Three Plays: An Enemy of the People / The Wild Duck / Hedda Gabler

by Henrik Ibsen, Fredrik Matheson (Illustrator), William Archer (Translator)

silpcover with linen binding

Genres: Classics, Plays, Fiction

325 pages, Leather Bound

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major Norwegian playwright largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama. He is often referred to as the "father of modern drama." Ibsen is held to be the greatest of Norwegian authors and one of the most important playwrights of all time, celebrated as a national symbol by Norwegians.

His plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when Victorian values of family life and propriety largely held sway in Europe and any challenge to them was considered immoral and outrageous. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many facades, possessing a revelatory nature that was disquieting to many contemporaries.

Ibsen largely founded the modern stage by introducing a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. Victorian-era plays were expected to be moral dramas with noble protagonists pitted against darker forces; every drama was expected to result in a morally appropriate conclusion, meaning that goodness was to bring happiness, and immorality pain. Ibsen challenged this notion and the beliefs of his times and shattered the illusions of his audiences.

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's no "The Iceman Cometh," but Ibsen's plays in this collection contain a bracing set of harsh truths and dissatisfied characters. The style is formal, matching an old style of theater and perhaps the sunless setting of the Norwegian author. But the characters here aren't conventional in an old theater sense. They are driven, half-mad, truth tellers and wastrels.

Some are ostensibly heroic, like the lead doctor in "An Enemy of the People," who has discovered the spa that anchors his town is toxic and is determined to spread that truth, no matter the cost to his family. He seems more motivated by ego than public service, though, at one point claiming, "A man should never put on his best trousers when he goes out to battle for freedom and truth. Well, I don't care so much about the trousers; them you can always patch up for me. But that the mob, the rabble, should dare to attach me as if they were my equals--that is what I can't, for the life of me, stomach!"

Other characters, like Gregers Werle and the namesake Hedda Gabler, just seem to want to hold up humanity, like a bug, and see what makes it squirm. In "The Wild Duck," Werle fixates on a former classmate, a man who has been maneuvered into raising the child of Werle's father's former mistress. Werle moves into the family's lodging and dismantles the family bit by bit, supposedly in service to truth.

Gabler, on the other hand, seems dismayed with the tacky things she's had to settle for: a humble marriage to a dusty scholar, a house she doesn't really want, filled with things that seem like an afterthought. The only thing she really seems to long for is the prospect of a beautiful death, a fixation that sees her nudge a former lover toward suicide. Gabler keeps her distance from the reader, throughout building a wall of a discontent that feels thoroughly modern. Her play is a strong finale to a compelling collection.

[Ivan Benedict · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 3 plays in this book, printed 1954, are: "The Pillars of the Community," "The Wild Duck," and "Hedda Gabler." They are fantastic and quite relevant, though written in the late 1800's. A general theme of them all has to do with living a lie and the consequences. The translator is Una Ellis-Fermor, and she writes an excellent introduction. I want to quote her as she comments on the primary character, Karsten, in the play, "The Pillars of the Community":
"...Karsten's habit of explaining his own motives, of explaining what kind of man he is, is at once a subtle piece of self-deception and the resultant of a life-long habit of arguing with his subdued but not yet silenced conscience. He must justify himself to himself, and so he continually calls for help in that continual effort; his admiring fellow-citizens and his adoring wife repeat faithfully what he dictates to them. The more dishonest his action, the nobler are the sentiments and motives he defines..."
Sound familiar?

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept imagining what these plays would look like at my local community theater.