After Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen's dramatic masterpieces are
among the most performed and studied works in the world. For many
theatrical professionals, the playwright's work is so powerful it
becomes a life-long obsession.
Renowned Chinese stage director Lin Zhaohua admits to being one
of these possessed souls. Lin is particularly affected by The
Master Builder, which he is presenting as part of the Ibsen's
centenary celebrations in China.
Reportedly Sigmund Freud's favourite play, The Master
Builder is a study of obsession and infatuation. Ibsen wrote
it in 1892 at the age of 64.
"As soon as I read the story, I became possessed," said director
Lin. "What I'm uncovering in this production is how acutely Ibsen's
take on human motivation is buried in the intricate plotting."
China is joining the world in the commemoration by staging a
Ibsen festival, which reminds theatre-goers in Beijing, Shanghai
and Hong Kong of the great significance Ibsen has played for modern
society.
Five Ibsen plays will be staged from Friday this week during the
Second International Drama Festival presented by the China National
Theatre Company.
"Ibsen's plays are just as relevant today as when they were
first written," said Zhao Youliang, president of the National
Theatre Company and popular actor.
Norwegian dramatists will join the Chinese in the commemoration
of Ibsen's efforts. Agnete Haaland, who is also the chairwomen of
Norwegian Drama Association, will give a solo performance adapted
from Ibsen's Peer Gynt at the Oriental Avant-Garde Theatre
in Beijing on September 11 and 12.
The festival will open with The Master Builder at the
Capital Theatre on Friday to September 3.
Critics believe Ibsen based the drama on his own spiritual
affair with 18-year-old Emily Bardach during a holiday in the
Austrian Alps in 1888. It is reported that when Bardach first saw
the play in 1908 (two years after Ibsen's death), she was quoted as
saying: "I didn't see myself, but I saw him. There is something of
me in Hilde, but in Solness there is little that is not Ibsen."
Whatever the storyline and protagonists, Ibsen seamlessly wove
exposition and melodrama into the fabric of the drama.
It tells the story of Halvard Solness who is at the pinnacle of
his success as the master builder in a prosperous Norwegian town.
He has designed every major building in it but he fears that one
day "youth will come knocking at the door" and he will become
usurped from his cherished position. Ironically, he is also
attracted to youth. His flirtations with young girls are a solace
against his cold marriage to Aline. Then, Hilde Wangel young,
attractive and high spirited enters his life, demanding "the
kingdom for a princess" he promised her 10 years earlier as a
child. The audience has to wait and see whether Hilde Wangel will
be his muse or his nemesis.
"It would be a paradox to call it Ibsen's greatest work, but one
of his three or four greatest it assuredly is. Of all his writings,
it is probably the most original, the most individual. It is Ibsen,
and nothing but Ibsen," Lin said.
The play received overwhelming praise when it was published in
Scandinavia in 1892, but the demands it placed on actors made it
difficult to stage. At a result, the audience's response to The
Master Builder was mixed.
As the actors and audience became accustomed to the play's
innovative technique, however, audiences began to applaud Ibsen's
creative mix of realism and expressionism in his compelling
portrait of a middle-aged architect who assesses his obsessive
drive to succeed.
Lin Zhaohua also has to pay great attention to the actual stage
performance. In this production, Lin cast the established actor Pu
Cunxin as Solness. During the rehearsals, Pu has proven himself
worthy of Ibsen's role as he rendered a magnetic and memorable
performance of the successful architect Solness.
Pu is brilliantly supported by Tao Hong, a well-known actress,
who plays Hilde. Peng Wenni and Ma Li in turn perform his cold and
dutiful wife Aline.
The play goes on the setting designed by Yi Liming and the
costumes are designed by Chinese model-turned designer Mary Ma
Yanli. The play will also tour Hong Kong in October and move to
Shanghai Drama Centre in November.
Ghosts
Another highlight of the festival is two different adaptations
of Ibsen's another trademark play Ghosts. The POS Theatre
Company from Norway and the Drama Company of Chinese People's
Liberation Army will present their own take on this popular
play.
Directed by Jiang Mingxia, the Chinese version of
Ghosts will run at the China Theatre in Beijing from
September 14 to 17. It is the first time that PLA's Drama Company
has produced a full-length foreign play since it was established in
1953.
The POS Theatre Company's Norwegian Ghosts is actually
called TanGhosts, which is a fusion of Ibsen's classical
text of Ghost, the Argentina tango-dancer Pablo Veron, the
original music by Sverre Indris Joner and video art.
It premiered in Lillehammer in June 2004 and won rave reviews
for its mix of dance, music and video. "It is a play filled with
lonely people, unable to fulfil their dreams, trapped in their
traditions," said the Argentina tango star Pablo Veron, known from
the movie The Tango Lesson.
Veron is both the actor in the production and its choreographer.
"There is an underlying sensual aroma in conversations taking place
in a polite living room, surrounded by constant rain outside,"
Veron was quoted as saying. "For TanGhost, this is the
perfect setup for bringing tango into the play."
Joner's new original tang music obviously links to modern beats
of hip hop and Nordic sound of jazz.
A Doll's House
The best-known Ibsen's play, A Doll's House, will offer
a grand finale for the drama festival.
"More than anyone, Ibsen gave theatrical art a new vitality by
bringing into drama an ethical gravity, a psychological depth, and
a social significance which the theatre had lacked since the days
of Shakespeare," said Wu Xiaojing, director of the National Theatre
Company, who will direct the theatre's new production at the
Oriental Avant-Garde Theatre from September 17 to 22.
Premiered in Beijing in 1998, Wu's production stars a joint
Norwegian-Chinese cast. Nora is performed by Norwegian actress
Agnete Haaland while Chinese actor Li Jianyi plays Nora's
husband.
Wu sets the story in the 1930s in China. The Norwegian Nora
marries a Chinese husband and tries to adapt herself to the new
family in a strange country.
But she finally leaves the family. It might be somehow awkward
to hear Nora speaking Norwegian to his husband who answers in
Chinese. Peking Opera and Chinese folk ensembles will also appear
on stage.
The blend of cultures and unique presentation will give
audiences a theatre experience like no other.
"The society Ibsen wrote about is different from today's
society, but, the topics he raised 100 years ago are issues that
our modern society is still struggling with," Zhao Youliang
said.
"We hope these five plays could remind people of Ibsen's power
as well as a fresh eye on these once familiar stories," Zhao
added.
(China Daily August 22, 2006)
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