…låt det då bli Göteborgs dramatiska teaters uppsättning av Hedda Gabler! Som vanligt i alla Ibsens pjäser så är det lökiga akademiker och låsta kvinnor. Den största behållningen är dock skådespeleriet – Moa Millgård som spelar Hedda Gabler är helt fantastisk! Hennes blick kan vara den mest intensiva jag någonsin sett. Dr. And är teaternybörjare, men ändå finns det några pjäser jag har sett mer än en gång och Hedda Gabler är en av dem. Det är ett sådant stycke som påverkas oerhört mycket av hur huvudrollsinnehavaren väljer att spela Hedda, denna kvinnornas Hamlet som kan tolkas väldigt olikt. Millgård gör en superb tolkning och tillsammans med de andra skådespelarna blir illusionen kristallklar, vi befinner oss plötsligt i ett högborgerligt Oslo på 1800-talet istället för på Stibergsliden 5b. Kanske borde jag även ge en eloge till publiken, med tanke på tidigare inlägg om publikens betydelse för en lyckad framställning. På den föreställning jag bevistade framstod publiken som både teatervan och uppmärksam där det sistnämnda är den absolut bästa egenskap en publik kan ha. Men naturligtvis uppstår uppmärksamheten i symbios med skådespelarnas insatser och min slutsats blir helt enkelt att Göteborgs dramatiska teater gjort en underbar uppsättning som du borde bevista så snart som möjligt, föreställningen ges bara till och med den 12:e december.

Jo,  morgendagen innebærer et aldri så lite jubileum. Spørsmålet som må stilles, er dette: Hva synes vi egentlig om Peer Gynt?

Henrik Ibsens storverk fra 1867 er et lite stykke Norge. Derfor har ”Peer Gynt” har hatt fast plass på pensumlister i norsk skoleverk til alle tider etter utgivelsen.  Peer blir gjerne fremstilt som en gøyal kar, en Espen Askeladd, en variant av typer som Alexander Rybak og Petter Northug.  Det er til og med innstiftet en egen Peer Gynt-pris, som er tildelt mang en kjernekar og -dame.

Så var det neppe Ibsens hensikt med dramaet å skryte av den norske væremåten. “Peer Gynt”  er en ramsalt kritikk av norsk dobbeltmoral. Peer nøyde seg ikke med  ”å være seg selv”.  Han var ikke bare den morsomme eventyreren, men også den kyniske livsløgneren som levde etter trollenes ordspråk om “å være seg selv nok” – det vil si å leve som absolutt egoist eller egosentriker. Først meg selv, så meg selv og så meg selv. 

Professor Vigdis Ystad har skrevet en interessant artikkel om dette.

I morgen er det 15 år siden EU-avstemningen, og hvorfor leder fortsatt nei-siden overlegent? Det har med Peer Gynt å gjøre. Harstad Tidende skriver på lederplass i dag:

15 år siden sist: Vi er rikere, feitere og enda mer tilfreds med oss selv.

Vi er oss selv nok. Vi fortsetter med det så lenge oljen gjør oss til en økonomisk stormakt. Et slikt land går ikke uten videre inn i partnerskap som stiller krav.

Vigdis Ystad skriver i artikkelen jeg nevnte ovenfor,  at Henrik Ibsen var skeptisk til å la ”Peer Gynt” bli oversatt til tysk. Han mente at boken så til de grader var knyttet til den norske tenkemåten som vi nordmenn er rammet av.

 La meg tilføye: Den gang og i dag.

Tittelsiden i manuskriptet til Peer Gynt. Kilde: www.ibsen.net

‘Tis the season for A Doll’s House, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s classic portrait of nineteenth century marriage and gender roles that unfolds on Christmas Eve and Christmas day in 1879, also the year in which it was written and first staged. The title’s significance, broached by Nora herself in the third and final act, refers to the identical ways her father and husband perceived and treated her–like a child in an arrested state of development, a p(r)etty play thing for life.

Often identified as Ibsen’s “feminist play,” A Doll’s House was so controversial when it premiered  that it was banned in Germany and Britain until Ibsen wrote an alternate “happy ending.”  The irony, of course, lies in the fact that the original ending (and the one that gets staged almost without exception) is what most now would consider the “happy ending” because in this version, Nora leaves her oppressive husband, boldly vowing to honor her duty to herself, to her own human rights, even if it means casting off her socially prescribed marital and maternal duties.  Nora’s dramatic exit from the stage and her marriage has come to be viewed as a historic social moment because of its metaphoric resonance–she had also slammed the door on Bourgeois patriarchy.  Watching the play today reminds us of how far we have come and how far we still have to go to fully achieve gender equality.

