Oslo

Henrik Ibsen is the first association that arises when talking about Norwegian literature. In fact, the work of the great Norwegian playwright has long become the property of not only Norwegian, but also world culture.

Ibsen's life and work are full of the most amazing contradictions. Thus, being a passionate apologist for national liberation and the revival of the national culture of Norway, he nevertheless spent twenty-seven years in voluntary exile in Italy and Germany.

Passionately studying national folklore, in his plays he consistently destroys the romantic aura of folk sagas. The plot structure of his plays is built so rigidly that at times it borders on tendentiousness, but they are not at all sketchy, but lively and multifaceted heroes.

Ibsen's underlying moral relativism, combined with the “iron” and even tendentious logic of plot development, allows his plays to be interpreted in an extremely diverse way. Thus, Ibsen is recognized as a playwright of the realistic movement, but symbolists consider him one of the most important founders of their aesthetic movement.

At the same time, he was sometimes called “Freud in dramaturgy.” The gigantic power of his talent allowed him to organically combine in his work the most diverse, even polar, themes, ideas, problems, and means of artistic expression.

He was born on March 20, 1828 in the small Norwegian town of Skien into a wealthy family, but in 1837 his father went bankrupt and the family’s position changed. The abrupt transition to the lower social classes became a severe psychological trauma for the boy, and this was one way or another reflected in his further work.

Already at the age of 15, he was forced to start earning his own living - in 1843 he left for the tiny town of Grimstad, where he got a job as a pharmacist's apprentice. The almost miserable life of a social outcast forced Ibsen to seek self-realization in another area: he writes poetry, satirical epigrams on the respectable bourgeoisie of Grimstad, and draws caricatures.

This bears fruit: by 1847 he becomes very popular among the radical youth of the town. He was greatly impressed by the revolutionary events of 1848, which engulfed a significant part of Western Europe.

Ibsen complements his poetic creativity political lyrics, and also wrote the first play Catiline (1849), imbued with tyrant-fighting motives. The play was not a success, but it strengthened his decision to engage in literature, art and politics.

In 1850 he moved to Christiania (from 1924 - Oslo). His goal is to enter the university, however young man captures the political life of the capital. He teaches at the Sunday school of the workers' association, participates in protest demonstrations, collaborates with the press - a workers' newspaper, a student society magazine, and takes part in the creation of a new social and literary magazine, Andhrimner.

And he continued to write plays: Bogatyrsky Kurgan (1850, begun in Grimstad), Norma, or the Love of Politics (1851), Midsummer Night (1852). During the same period, he met the playwright, theater and public figure Bjornstjerne Bjornson, with whom he found a common language on the basis of the revival of Norway's national identity.

This vigorous activity of the playwright in 1852 led to his invitation to the post of artistic director of the newly created first Norwegian National Theater in Bergen. He remained in this post until 1857 (he was replaced by B. Bjornson).

This turn in Ibsen's life can be considered extraordinary luck. And it’s not just that all the plays he wrote during the Bergen period were immediately staged on stage; practical study of theater “from the inside” helps to reveal many professional secrets, and therefore contributes to the growth of the playwright’s skill. During this period, the plays of Fru Inger from Estrot (1854), The Feast in Solhaug (1855), and Olav Liljekrans (1856) were written.

In the first of them, he switched to prose in his dramaturgy for the first time; the last two were written in the style of Norwegian folk ballads (the so-called “heroic songs”). These plays, again, did not enjoy much stage success, but played a necessary role in professional development Ibsen.

In 1857–1862 heads Norwegian theater in Christiania. In parallel with the management of the theater and dramaturgical work, he continues active social activities, aimed mainly at combating the working Christian Theater of the pro-Danish direction (the troupe of this theater consisted of Danish actors, and the performances were staged in Danish).

This persistent struggle was crowned with success after Ibsen left the theater: in 1863 the troupes of both theaters were united, performances began to be performed only in Norwegian, and the aesthetic platform of the united theater was the program developed with his active participation. At the same time, he wrote the plays Warriors in Helgeland (1857), Comedy of Love (1862), Struggle for the Throne (1863); as well as the poem On the Heights (1859), which became the forerunner of the first truly fundamental dramatic success - the play Brand (1865).

Ibsen's varied activities during the Norwegian period were more likely determined by a complex of complex psychological problems than by a principled social position. The main one was the problem of material wealth (especially since he got married in 1858, and a son was born in 1859) and a decent social position - here, undoubtedly, his childhood complexes also played a role.

This problem naturally connected with the fundamental questions of vocation and self-realization. It is not for nothing that in almost all of his subsequent plays the conflict between life position hero and real life. And another important factor: Ibsen’s best plays, which brought him well-deserved worldwide fame, were written outside his homeland.

