Oslo, Norway – The main character in Henrik Ibsen’s 1892 play “The Master Builder” exclaims: “The younger generation will come knocking at my door.” One hundred years after his death, new generations are doing just that, in ways he could never have imagined.
To mark today’s anniversary, the work of the Norwegian dramatist is being performed by rap artists, ballet dancers, Chinese opera singers and robots. His plays are being staged in front of the Sphinx in Egypt and at universities in Bangladesh. A conference on his work is being held in Mexico City. Romania is issuing postage stamps.
There are 8,000 events worldwide marking what Norway has declared “The Year of Ibsen,” in honor of one of the most influential playwrights of modern theater who died at age 78 on May 23, 1906.
“This year, Ibsen will be performed more than Shakespeare,” said Bentein Baardson, head of the Ibsen 2006 celebrations. Ibsen wrote 26 plays, including “A Doll’s House,” “Peer Gynt,” “The Wild Duck” and “Hedda Gabler.” Baardson said “A Doll’s House” is the world’s most-performed play.
Ibsen’s works, especially his realistic dramas in which he rebelled against social conventions, examine such themes as venereal disease, alcoholism, incest and insanity, all shocking and forbidden subjects in his era that remain topical today.
“He was a reformer of society,” Baardson said. “For him, the themes were universal. Everything he wrote is about fundamental human rights, gender equality, free expression, business morals and so on.”
Frode Helland, director of the Ibsen Center in Oslo, agreed. “The problems Ibsen analyzes in his plays are the problems we still face today. They are about privacy and public life, finances and the impact on private lives, the relationships between the sexes.”
Many experts say Ibsen did not especially like Norway, but that to understand his work one must grasp the nation.
“That is why they become introspective and serious,” Ibsen wrote, “they brood and doubt – and they often lose faith. At home every other person is a philosopher! There, the long, dark, winters come with thick fogs enveloping the houses. Oh, how they long for the sun!”