In the revival currently running at Palm Beach Dramaworks, directed by William Hayes, Nora Helmer appears not childlike and helpless but constrained and crafty, even if complicit in her own subordination.  This Nora kneels in subjection–sometimes genuine, sometimes feigned–at least five times throughout the performance.  Early on, Hayes takes every opportunity to emphasize what may appear to those unfamiliar with the play as Nora’s self-serving money obsession, by having her count her kroner like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.  This choice adds greater impact later on when Nora reveals to Mrs. Linde that she is not, in fact, a spendthrift, but that she is repaying a loan she secretly obtained years ago to finance a doctor-prescribed trip to Italy for her ailing husband.  A petite-bodied, vocally gifted Margery Lowe seamlessly and flawlessly embodies the role of Nora, subtly revealing the complexity of a character that is vain but selfless, confident but cautious.  I overheard some audience members discussing Nora’s constant birdlike singing and her transfixion during the tarantella dance, and they actually bought the great Victorian lie that she is “hysterical.” Sorry folks, she is subjugated, shackled, disenfranchised, not mentally ill.  Michael St. Pierre portrays Torvald Helmer  as  a formidable patriarch, though one not completely unlikeable or altogether devoid of tenderness. Thankfully, for example, he does not chastise Nora by pulling her  by the ear in the opening scene as the original stage directions indicate, and the two share several kisses and embraces, suggesting their marriage is not completely loveless.  Michael Amico’s red and gold hued set and Brian O’Keefe’s beautiful period costumes are perfect complements that effectively transport us to a bygone era.  It is no wonder this production has regularly been selling out–the show is well done on all counts. Catch it before it closes this coming Sunday, November 29.

Colon Blow

My sister was diagnosed with end-stage colon cancer at age 42; she was a slim non-smoker with no family history.  Colon cancer is no longer just a geriatric disease!  Ginger endured countless surgeries and chemo regimens before succumbing to the illness last October.  I don’t know how she fought so hard for 5 1/2 years. I’ve written about my sister and this experience here and here.

My pre-existing hypochondria was grossly heightened by witnessing my sister’s cancer saga.  So to honor the anniversary of her death and to deflate some of my own lingering anxiety, I underwent a colonoscopy yesterday.  All went well.  Must keep eating bran.

One of the last things my sister and I did together, when her mind was still lucid, was watch SNL.  We had done this together for decades. Only the last occasion took place in a Hospice bedroom.  I laid in the bed adjacent to hers and cried quietly to myself in the dark, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

My sister had a fantastic sense of humor, a smile and a laugh that could lift spirits higher than Houdini could levitate bodies. She was magical.  And she was not above a good old BM joke.  In Sunday’s post I shared this recent SNL skit, “Rear Window” with January Jones and Jason Sudeikis.

Now I give you “Colon Blow” with Phil Hartman.

May Ginger and Phil rest in peace.

Rebeck’s Bad Dates

This past Sunday I posted my thoughts on a production of Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates, which opened last Thursday and runs through the first week of December at the Straz Center in Tampa.  I have updated the post to include reviews from the St. Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune, both of which echo my review of the show.  Our disappointment seems to lie with the script, not the direction, acting, or set design.

Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at Palm Beach Dramaworks

Tonight I am finally getting a chance to see Dramawork’s reprisal of this classic. The production closes this coming Sunday 11/30.  Look for my ‘last-minute’ review of it up tomorrow.  I’ve never seen this play staged before, but I have read it several times along with reviews of various productions through the years.  While the play gets revived often all over the globe, reviewers chronically have complained about how outdated the play is, with the implication being that sexism such as Nora faces no longer poses a problem. That it’s old news. That everyone today is so enlightened and that things are so much better.  Who cares if there is not total gender ‘equality,’ be thankful things are better than they used to be.

Complacency sucks.

DU KNUT, DU KNUT: Om hundrede aar er alting glemt, men etter kun seksti er det på tide å måle krefter i cyberspace.

WordPress gir meg muligheten til å se hvilke søkeord som har sendt lesere til bloggen min. Noen søkeord går igjen, og men det fleste søker etter for å dukke opp her hos meg er Knut Hamsun.

Ja, slik er det, damer og herrer. Hovedinngangen til mitt bloggrike er en steindau forfatter med Hitler-sympatier.

Oversikten over søkestrengene fikk meg imidlertid til å se på en gammel konflikt med nye øyne. Ja, jeg fikk lyst til å trekke opp et moderne måleapparat for å ta temperaturen på en av de store forfatterkamper vi har sett her til lands.

Først litt bakgrunn. Om vi reserverer oss for nyanser (og overser en ung forfatters behov for posisjonering) kan vi si følgende: Hamsun hatet Ibsen. Knut Hamsun latterliggjorde både den lille skjeggete figuren og dramatikken som fulgte med.

I 1892 skrev han til den danske forfatteren Ove Rode: “Vær ogsaa saa venlig at sige os Deres Mening om Ibsens Indflydelse paa Rishøsten i Indien eller paa Himmelklodernes Baner”. Hamsun kalte også Ibsen for “Hs. pharmaceutiske Herlighed”, og mente den gamle dramatikeren og hans enkle karakterpsykologi burde kastes overbord fortere enn svint.

DEN SPRUKNE FJOMP: Knut Hamsun mente Henrik Ibsen var en gammel gjøk og en litterær hauk. Og skal vi dømme etter dette bildet, hvor den eldre Ibsen kan beskue seg selv på sokkel foran Nationaltheatret fra en ikke helt moderne hestedrosje, må vi jo gi ham litt rett.

Hamsuns agg fikk også utslag i skjønnlitteraturen, og i Mysterier (1892) omtaler hovedpersonen Nagel Ibsens skuespill som “det rene mekaniske kontorarbeide”.

Ok. Det var konflikten. Hva er så min moderne kikkert?

Jo, Google Trends. Dette nydelige verktøyet som lar deg se det totale søkevolumet for en søkestreng. Google Trends er en enkel framstilling av hele den søkende verdens interesse for et fenomen eller en person.

