{"id":5394,"date":"2006-09-28T08:42:55","date_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2015-05-23T20:38:40","modified_gmt":"2015-05-24T00:38:40","slug":"ibsen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5394","title":{"rendered":"Ibsen’s Importance"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really liked this analysis of Ibsen.<\/a> It continues to blow me away that there were those, at the beginning of the 20th century, who were so interested in Ibsen, so turned on by what he was doing – that they learned Norwegian just in order to read him in the original language. James Joyce did this. But he was not alone. That tells you Ibsen’s relevance, his importance. Just amazing.<\/p>\n

And for those of you interested in the acting of these plays – I give to you a snippet from one of Stella Adler’s many lectures on Ibsen. Adler was (and still is) known for her genius in script analysis – people like DeNiro – still talk about taking that class. Recently – a book was published – Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, which I seriously cannot recommend highly enough. She speaks of them as plays to be acted – she is talking to actors – not literary scholars – but seriously: Anyone interested in literature and playwriting should read this book. You want to learn about how to analyze a text? This is the book you want. These are transcribed lectures – so there is a whiff of immediacy about them – you almost get the sense of Adler’s personality, which was gigantic. Again: because she is speaking to actors, her focus is on: what questions should one ask before one sets out to play Nora? Or Torvald? What needs to be explored?<\/p>\n

Also: historically: where does Ibsen fit in? What was he doing that was so revolutionary? Why did people storm out of Hedda Gabler<\/i>? Why were his plays so hated, reviled, feared, and yet admired? What was going on? Adler encouraged actors to have curiosity about all of that – the 360 degree experience of a play and a playwright – to (as Henry Miller said): “Forget yourself”. Don’t just focus on how YOU will play the part. “Forget yourself” and focus on Ibsen. And by doing that – you will get closer to the pulse of the playwright – and then – the playing of it will come much easier.<\/p>\n

Here is one of my favorite excerpts from her Ibsen lecture.<\/p>\n

Adler on Ibsen<\/b><\/p>\n

The sense of place – nature, the scenery – had to be truthful in realism. Where you were had to be as truthful as the new dialogue.<\/p>\n

Ibsen desired to replace stilted language by the unbeautiful, unemotional language of every day. To tone down the loudness of tragic, classical acting. To tone down the stage effects with the bourgeois fondness for the intimate and homey.<\/p>\n

This is the end of the reign of complete illusion in the theatre. From now on, the effort is to conceal the fictitious nature of how a play is acted and presented. Classical acting portrayed a man with contact to the exterior world but never influenced by it. The bourgeois drama portrays him as a part and function of his environment and shows him not to be controlling reality, as in classical plays, but being controlled and absorbed by it.<\/p>\n

From now on, the place where the action happens isn’t just background. It takes an active part in shaping him on stage. There is no more break between the inner and outer world; now all action and feeling contain powerful elements of the external world.<\/p>\n

In most of Norway, there are only two real months of daylight. People live without the sun – seventeen hours of night. This affects their temperaments, how their houses are lit. How do you light your house when it’s dark outside all day? That is up to you to find out.<\/p>\n

Ibsen says the lines should sound different depending on whether they are said in the morning or evening. You must know whether your scene is taking place in day or night. Otherwise you will just walk in, out of – and into – nowhere.<\/p>\n

An actor who gets up to act without knowing when and where he is is insane. Everybody is somewhere. Except an actor, often. He’s the only one who can be somewhere and not know where.<\/p>\n

Navigation in Norway is very dangerous. It is continually stormy. The nervousness of the weather affects the personality of the people, dating back to the Vikings. They are dominated by darkness and blackness. The plays are influenced by that. There are very few musical comedies that come out of Norway.<\/p>\n

What does “twenty miles south of Oslo” mean? I could say, get fifteen books on Oslo, on the Vikings, on the history of the royalty there. I’ll give you this free of charge.<\/p>\n

But for Christ’s sake, learn where you are going to do your acting.<\/p>\n

Be interested in the fact that Norway has the largest ice fields in the world and that it’s very difficult to travel except by sleigh.<\/p>\n

