Word: ibsenism
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Playwright Miller uses a good many of Ibsen's devices of gradual disclosure; he has developed a rather mannered, deeply native style of dialogue which is well suited to the stage but does not come sharply to life on the screen; he has told his story with compassion as well as passion. The picture is scarcely more than a photographed play, but it is unusually well acted-notably by Robinson, Lancaster and Christians. It is earnest, it is on the side of the angels, and it is not without genuine dramatic vitality. Yet it is in no way deeply...
...Hendrik Ibsen's "A Doll House" will be staged in Radcliffe's Agassiz theater tonight at 8:15 o'clock by the Tributary Players of Boston under the sponsorship of the Graduate Chapter of the Radcliffe Alumnae Association...
...Enemy of the People" deals with the root problem of democracy: are the common people, the "popular majority," competent to rule, or should the government be entrusted to the superior few, the intellectual supermen? The theme is alive today as it has never been before, and yet Ibsen's play fails to make it live on the stage...
Somewhere between the balm of a "courageous attempt" and the sting of a painful and wearisome failure lies the Harvard Dramatic Club's fall production for 1947. That it is brave to attempt the resurrection of a mouldering and awkward work by Henrik Ibsen can hardly be denied; the question is whether sufficient resources lie behind the bravado to justify the effort...
Bernard Shaw's treatment of the identical theme demonstrates Ibsen's inadequacy. Taking his semifaseist philosophy partially from the Norwegian playwright himself, Shaw builds an effective and convincing argument in "Heartbreak House" and other plays because his technique--his language, ideas, and situations--is bright and sharp enough to carry his doctrine. Ibsen bases his philosophic appeal on a situation that falls flat, on characters that are crude white and blackest black. The language--whether his fault or that of the translator--is so stilted, so drab that it tends to mire the play in a morass of monotony...