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When Ibsen Meets Chekhov: Postscript to the International Ibsen Stage Festival
Carlito P. Casaje The Ibsen Stage International Festival celebrated the meeting of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) and Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) through their dramatic works and through the characters in their plays. The theme was their views on theatre, theatre writing, recurring themes, and possible similarities in their writing styles. Held at the NationalTeater (National Theatre) in the heart of Oslo, Norway, this bi-annual Festival serves as a tribute to the genius of Henrik Isben, Norways foremost literary icon, and world literatures father of modern drama. The more famous and frequently produced of his 26 plays, at least in the Philippines, are A Dolls House, Hedda Gabler, and An Enemy of the People. My theatre group, Dramatis Personae, has staged A Dolls House, Ghosts, Rosmersholm, Peer Gynt and Brand, all under the sponsorship of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Manila. I was able to catch the production in which these writers characters literally met onstage, through a careful selection of scenes from their plays. The title, Wild Seagull (Vild-Maken) is an abbreviation of Ibsens The Wild Duck and Chekhovs The Seagull. This highly stylized production, joyously directed by Runar Hodne, featured such competent actors such as Per Egil Aske, Liv Osa, Jan Gunnar Roise and Adrine Saether, is a collage of scenes from Chekhovs The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, and from Isbens The Wild Duck, The Master Builder and When We Dead Awaken, presented in thematic fashion. Characters from two different scenes of two different plays by the two dramatists were able to interconnect, interlock, or interweave through directorial movements, song and dance segues, and/or through thematic punctuations and shifts. According to Hodne, his concept revolved around the theme of change-the differences and changes between the young and the old, the old and the new, whether they are habits, traditions, visions or ideas, and creative narcissism versus the generous desire to share ones art and learning.
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Im pretty sure that at that time, since these two playwrights had lived between the years 1860-1906, they would have read each other, as evidenced by the writing styles, themes and meanings of the plays we have selected. They may have opposing styles and views but certainly, they have been answering each other through their plays, said Hodne. I met with Kjetil Bang-Hansen, director of the version of Hedda Gabler. According to him, the real meaning in Chekhovs lines or dialogues are not found in the lines themselves but between them, in the silences, or sometimes within the stage business of the characters. This is in contrast to Ibsens lines which, in his early plays, mean exactly what they say. Chekovs lines are not textual but rather sub-textual, as opposed to Ibsens lines which are more straightforward, like in Hedda Gabler, for instance. His lines there are short and direct, cut and dried. That is why the play, if directed, should be fastpaced. The play reads like a detective story. However, after A Dolls House, Ibsen also started to write in the meandering and symbolic fashion because he didnt intend this writings to be produced for stage but rather only to be published and be read. Why is that, I asked. He replied. Its because Ibsen didnt trust his theatre and his audience. Hes afraid that no director could have given justice to these. Remember that he was a director too before he went into exile abroad and that was when he wrote all these highly individualized and symbolic plays. Director Bang-Hansen was right. In fact, history tells us that Ibsen was even appointed artistic director of the National Theatre of Christiania (Oslos former name) for three years. After the theatre became bankrupt, he then became the artistic director of the Bergen Theatre. And now about Chekhov. What could make Chekhov trust his theatre then? I asked. It was because Chekhov had a Stanislavski. have a Stanislavski. Ibsen didnt

Again Bang-Hansen was right. Before Stanislavski came into the picture, Moscow Art Theatres initial production of The Seagull had been a dismal failure. Two years later, there was a revival of