Her er mine funn. Kanskje dere bør sette dere.

IBSEN VS HAMSUN: En oversikt over søkemengden på Henrik Ibsen (rød) og Knut Hamsun (blå) over hele verden. Ibsen knuser sin yngre forfatterkollega, selv om det tar seg opp for Hamsun i inneværende jubileumsår.

Det dere ser over er en kraftmåling for de to forfatterne på verdensbasis. Henrik Ibsen er en stor dramatiker på verdensscenen, så det er kanskje ingen overraskelse at han tukter sin oppkjeftige kritiker ute i den store verden. Men vender vi blikket mot Norge, ser vi .. nei, vent litt.

Jeg må bare vise én ting til først .. bare for å vise hvor stor Ibsen faktisk er. Uvitenskaplig er det jo, men hold det nå ikke mot meg:

VERDENSDIKTER: Ja, visst pokker er Ibsen det! Denne oversikten viser det samlede søkevolum i hele verden, og Ibsen gjør seg ikke til skamme. (PS: Shakespeare er utelatt da han er så suverent mest søkt etter.)

Så der har dere Ibsen. Han kan måle seg! Han gruser både kommunisten Bertold Brecht, den nevrotiske Strindberg og banker latteren ut av Ionesco. Han sliter litt mot Samuel “Do you get it?” Beckett, men taper kun med en hårsbredd. Imponerende!

Så. Hvordan var det om vi kun ser på Norge.

Jo, damer og herrer, bildet ligner kanskje det vi så først. Jevnt over er nok Ibsen mer populær og mer ettersøkt. MEN Hamsun holder seg tett, svært tett, på sin museale rival.I 2006 regjerer riktignok Ibsen alene, men det var også hans store jubileumsår – med oppsetninger i Kairo og Gud vet hvor.

Men se her:

NÆRMER SEG: På oversikten over søkemengden kun i Norge, er bildet mellom de to likere, selv om Ibsen jevnt over har flere søk og flere nyhetstreff. Hamsun et hestehode foran i jubileumsåret. Husk at Ibsen selv hadde jubelår i 2006.

Ser vi på den mer nøytrale perioden mellom siste halvdel 2007 og 2008, jevner det seg egentlig ganske greit ut. Da Hamsuns jubileumsåret tar til i 2009, går modernisten forbi og blir mer ettersøkt enn Ibsen. Og som Robert Ferguson er inne på i mitt intervju med ham: Hamsun er for alvor på vei inn i verdenslitteraturen igjen. Jeg spår en ny vår for Hamsun i 2010. Google will show.

Litt kaldt vann i blodet og benpipene likevel: Knut selv vrir seg nok uansett i graven. For han ville nok ikke vært fornøyd med å være “en god nummer to”. Eller som han selv sa det: «Jeg er en stor mand i Paris, jeg slår Ibsen i hjel. Begrav ham!».

Hadde han imidlertid skrevet det samme fra en annen by enn Paris, foreksempel Bodø, hadde han vært nærmere sannheten. For som neste plansje (neida, bilde) viser, søker folket i Nordland mer på Hamsun enn på Ibsen.

En annen detalj: Både Ibsen og Hamsun bodde lenge i Aust-Agder, mitt hjemfylke, og det er også her det søkes mest etter de to forfatterne.

Og en tredje: Oslo-folk søker ikke stort på de to forfatterne.

Ja, ja, mer var det ikke.

God kveld videre!

Hello everyone!! I am so sorry for the delay in posting!! It’s been mid-terms here in college, and thus, life got a little crazy! Since I’m trying to make my posts thoughtful, I just didn’t have the time before then to post here, but classes and school and friends are all going beautifully well, so hopefully that makes up for my lack of consistency!

Today’s discussion is this: do we have an obligation to “come out”? I would argue yes. The reason I think so, is because all civil rights, and all individual liberties, came about as a result of someone supporting them, or “coming out” for those rights. For example, Susan B. Anthony “came out” for Woman’s Suffrage. Martin Luther King Jr. “came out” for racial equality and rights. These decisions were hard, and made them unpopular to a lot of people-I’m sure they lost a lot of friends along the way, and maybe even got ragged on by their families for “stirring up such a huge controversy”.

But can you imagine where America would be, where the whole world would be, without these individuals who had the courage to say “Yes, I believe this is the right thing to do, even though others don’t?” It reminds me of an “Enemy of the People”, by Henrik Ibsen. In Ibsen’s tale, a city official realizes that the water “Baths” that have just been created-aka, the drinking water, are all poisonous and are going to cause serious health defects. But the government that is extremely proud of them, then accuses him of sabotage, because the changes would be extremely expensive and unpopular to fix them.

But of course, Ibsen’s protagonist who tries to rise for change, is 110% right. His famous quote from the play is, “the majority is never right, never!” In other words-don’t follow the crowd.

And when it comes to being gay, I sometimes feel as though I am “called” to be Ibsen’s protagonist-that I NEED to come out. Not just for myself, but for the millions (yes, because there WILL be millions) of lesbians that come after me! What if my coming out, (hopefully as a successful woman years down the road), really influences people to also come out and accept their sexuality? What if I end up being successful in my later career, and my coming out changes some of the negative attitudes and stereotypes that surround lesbians as deadbeat Birkenstock women. What if my coming out has a BIG EFFECT?