In 1864, having received a writing scholarship from the Storting, which he sought for almost a year and a half, Ibsen and his family left for Italy. The funds received were extremely insufficient, and he had to turn to friends for help. In Rome, for two years, he wrote two plays that absorbed all previous life and literary experience - Brand (1865) and Peer Gynt (1866).

In theater studies and Ibsen studies, it is customary to consider these plays comprehensively, as two alternative interpretations of the same problem - self-determination and the realization of human individuality.

The main characters are polar: the unbending maximalist Brand, ready to sacrifice himself and his loved ones for the sake of fulfilling his own mission, and the amorphous Peer Gynt, readily adapting to any conditions. A comparison of these two plays gives a clear picture of the author's moral relativism. Individually, they were regarded very controversially by critics and audiences.

The situation with Peer Gynt was even more paradoxical. It is in this play that Ibsen demonstrates his break with national romance. In it, folklore characters are presented as ugly and evil creatures, peasants as cruel and rude people.

At first, in Norway and Denmark the play was perceived very negatively, almost as blasphemy. H.H. Andersen, for example, called Peer Gynt the worst work he had ever read. However, over time, the romantic flair returned to this play - of course, mainly thanks to the image of Solveig.

This was greatly facilitated by the music of Edvard Grieg, written at the request of Ibsen for the production of Peer Gynt, and later gaining worldwide fame as an independent piece of music. It’s paradoxical, but true: Peer Gynt, in the author’s interpretation as a protest against romantic tendencies, still remains in the cultural consciousness the embodiment of Norwegian folk romance.

Brand and Peer Gynt became transitional plays for Ibsen, turning him towards realism and social issues (it is in this aspect that all of his further work is predominantly considered). These are The Pillars of Society (1877), A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), The Public Enemy (1882), The Wild Duck (1884), Rosmersholm (1886), The Woman from the Sea (1888), Hedda Gabler (1890), Solnes the Builder (1892), Little Eyolf (1894), Jun Gabriel Borkman (1896).

Here the playwright raised pressing issues of contemporary reality: hypocrisy and women's emancipation, rebellion against the usual bourgeois morality, lies, social compromise and loyalty to ideals. Symbolists and philosophers (A. Blok, N. Berdyaev, etc.) much more, along with Brand and Peer Gynt, appreciated other plays of Ibsen: the duology Caesar and the Galilean (The Apostasy of Caesar and the Emperor Julian; 1873), When We, the Dead , We Awaken (1899).

An impartial analysis makes it possible to understand that in all these works Ibsen’s individuality remains unified. His plays are neither tendentious social ephemera nor abstract symbolic constructions; they fully contain social realities, extremely semantically loaded symbolism, and the surprisingly multifaceted, whimsical psychological complexity of the characters.

The formal distinction between Ibsen's dramaturgy into “social” and “symbolic” works is rather a matter of subjective interpretation, the biased interpretation of the reader, critic or director.

In 1891 he returned to Norway. In a foreign land, he achieved everything he strived for: world fame, recognition, material well-being. By this time, his plays were widely performed on the stages of theaters all over the world, the number of studies and critical articles devoted to his work was incalculable and could only be compared with the number of publications about Shakespeare.

It would seem that all this could cure the serious psychological trauma, suffered by him in childhood. However, the very last play, When We Dead Awaken, is filled with such piercing tragedy that it is hard to believe.

Ibsen Henrik did the incredible - he created and opened Norwegian drama and Norwegian theater to the whole world. His works were initially romantic, based on ancient Scandinavian sagas (“Warriors of Helgelad”, “Struggle for the Throne”). Then he turns to the philosophical and symbolic understanding of the world (“Brand”, “Peer Gynt”). And finally, Ibsen Henrik comes to a sharp criticism of modern life (“A Doll’s House”, “Ghosts”, “Enemy of the People”).

Developing dynamically, G. Ibsen demands in his later works the complete emancipation of man.

Playwright's childhood

In the family of a wealthy Norwegian businessman Ibsen, living in the south of the country, in the town of Skien, a son, Henrik, appeared in 1828. But only eight years pass, and the family goes bankrupt. Life falls out of the usual circle of friends, they suffer deprivation in everything and the ridicule of others. Little Ibsen Henrik painfully perceives the changes taking place. However, already at school he begins to surprise teachers with his essays. Childhood ended at the age of 16, when he moved to a neighboring town and became a pharmacist's apprentice. He has been working in a pharmacy for five years and all these years he has been dreaming of moving to the capital.

In the city of Christiania

A young man, Ibsen Henrik, comes to the large city of Christiania and, financially poor, participates in political life. He manages to stage a short drama “Bogatyrsky Kurgan”. But he also has the drama “Catiline” in stock. He is noticed and invited to Bergen.