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the play with Stanislavski at the helm. It became an immediate success. Besides, it also has something to do with a sense of endings. Ibsens suicides end with a bang, whereas Chekhovs suicides end with a whimper. In The Seagull, for instance, when Dorm, while leafing through a magazine, quietly confides to Trigorin that Konstantin shot himself, he was rambling about this magazine article from the correspondent in America, until he put his arm behind Trigorins back and lead him away downstage when he finally says, This being a question that very much interests me and as he lowers his voice, Get out of here, will you. The fact is, hes shot himself It took some sixteen lines of verbal exchanges and stage business between Arkadina and Dorm from the time they heard the shot until these lines were finally said! In Hedda Gabler, after the pistol shot was heard, Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted find Hedda lying dead on the sofa, there was confusion and shouting, Bertha, the maid enters in alarm, then Tesman screams to Brack, Shes shot herself in the head! Fancy that! Then Brack, who is in shock and half paralyzed in his armchair, exclaims, But, good God! People dont do such things! I observed what others might think that Hedda (played with such cool countenance by Marit A. Andreassen) was too confident on her actions, that there wasnt any nervousness or quirkiness in her that hinted at her dysfunctional self. Bang-Hansen replied, Heddas suicide could not have been a result of some neurosis or any psychological malfunctioning or some traumatic experience in her past. Hers was simply a decision brought about by the fact that she had always wanted to be identified by society as someone belonging within the circle of the educated elite. So she chooses to marry George Tesman, an educator whose influential position in the university may have probably given her the stature she had long wanted to reach. Unfortunately, though, George was not only several years her senior, but also an uninteresting and boring husband; there was really nothing exceptional about him. He was nothing short of a mediocrity. And that was Heddas tragic flaw-a wrong decision trapped her in an unhappy marriage that she had to endure but would not submit to. And although she is very strong-willed woman, she just couldnt fight back the way our women now may have probably unleashed themselves. So she killed herself.
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So one shouldnt look anymore for these neurotic quirks and mannerisms present in the usual Hedda Gabler interpretations because one shouldnt look for something that shouldnt be there in the first place. Rather, one should simply understand the real point of the story and character before resorting to psychology labels. I said. Although is wasnt as easy as that because prior to her suicide, she even took it upon herself to destroy the lives of the people around her, including those she love, out of envy and jealousy or perhaps to get even with fate and the world. She was both destructive and self-destructive and she had reasons for being so, Bang-Hansen said. Noting the modern dress staging of the play, I observed, Im sure you wanted to express the timeless of the plays theme, subject matter and message by setting it in a time frame closest to that of your audiences. Its also a way of updating the play, bringing it away from the musty shelves of libraries in order to make it more identifiably accessible and immediate. But I couldnt situate it any further than the 50s he replied. The 60s was the beginning of the sexual revolution and the onset of the Vietnam War. People were so busy with many issues they thought were more important than their personal selves. And the rise of free sex would have made Heddas problem dated and irrelevant. She could have gotten away from her husband very easily without any qualms from the people around her, and she would not have been tortured by the thought of scandal if she ever decided to leave him or kill herself. The fact that the play ended with her suicide was enough to shake the guts of the audiences then, since Ibsens objective was to create controversy and make people realize how hypocritical they conveniently look at morality. Have you done this play before? I asked. No, this is my first time. But other directors have done this in the previous years. Besides, we cannot help but include this play in our repertoire almost every other year because you must remember that this is Hedda Gabler, an Ibsen favorite, thus, we have to make it such a way that the production would seem popularly accessible and immediate in order to make its currency work for audiences of various ages, especially the students whom