It is for that reason, that I think we must have an obligation to come out. Let me be clear-I don’t think anyone should come out before THEY are ready, and I know that I myself am not yet ready. But it’s never going to be comfortable to make yourself a 2nd class citizen or a minority. Which is why I am making small steps everyday to go further and further to coming out. I am telling more of my close friends. I refuse to join in with my friends when they compliment cute boys, as I may have done in the past. I’ve started wearing a rainbow friendship bracelet-which weirdly actually freaks me out sometimes, because I still have a long way to go, and it’s a bit obvious (or it seems that way to me). Ha, as Alice from the L Word would say, those “dorky straight people” probably don’t even know what it means for me to wear that kind of bracelet, but since I know what it means, it just has put me a little more on edge when I wear it.

But the bottom line is, I am making steps! And this is good! Coming out is a process, but I know and believe that it is a process I feel obligated to do.

What are your ladies’ thoughts? =)
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In other news, my struggle to look like Jessica Biels by the time I come out is still going well! I still fall off the horse sometimes-have the extra cookies and then feel bad about it, etc. But I am making those extra desserts or diet-falls off a much larger rariety. And I am also refusing to “starve” myself-I KNOW that the only way to lose weight, gain muscle (tone!!) and keep it is to slowly improve myself. =) But I am lighter than I have been in almost a year, and I know I look better than I have in a long time. I’m hoping by Christmas though, that I will look even better! Who knows! Looks aren’t everything anyway!

Good luck to everyone else who is working out to improve their body image as well! Let me know how it’s going or if you have any suggestions/tips that work well for you. =) Also, let me know what you think about today’s question of coming out as a “duty”. I’m curious as to what you guys have to say!

Bűn szankciók nélkül

Heller Ágnes

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A tömegtársadalom, a középszerűség, azaz talán éppen a nagy bűnök hiánya az, ami a modern kort a kultúra-kritikusok és messianisztikus ateista gondolkodók szemében a tökéletes bűnösség korszakává teszi. Azért vagyunk radikálisan bűnösök, mert hiányzik korunkból a nagyság. Az a világ pedig, amelyben hiányzik a nagyság, megérdemli, hogy elpusztuljon és el is fog pusztulni.
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Ibsen két viszonylagosan fiatalkori drámai költeménye, a Brand és a Peer Gynt például e köré a kérdés köré épül, bár kétféle módon.
Miután Ibsen lényegében azonosult Brand alakjával, Peer Gyntöt iróniával ábrázolja, Brand hitvallását nyugodtan tulajdoníthatjuk a szerzőnek, míg Peer esetében jobb lesz óvatosan eljárni.
Brand lelkész, az ő esetében a bibiai olvasmányokból táplálkozó abszolút szenvedély nem tűnik “szekulárisnak”, legalábbis első pillantásra nem. De ha egy kicsit mélyebben elgondolkozunk szavain, úgy érezzük, hogy itt nem az Istent követő, hanem az ellene lázadó, az önmagát istenítő ember hangja szólal meg.

Így például a III. felvonásban, mikor felesége Ágnes azt mondja Brandnak, hogy az ő abszolutista mércéjével mérve mindenkit elér az ítélet Brand így riposztozik : ” El, bár senki sem tudja: kit. De lángbetűkkel hirdetik, légy hű a végsőkig s’ az élet Koronája akkor tiéd lesz. Nem elég a hideg verítéked, csak ha szenvedés tüze mart. Ha nem bírsz megbocsátja Néked Isten, azt nem, ha nem akarsz” Majd Ágnes válaszára így reflektál: ” Tudd, egy a törvény, semmi más: semmi gyáva megalkuvás. Minden tett bűnös, hogyha félig, vagy csak puszta látszatra végzik. Így van, törvénnyé tenned ezt kell, nem szóval, egész életeddel.“
A fiatal Lukács jó érzékkel itt az individualizmus tragédiájáról beszél, egy heroikus individualizmus tragikus sorsáról. Mégis, ez a szöveg tele van bibliai fél-idézetekkel. A lélek kész, de a test erőtlen. Ha test erőtlen, azt Isten nem bünteti, de ha a lélelek nem akar, azt igen. Van azonban egy bökkenő. Ebben az idézetben az akarat nem a bibliai akarat, azaz nem a jó akarása, hanem a “minden” akarása. A mindent vagy semmit bibliai jelszavában bicsaklik meg az idézet. Nem a jót kell Brand krédójában akarni, hanem bármit, az a fő, hogy nagyot és nagyon, mert aki nagyot akar, az élet koronája lesz.. Abból, hogy a langyosat kiköpi az Isten, nem következik Brand értelmezése, mely szerint minden tett bűnös, amit félig végeznek el, azaz semmi sem bűnös, amit radikálisan tesznek. S főleg, a bűnnek az én bűnömnek kell lennie, csak az enyémnek. Isten és a Sátán egyugyanazon a hangon beszél itt, azaz Brand, mint ő maga mondja, mindkettő hangján beszél. De ha a Sátán is a vallás teremtménye. Nietzsche is szeretett magára, mint Antikrisztusra hivatkozni.

