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)