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wed like to enjoy Ibsens sense of drama and of life through his plays. Of the twelve plays that participated in the festival, I missed seeing only three. The first production I saw when I arrived early afternoon in Oslo after my almost 16-hour trip from Manila was a very interesting presentation entitled Ibsen Relay (Ibsenstafetten). It was a trilogy of Ibsen-inspired 30-minute sketches written by three groups of representative high school students who won in a nationwide inter-secondary drama competition. The first group outing was Crazy (Forstyrret), a parody with clear echoes of Ghosts, where the principal character, Mrs. Alving, is sent to a mental institution. The second was White Horse (Hvite Heste), another irreverent rendition, where some of Ibsens leading characters, Little Eyolf (who is now both physically and mentally handicapped), Per Gynt, and Johannes Rosmer, Madame Helseth, Rebekka West and Beate of Romersholm meet. And the last in the trilogy was a hilarious song-and-dance farce of the Wild Duck (Vildanden) that was seasoned, cooked and eaten. The play was very physical and almost bordered on the burlesque. Judging from what I saw, all the actors seemed to be having the time of their lives! (All the productions in the festival were in Norwegian and this is why I can review only the plays that I am already familiar with.) I also saw two versions of the same play. When We Dead Awaken (Nar Vi Dode Vakner), Ibsens last drama about a worldrenowned sculptor, Arnold Rubek, who returns to Norway with his wife, Maja, whom he no longer loves. At the sanatorium where they stay, Rubeks meets his former love and source of inspiration, Irene. She accuses him of betraying her and ruining her life. In the hope of reconciliation and renewed creativity, Rubek and Irene flee to the mountains. The guest version by the Danish company, The Betty Nansen Theatre, had a pan-Scandinavian casting, and was directed by Peter Langdal. The play as written was originally set in the spa of a mountain resort but this production chose to set the play in a radio studio where the actors play radio actors who are supposed to dramatize the radio version of the play. Instead of the theatricalized radio play, we see the actors shift alternately from their actor persona to the character persona, the actors, in a semiimprovisatory way, express situations similar to that the
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characters problems but in a more seemingly naturalistic portrayal in the radio play proper. Creatively blending the technique of improvisation of Ibsens play is certainly a novel approach to his work. Besides, said Norwegian principal actor Nil Ole Oftebro, whom I interviewed by telephone after the show, we in Denmark do not have mountains to speak of so we certainly cannot identify with their peaks and valleys. We are basically lowlanders. So we decided to set the play in such a way that the experience of the locale is vicarious, thus, through a radio drama. The other version of the said play was the Torshov Theatre of the National Theatre. Directed by Jo Stromgren, the play was a deconstruction of the Ibsen classic and was an exhibitionistic exercise in nuanced choreography. Disregarding the last act of the original, which in fact could be done since the first two acts are sufficient to represent the whole, Stromgrens arresting movements made for a thoroughly refreshing interpretation of this brooding Ibsen drama. A West African/French language version of an Enemy of the People (Un ennemi du people) performed by the Carrefour International de Theatre de Ouagadougou in joint cooperation with Norways National Theatre from Burkina Faso, and directed by Norwegian-American Thea Stabell, was the most topical interpretation of the Ibsen play that I had ever seen. The plays ending as originally written, had the protagonist, Thomas Stockmann, mercilessly stoned by his detractors. The windows of his house were severely shattered as a result of that stoning, causing him to utter this famous line. The fact is that the strongest man in the world is how who stands most alone. But in this Quasi-Brechtian production, in which this ensemble of versatile actors shifts as commentators and annotators through intermittent choral rendition, in keeping with their own temperament and tradition, had the principal character, Thomas assassinated by his enemies. Ibsens serious comedy about truth versus public opinion had become a socio-political statement about a man torn between his uncompromising principles and the personal necessities of survival. A riveting portrayal by Issaka Sawadogo as Thomas, this play is a must-see especially by those who have experienced in one way or the other some kind of military or political oppression.