Csak függelékként jegyzem meg, hogy a  Peer Gyntben Ibsen a gomböntő szájába ad az előbbiekhez hasnoló szavakat. A bűnhöz is nagyság kell, s ez Peerból hiányzott, ő csak amolyan átlagember volt. Ibsennél talán a legnagyobb bűn filiszternek lenni. A filiszter az, aki sok kis rosszat és sok kis jót tesz, akiből hiányzik a nagyság. A filiszterek világa a tökéletes bűnösség világa. Ez a meggyőződés Nietzschetől sem áll távol. A bűn így egyre kevésbé etikai, azaz egyre inkább esztétikai fogalommá válik.
De sajátos esztétika ez, mivel mindenekelőtt a szubtilis egoizmus esztétikája. Mi Brand legnagyobb valós bűne? Az, hogy részes fia és felesége halálában, bár nem közvetlenül. Ő sosem gyilkol, sem nem lop, sem nem esküszik hamisan, nem is tör házasságot, s nem kíván meg semmit, ami a felebarátaié.
Ő csak feláldoz mindenkit, aki őt szereti a saját eszméjé -rögeszméje- oltárán.
Egyetlen bűne sem von maga után szankciót.

Mi több, nem is érzékeli mindezt bűnnek, hanem inkább saját szenvedésének, az általa válallt áldozatnak. Ne felejtsük el, hogy Brand számára egyetlen Törvény létezik, az önmagával való azonosság törvénye, az mindent akarás törvénye. Ezt a saját maga alkotta Törvényt ő nem szegte meg. Ő tehát nem bűnös a szó szerinte mélyebb, és nem filiszteri értelmében, ő csak megszenvedett azért, hogy önmagává váljon…

A legrettenetesebb vereség az lenne számára, ha önmagától távolodna el..
A Brandban, ahogy a Peer Gyntben is, a saját magamtól való eltávolodás iszonya foglalja el az istentõl való eltávolodás iszonyának helyét. Csak megismételhetem, hogy a struktúra ugyanaz, mint a Bibliában, de a tartalom immanensé válik. Az ember, minden ember, önmaga Törvénye és törvényadója kellene, hogy legyen. Az ember, aki a saját Törvényét követi, megistenül. A bűn esztétikai felfogása így közvetlenül az ember istenülésének hitvallásával párosul.

A “Légy ömagad!” hitvallás kétértelműsége a Peer Gyntben játssza az első hegedű szólamát, mert ember legyen a talpán, aki pontosan meg tudja különböztetni, hogy mikor lesz az ember önmaga – ez a nagyság jele – és mikor lesz önmagának elég – ez a kicsinyesség szégyenfoltja.
A megkülönböztetés elbizonytalanodása közepette az is kiderül, hogy egyáltalán nem lehet akarni, hogy az ember önmaga legyen. Mikor a darab vége felé Peer végre megkérdezi a Gomböntőt, hogy az a hitvallás, melynek szellemében mindeddig élni óhajtott, valójában mit jelent, a Gomböntő így válaszol: “.. hát mondjuk azt jelenti, magadon viseled, akár egy táblán, a Mester elrendelését”. S mikor Peer megkérdezi : ” S ha valaki sosem ismerte föl a tervet, amit szántak neki?”, Gomböntő így válaszol: “Azt sejtened kell.”

Íme, megint egyszer visszajutottunk a Bibliához, az isteni kiválasztáshoz, melyet Isten nem érdem és akarat szerint oszt, amit  így nem lehet akarni, amit csak sejteni lehet. Azt a bizonyos írást, ha van, csupán felismerhetjük, ha bírjuk. Nevezhetjük isteni áldásnak, mint a Biblia, a sors szerencsés kockavetésének, mint Nietzsche, a genetikai lottó nyereményének, mint Rawls, vagy Gunst der Naturnak, mint Kant, ami a gondolatmenet szerkezetet illeti, abból a szempontból egyre megy. Ha az áldásról van szó, akkor a “tudok, képes vagyok, bírok” magasabbra szárnyalhat, mint az ‘akarok’.

Ibsen analitikus drámáiban mindvégig közzéponti helyet kap a szankciók nélküli bűn gondolata, illetve ezeknek a bűnfogalmaknak az újraértelmezése.
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A John Gabriel Borkman az a dráma, melyben az Ibsen hősök bűnértelmezésének mondhatnám minden fajtája felvonul. A dráma alapkérdése, hogy mi a legnagyobb bűn. A karakterek beszélnek, ők keresik a kérdésre a választ. Arra, hogy a másik ember mivel követte el a legnagyobb bűnt ellenük, és hogy nekik maguknak mi a legnagyobb bűnük.
John Gabriel Borkmanról tudnunk kell, hogy ő, a bányász fia, a self made man, mint bankár elsikkasztotta a befektetők minden pénzét s ezért börtönbe került. Ízig-vérig modern történet ez. A sikkasztó és a világuralmi ambícióktól fűtött bankár törvényszegését nem tekinti bűnnek, s érdekes módon senki sem látja annak az egész darabban.