I like that. I like knowing that Nora comes home by sleigh. People pass each other on the narrow road. I know that a sleigh has bells and that sleigh bells have a kind of gaiety in them. If it is dark eight months of the year, they must give themselves something to make them happy. They recognize each other’s sleigh bells. Twilight is at noon. That affects you, if night lasts seventeen hours.<\/p>\n

If you know this, it will affect your acting. It will make you understand certain things you need to understand.<\/p>\n

They have hailstones of a size we can’t imagine. These hailstones will be used in the last act of Enemy of the People<\/i>. People throw them at Dr. Stockmann’s house. You have to know such things. You must not be so much with you. Whatever is left of my me, you can have. I do not give a goddamn about my me, only what I can give you. That is what is important. That is why my life has been important.<\/p>\n

I am interested in acting, not “being a professional”.<\/p>\n

When you look out your stage window, you must see water – fjords and water running along the streets. It’s 1880, but it’s not an 1880 street. It’s a 1780 street with planks. The water runs along those planked streets. You can only cross them a certain way. It is not easygoing. You can go by horse or maybe by stagecoach. You come home late because you had to catch the coach. If you’re late just because the words say so, you are in trouble. But not if you know that it’s because there was too much baggage to put on the coach.<\/p>\n

Don’t act from the words. Act from knowing whether you arrive by coach or whether you have money enough to hire a sleigh.<\/p>\n

The fjords are very threatening. They are black and contain bodies that have been disintegrating very slowly for years because the water is so cold. It is a country with a great many psychological problems. Everybody is in trouble. The churches date from the twelfth century. The twelfth century in this crazy Scandinavia produced a very special kind of architecture. It’s a big thing about the churches there. Look them up. They have great gargoyles. Do not think of your own pretty little church in East Hampton. You have to see that church people go to with the gargoyles and the frightening things inside it.<\/p>\n

Their unique landscape is unduplicated anywhere on earth.<\/p>\n

What made Ibsen so great is that he used this unusual place to give him such great truths. So when you think of this space, think of it not as your space. Think of the mountains, the water. It must inspire awe in you, so when you get to a difficult scene you will have the help of the landscape.<\/p>\n

So that if you get to a scene where someone has to flee, you will see the waterfalls, the difficulties.<\/p>\n

All of a sudden now, I want to cry …<\/p>\n

The landscape has to inspire you with awe!<\/i><\/p>\n

The fingers of water reach seventy miles into the land from the sea. That makes quite an obstacle if you are thinking of leaving Norway. To cross the sea from the north and come south means that you have risked death to get there, and when you arrive you must arrive with death in you.<\/p>\n

In Mrs. Linde’s entrance [in Doll’s House<\/i>], when she says, “I have just arrived from the North,” and somebody says, “How did you do it?” — it does not mean by what conveyance. It means, “How did you survive?”<\/p>\n

If the country has no railroads, what do you think a doctor has? He does not have anesthetics, he does not have machines and technology.<\/p>\n

Always try to see the difference between you and him – beteween then and now. Try, all through the play, to see how this can open things up to you. You cannot do without it. If you do not know these things, you cannot act. You must know.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to live in a small town in Norway 110 years ago?<\/p>\n

What is it like in summer and winter there?<\/p>\n

What does ‘Norway’ mean?<\/p>\n

Norway is three quarters water, surrounded by dark sea. It is different from any concept you have. Look up pictures of its water and mountains. Get an idea for yourself where these people live. Understand that the landscape is always used by the author.<\/p>\n

Before Ibsen, actors had never been told that – never knew it, never thought about it, never learned how to use it.<\/p>\n

Chekhov and [Eugene] O’Neill always use the landscape. You cannot move without it. You must know how to behave inland – know what O’Neill means by inland when his captain in Anna Christie keeps saying, “I want to get to the sea!” You will have to understand Mr. O’Neill’s sense of inland like you have to understand Ibsen’s sense of rain and water.<\/p>\n

From now on, the landscape always plays an important part.<\/p>\n

Your responsibility is to find out how it is different from your own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really liked this analysis of Ibsen. It continues to blow me away that there were those, at the beginning of the 20th century, who were so interested in Ibsen, so turned on by what he was doing – that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[193,375],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5394"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102919,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394\/revisions\/102919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}