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The piece de resistance, I should say, in this festival, was not our hosts homegrown production, but nevertheless is still very much an Ibsenian celebration. The legendary Ingmar Bergman production of Ghosts (Gengangere) by the Swedish National Theatre, the Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern was a highly personalized staging of Ibsens then personal classic about hypocrisy, martial betrayal and incest. The play is about an artistson, Oswald (Played by Jonas Malmsjo) who inherits his fathers sins (syphilis), and his mother (admiringly played by Pernilla August) who suffers from her sons fate despite all her efforts to sweep the family scandal under the hypocritical rug. (This play was, still, and will forever be dear to me not only because this was my very first Ibsen project for my theatre group but also because it was through this play that I discovered Ibsens unrelenting genius and his very strong influence on my career as playwright-actordirector. And given the chance to be in an Ibsen play or to write like Ibsen. I would prefer to be no less than Ibsen himself.) Perfectly written and yet pregnant with subterfuges concocted in a quietly subdued fashion, director-translator Bergman managed to come up with his own adaptation of this Ibsen classic. He creatively blended a delightful Strindberian-Ibsenian recipe by, for instance, focusing further the opposite of the then implied clandestine relationship between Mrs. Alving and clergymanfamily friend, Pastor Manders (played by Jan Malmsjo) through snippets taken from Strindbergs The Ghost Sonata and The Pelican. Their relationship now does not remain a mere suggestion but become a descriptively real one. Another very interesting spice to Bergmans staging was the way he directed Owsalds syphilitic attack at the end of the play, when Oswald cringes at the glaring rays of the morning sun. Since the production is staged in somewhat eclectic modern dress, Oswald is donned in pajamas, an appropriate costume to describe the dismal evening inside Alvings private drawing room. And as he rampages at the horrible sight and feel of the sun, he rips off his pajamas until he collapses drained and naked onstage. It is an appropriate symbol of human helplessness brought about by societys contagion and hypocrisy. When people ask me why Im wearing this wedding ring even if they knew I wasnt married. I quickly tell them that Im married to Ibsen, says the enigmatic Norwegian actress Gorild Mauseth,
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one of National Theatres premiere actresses. In this festival, she has acted in four of Ibsens plays the radio play version of The Lady from the Sea, the alfresco reading of The Vikings of Helgeland, and in the critically acclaimed stage versions of Hedda Gabler and Little Eyolf. She is a chameleon-like actress, electrifying as Hjordis in The Vikings of Helgeland (Haermaendene Pa Helgeland), intriguingly charming as Rita in Little Eyolf (Lille Eyolf), and intensely transformed as Mrs. Elvsted in Hedda Gabler. In the Lady from the Sea where I played Ellida, an obsessed wife torn between a former love long gone and her current state as wife to a mature and permissive husband, I even tried to experience how it is to float on water and hear absolutely nothing but the gurgling and mysterious sound of the sea. Ellida couldnt fathom anymore the reality that shes in because she chose to live with the ghosts of her past, with the enigma of the sea, constantly reminding her of the seafarer who once loved her dearly and promised her that he would be back for her but never did. And since Ellida did nothing but practically stay floating in the water of the fjord by her husbands home, she was absolutely oblivious of the outside world while hypnotically confined to her sailors world and the sea. Its quite amazing how a man like Ibsen could possess such unusual ability to understand the complex psyche of women, especially the women from the north, since most of his women characters have come from the north. Well, not only because he was born and raised in the north but also because the women from the north are the more elusively mysterious, intriguingly cold and unfathomable like his Rebecca West character in Rosmersholm - shes definitely from the north. Im from the north, so I know, she said. Quite an interesting analysis indeed! And how right she was since I have had the fortunate experience of the scheming ways of Rebecca West myself when I directed Rosmersholm several years back in an intimate gallery setting of the Ayala Museum. How I vividly remember too that I still owe the museum curators the balance from the venue rental since even if the play was well received especially by the expatriate members of the audience, the production didnt even cover the expense of my investment, it being a dismal financial flop.
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Well, this is the price you sometimes pay when you become too foolhardy and venture in commercially unappealing plays for sheer vanity of someone who loves to provide audiences with an alternative to the usual recipes offered in our local theatre market. Watching the festival reaffirmed my commitment to relentlessly explore new and exciting ways to present the classics, whether by Ibsen, Chekhov. Strinberg, Brecht, Beckett, Lonesco, Lorca, Camus or Shakespeare or by any dramatist capable of offering new insights to our audiences, especially the Generation-X and Generation-Y viewers who are the future target market. But new insights will occur only if we theatre practitioners continuously open our hearts and minds to all the theatrical possibilities this universe has to offer. And after witnessing all the fresh innovations our Norwegian colleagues bravely and brazenly plunge themselves into, I also realized that my idea of the theatre and its craft should never ever be the same. And if at one point, my paranoia that I could be just as guilty and be accused of breaking too many rules in the theatre, my God, one must savor with delight and envy the fact that they break more rules than there ever was and will be.

References Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). Retrieved from http://www.theatredatabase.com/19th_century/anton_chekhov _001.html Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). Retrieved from http://www.theatredatabase.com/19th_century/henrik_ibsen_0 01.html

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