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A voltaképpeni bűnt, a legnagyobb bűnt, mint Ibsennél mindig, nem lehet szankcionálni, mert törvény azt nem bünteti.
Milyen bűnökről van itt szó? Borkman: ” Tudod mit tartok a legaljasabb bűnnek, amit ember elkövethet.. Nem a gyilkosságot, nem a rablást. Nem is a hamis esküt.. Azt, ha egy barát visszaél barátja bizalmával.” (Egy homályos ügyről van szó, egy barátjának írt bizalmas levélről, amit a másik fél kifecsegett vagy kiteregetett). Borkman éppenséggel hű volt önmagához, azaz napóleoni vágyaihoz, rögeszméihez, hogy a világ urává és jótevőjévé fog válni, ha elég pénz és idő áll rendelkezésére. Borkman többek között a tízparancsolattal száll vitába, ahogy a kötelesség kanti fogalmával is, méghozzá egy sajátos módon értelmezett machiavellizmus szellemében.

Eddig Borkman beszélt a másik ember, a darabban nem szereplő bartája bűnéről, majd Ella, Borkman bűnéről: “hiszen akkor nem ismertem volna a legnagyobb bűnödet.. Arról a bűnről beszélek, melyre nincsen bocsánat.. Gyilkos vagy! Halálos bűnt követtél el! Megölted bennem a szerelmet.. Ez megbocsáthatatlan bűn.. megölni valakiben a szerelmet.. Elhagytad a nőt, akit szerettél! Kettős gyilkosságot követtél el! Megölted tulajdon lelkedet és megölted az egyémet is.“
Ezekre a bűnökre nem találtak ki szankciót, nem is találhattak ki. De ezért még nem maradnak okvetlenül büntetlenek. Raszkolnyikov, akinek eszmevilága igencsak emlékeztet Borkmanéra, embert ölt, azaz testet ölt, s így el kellett szenvednie a törvény által kiszabott büntetést. Borkman lelket ölt, s erre nincsen büntetés.
Mit jelent az, hogy valaki megöli valakinek a lelkét? Hogy megöli valakiben a szerelmet? Lehet persze azt mondani, hogy puszta metaforáról van szó, de Ibsennél ez a fordulat nem metafora. Igenis, az ő világában lehet lelket ölni, ahogy a szerelmet is meg lehet ölni, s ez a legnagyobb bűnök közé tartozik, ha nem maga a legnagyobb bűn. Akinek valaki megölte a lelkét az csak árnyéka lesz önmagának, tehát sosem lehet önmaga, vagy, hogy Nietzschet idézzem, sosem válhat azzá, ami. Mivel az ember csak akkor lehet az élet koronája, ha azzá lesz, ami, az, akinek megölték a lelkét a legfontosabbtól esik el, magától az élettől, holott látszólag él.

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“Fent a szobámban elővettem és mérlegre tettem minden cselekedetemet.. És mindig ugyanarra az eredményre jutok, vagyis arra, hogy az egyetlen, aki ellen vétettem, én magam vagyok.“

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Hogy jelentenek-e még ezek a 19. századi mély értelmű, s ugyanakkor kétértelmű szubtilitások valamit számunkra, a demokrácia és a tömegtársadalom gyermekei számára, s ha igen, vajon mit, azt nem tudom.
Azért választottam előadásom témájának éppen a a bibliai bűnfogalom szekularizált változatának históriáját, hogy Tőletek ezt ma megkérdezhessem.

UN AÑO MÁS, LA COMUNIDAD DE MADRID CELEBRA UNA NUEVA EDICIÓN DEL FESTIVAL DE OTOÑO CON UN CARTEL DE PRESTIGIO. Y VAN YA VEINTISÉIS. DURANTE CASI CUATRO SEMANAS PASARÁN POR LOS TEATROS DE LA COMUNIDAD FIGURAS DE LAS ARTES ESCÉNICAS COMO ROBERT LEPAGE, DANIEL VERONESE, ANGÉLICA LIDDELL, EL CIRCO DE VIETNAM LANG TOI O EL COMPOSITOR JAPONÉS RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, ENTRE OTROS MUCHOS. Por Vanessa Ramiro.

UN CARTEL HETEROGÉNEO

Fiel a su estilo, consagrado ya en la región, el festival presenta un desfile de estrellas llegadas de todas las partes del mundo que contribuyen a crear un cartel heterogéneo orientado hacia un público variado que podrá disfrutar de montajes de teatro, danza, música y circo.

Del 4 al 29 de Noviembre.

Más información en www.madrid.org/fo/2009/es/index.html

Matt Weiner in a former life

Dramatic Literature was my first English credit at college and I remember thinking that it was really fun but totally useless.  When was I ever going to use it?  Apparently, it was a concept waiting for an application.

Decades later, Matt Weiner created Mad Men.  I started watching Mad Men in the second season, just before the episode The Mountain King.  It took me a few days to catch up (continuously down loading from iTunes).  And then I saw the method in his Madness.  Weiner is recreating at least three plays by Henrik Ibsen.  Here is RD’s Ibsen Theory of Mad Men:

Ibsen play #1: Don Draper is Peer Gynt

Run away! Run away!