At the folk theater

In Bergen, Ibsen Henrik becomes a director and theater director. Under him, the theater's repertoire includes plays by classics - Shakespeare, Scribe, and also Dumas the Son - and Scandinavian works. This period will last in the life of the playwright from 1851 to 1857. Then he returns to Christiania.

In the capital

This time the capital greeted him more warmly. Ibsen Henrik received the position of director of the theater. A year later, in 1858, his marriage to Susanna Thoresen took place, which turned out to be happy.

At this time, heading the Norwegian Theater, he was already recognized as a playwright in his homeland thanks to the historical play “The Feast at Solhaug”. His previously written plays have been staged many times. These are “Warriors of Helgelade”, “Olav Liljekrans”. They are played not only in Christiania, but also in Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. But when in 1862 he presented to the public satirical play- “A Comedy about Love”, in which the idea of ​​love and marriage is ridiculed, then society is so negative towards the author that after two years he is forced to leave his homeland. With the help of friends, he receives a scholarship and leaves for Rome.

Abroad

In Rome he lives alone and in 1865-1866 writes the poetic play “Brand”. The hero of the play, priest Brand, wants to achieve inner perfection, which, as it turns out, is completely impossible in the world. He abandons his son and wife. But no one needs his ideal views: neither secular authorities, nor spiritual ones. As a result, without renouncing his views, the hero dies. This is natural, since his integral nature is alien to mercy.

Moving to Germany

After living in Trieste and Dresden, G. Ibsen finally stopped in Munich. In 1867, another poetic work was published - the complete opposite of the play about the mad priest "Peer Gynt". The action of this romantic poem takes place in Norway, in Morocco, in the Sahara, in Egypt and again in Norway.

In the small village where the young guy lives, he is considered an empty nester, a brawler who doesn’t even think about helping his mother. The modest one liked him beautiful girl Solveig, but she refuses him because his reputation is too bad. Per goes into the forests and there he meets the daughter of the Forest King, whom he is ready to marry, but to do this he must turn into an ugly troll. With difficulty escaping from the clutches of forest monsters, he meets his mother dying in his arms. After that, he travels around the world for many years and finally, completely old and gray-haired, returns to his native village. No one will recognize him except the wizard Buttonmaker, who is ready to melt his soul into a button. Per asks for a reprieve in order to prove to the sorcerer that he is a whole person and not faceless. And then he, a tumbleweed, meets the aged Solveig, faithful to him. It was then that he realized that he was saved by the faith and love of the woman who had been waiting for him for so long. This is an absolutely fantastic story created by Henrik Ibsen. The works as a whole are constructed on the basis that some integral personality is struggling with the lack of will and immorality of insignificant people.

World fame

By the end of the 70s, G. Ibsen's plays began to be staged all over the world. Sharp criticism modern life, the drama of ideas constitute the work of Henrik Ibsen. He wrote such significant works: 1877 - “Pillars of Society”, 1879 - “A Doll’s House”, 1881 - “Ghosts”, 1882 - “Enemy of the People”, 1884 - “Wild Duck”, 1886 - “Rosmersholm”, 1888 - “Woman from the Sea”, 1890 - “Hedda Gabler”.

In all these plays, G. Ibsen asks the same question: is it possible in modern life to live truthfully, without lies, without destroying the ideals of honor? Or you need to obey generally accepted norms and turn a blind eye to everything. Happiness, according to Ibsen, is impossible. By eccentrically preaching the truth, the hero of “The Wild Duck” destroys the happiness of his friend. Yes, it was based on a lie, but the man was happy. The vices and virtues of their ancestors stand behind the backs of the heroes of “Ghost”, and they themselves are like tracings of their fathers, and not independent individuals who can achieve happiness. Nora from A Doll's House fights for the right to feel like a person, and not a beautiful doll.

And she leaves home forever. And there is no happiness for her. All of these plays, with the possible exception of one, are subject to a rigid author's scheme and idea - the heroes are doomedly fighting against the whole of society. They become rejected, but not defeated. Hedda Gabler fights against herself, against the fact that she is a woman who, having got married, is forced to give birth against her will. Born a woman, she wants to behave freely, like any man.

She is impressionable and beautiful, but she is not free either to choose her life or to choose her own destiny, which is unclear to her. She can't live like that.

Henrik Ibsen: quotes

They express only his worldview, but perhaps they will touch the strings of someone’s soul:

• "The strongest is the one who fights alone."
• “What you sow in youth, you reap in maturity.”
• “A thousand words will leave less of a mark than the memory of one deed.”
• "The soul of a man is in his deeds."

At home

In 1891, G. Ibsen returned to Norway after a 27-year absence. He will still write a number of plays, and his anniversary will still be celebrated. But in 1906, a stroke would forever interrupt the life of such an outstanding playwright as Henrik Ibsen. His biography is finished.