Peer Gynt is an adventurous dreamer.  He is a creative and gifted storyteller.  But his whole life is one of avoidance.  Early on in the play, he runs off with the rich farmer’s daughter, but then dumps her and becomes an outlaw.  There is a beautiful young woman named Solveig who encounters Peer throughout the play.  Peer’s adventures take him to the home of the Mountain King, a troll,  where he engages in an existential discussion about what separates man from troll.  The Mountain King tells him that man says, “To thy self be true” while trolls say, “Be true to yourself-ish”.  Peer meets a Green Woman who turns out to be the Mountain King’s daughter.  She’s beautiful on the outside but really a troll under her skirts.  They have some kind of relationship.  She says she’s pregnant, he says he never touched her. He returns home and finds Solveig waiting for him.  She says she knows all about who and what he is and she is willing to stay with him warts and all.  Peer welcomes her into the house he built for them.  They are happy for about a split second because the Green Woman shows up dragging a crippled child with her.  The child is the product of their illicit affair.  Peer denies this but the Green Woman curses him and says that the evidence of Peer’s infidelity will always come between him and Solveig.  Peer decides to run away.  He has more adventures, wins and loses fortunes, is pressured to sign some tricky contracts, engages in some shady and disreputable business careers (advertising, anyone?) and in the end is forced to confront his life and whether he has been true to himself.

Ok, I don’t think there is any question that Don Draper/Dick Whitman is the Peer Gynt storyline.  If you’ve been following the show, you’ll see the existential struggle as the main event.  Who is Don Draper?  What kind of man is he?  But the current season focuses on his relationship with Solveig and the Green Woman or Betty and Suzanne.  Betty is the idealized woman to Don.  She is beautiful, sophisticated and pure.  He feels most sexually attracted to her when she pretends to be someone else, as in her flirtation with him when they went to Rome together in the episode Souvenir.  Otherwise, Betty is the mother figure to Don and therefore untouchable, which is frustrating and confounding Betty.

In the last couple of episodes, Betty finds out Don’s true identity and confronts him.  Realizing that divorcing him without clear proof of infidelity might leave her penniless and force her to give up her children, Betty appears to have decided to accept Don/Dick.  The mysterious Don Draper is suddenly starting to make sense to her.   The last few moments of the last episode are the most touching of the series.  Don wakes up after his confession, not knowing what to expect from his wife or life.  She stands in the kitchen, calm, clear eyed and less tense than we’ve ever seen her.  She asks him if she can get him something for breakfast.  He answers no, they look at each other knowingly, he gently touches her cheek but does not kiss her.  She greets him at the end of the day in the same manner, offers him the rest of her hot dog and they go trick or treating with their children.  This is as good as it gets as far as marital bliss.  It is a simple tableau of coming home to warmth and acceptance. They start fresh from this point.

BUT, the Green Woman is still out there.  In Peer Gynt, the Green Woman seems to symbolize eroticism and infidelity.  We’ve seen Don’s struggle with both.  It’s a fight he often loses.  Usually, Don keeps his little forays in tight little compartments.  He doesn’t boff the secretaries and he doesn’t covet his neighbor’s wife.  This time is different.  Suzanne is his daughter’s former teacher.  Early on, she asks him if he really wants to dally so close to home.  Don’s having some issues at work and feels under pressure to sign a contract (ding!, ding!, ding!) and he gives into his attraction to her.  He first sees Suzanne dancing under a Maypole, a symbol of nature and fertility.  But each encounter after that is darker, shadowed.  The sun is eclipsed, he meets her running in the wee small hours of the night, he visits her in her dark, poorly lit over-the-garage apartment.  Could it be that all this darkness is obscuring Suzanne’s true nature?  Does the darkness allow him to touch the animal, erotic nature at the core of the sexual experience?  We can only speculate.  Don appears to see something about Suzanne that eludes the rest of us.

However, one thing is certain.  Suzanne is getting closer to her target.  The boundary between Don’s erotic world and the home that he is trying to protect is being breached.  The Green Woman is moving from public sphere- the school, to neighborhood -as a nocturnal runner, to Don’s public image- encountering him on his morning commute on the train, to right outside his house- when he leaves her in his car to go in to get some clothes for their rendezvous in Connecticut.  There are two episodes left for her to finally physically come between Don and Betty.  The season’s ending is going to coincide with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Weiner says that he will not focus on the assassination.  That territory has been covered. (Update:  He lied.  I guess it was unavoidable.  Nevertheless, he’s gotten it out of the way, leaving the last episode open for the final confrontation.)   But the parallels between the end of Camelot, that perfect tableau of domestic bliss, and the end of the Draper’s marriage are pretty clear.  Peer and Solveig are going to be separated.  They won’t get back together for a long time.

Ibsen Play #2: A Doll’s House or Betty is Nora.

What *do* women want?

Nora Helmer is a woman who has it all.  Three children, a well respected husband, Torvald, and soon the financial security that will allow her the kind of lifestyle her family has waited a decade to enjoy.  Early in the marriage when she was pregnant with her first child, her husband’s doctor tells her that Torvald will die from consumption if he does not spend time in a warmer, drier climate.  Because they are poor, and because her father is dying (or recently dead), Nora forges her father’s signature on a promisory note from a disreputable lawyer.  Women do not have the right to take out loans in their own names so she has broken the law.  But she reasons that she has done this for a noble cause and that if Torvald ever finds out, he will come to forgive her.  After Torvald’s recovery, Nora secretly takes on work in order to pay off the lawyer.  She is almost finished paying back the loan when Torvald is made manager of the bank where the lawyer now works.  Torvald vows to fire the lawyer because of the lawyer’s past transgressions.  Torvald’s tragic flaw is his intense preoccupation with appearances and propriety.  He doesn’t want the lawyer’s past blotting his own reputation.  Torvald also treats his wife as a child.  She is his lark, his little squirrel, his little wife, play acting as a grown up.  When Torvald finds out about the loan, he is immediately concerned with his own reputation and sets about disciplining his wife.  He forbids her from raising her own children.  She finally comes to realize that she has been living in a dream world.  She has been a doll in her father’s and then her husband’s houses.  She has no identity or rights except that which they have given her.  She decides that she is incapable of loving her husband or raising her children because this was not freely her choice.  She decides to leave her family in order to exercise her free will and become the person she is meant to be.

Betty Draper, nee Hofstadt, is a woman trapped by convention.  She is a beautiful, well educated, poised, pampered suburban housewife.  She is also bored out of her gourd.  A couple of episodes ago, we found out that Betty was an anthropology major at Bryn Mawr and she says she never uses it.  But we have seen Betty paying very close attention to the social confines of her world and have even witnessed her knowledge of human nature to manipulate her friends into cheating.   Betty may not be the wittiest person in the world and her emotional restraint, something she blames on her Nordic heritage, makes her appear cold and humorless.  But Betty knows that something isn’t right with the constructed environment in which she lives, which strips all agency from her and other housewives and infantilizes them.  Betty reads.  We’ve caught her reading Ship of Fools, The Great Gatsby and The Group.  It’s only a matter of time before she reads The Feminine Mystique.

Throughout this season, we have seen Betty’s own struggle with identity.  She has dreams of her mother telling her to be happy with what she has and to keep her mouth shut.  But Betty longs for an emotional connection with her husband and an intellectual connection with the rest of the world.  She is conflicted about the birth of her third child (there is some overlap here with Hedda Gabler, see below).  She’s depressed.  She snaps out at her children and can’t connect with her daughter Sally, who shows some evidence of misbehavior due to neglect. Unlike Nora, Betty’s problem is not necessarily that her husband is infantilizing her, although he does make a big deal about “showing her off” as the beautiful trophy wife she is.  It is the culture of the early, pre-sexual revolution 60’s that is hemming Betty in.  It is the obstetrician who tells her she is pregnant and then when he sees she is unhappy about it tells her to let her husband take on the burden of worrying.  It is the small town atmosphere that insists that her conduct remain above reproach.  It is the hospital where she goes to deliver that straps her down during labor and administers drugs to her without her consent.  It is the lawyer who tells her she doesn’t have the right to divorce in New York state unless she can prove conclusively that her husband is an adulterer.  It is the whole construct of the 60’s American experience that has defined the rigid confines of the box she is in, one that she entered into willingly, trained by her mother and her social caste, and which she finds to be artificial and empty.

She has been flirting with Henry, a Republican political operative.  But instead of giving into Betty’s desire to be swept away and rescued, Henry stands firm and tells Betty that she will have to come to him of her own free will.  She will have to decide if a relationship with Henry is what she wants and if she is willing to break with convention to have it.  She is also confronted with her role in Don’s life when she discovers his true identity.  She wants to confront him immediately but he eludes her.  When she has a chance to talk to him, he interrupts her anger and tells her to get ready for a dinner where he is to be honored as a humanitarian.  His respectability in the society is rising and he uses her as a status symbol, much like his new Cadillac.  She is a possession to him.  As she gets ready for the dinner, we see her in her gown in the bathroom, struggling to resume her role in her story, burying her anger, arranging her face.  She knows now that she is a doll and she sees the reality of her world.

What will be the trigger to cause her to reevaluate her life and take control of it?  What will Betty become after Camelot’s brief, shining moment is over?

Ibsen play #3: Joan Holloway Harris is Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler is one of the most complex characters in Ibsen’s repertoire.  I think Weiner has mixed some of Hedda with Betty and some of Nora with Joan.  Betty’s facility with shotguns and fascination with fainting couches come to mind.  Hedda’s complicated interior monologue can be shared with several female characters including Peggy as well.  Hedda is a product of her time.

But does it go with Danish Modern?

Hedda Gabler spent her youth having a good time and then began to realize that she was in danger of becoming a spinster.  The social stigma of becoming an old maid spurs her to find a marriageable partner.  She was once in love with Eilert Loveborg but Eilert, an intelligent man from a good family, is reckless.  He ruins himself with too much wine and women.  On a whim, she marries Tesman.  Tesman is a good man but not the brightest bulb in the pack.  He is a scholar studying for his PhD and hoping to get a position at the university.  It is his intention to give Hedda everything that is good in life: a beautiful villa, servants, horses and financial security.  But he hasn’t secured the position yet.  Hedda and Tesman return from their wedding trip, a trip they took on borrowed money, and live in the lovely villa that Tesman has secured without any visible means of support.  More complications ensue.  Eilert has gotten his act together and has written a brilliant book that makes Tesman’s work pale in comparison.  Also, Hedda *may* be pregnant.  This is not absolutely clear in the play but she doesn’t deny it when others infer this about her.  Eilert is now competition for Tesman for the same position at the university.  It turns out that Eilert has a research assistant, Thea, who was once a schoolmate of Hedda’s.  Thea loves Eilert and helps him reform his life.  She helps Eilert write his book.  Hedda is jealous of Thea’s ability to influence Eilert’s life.  Eilert comes to Hedda and confesses that although he owes a great deal to Thea, Hedda is his only love of his life.  Hedda rejects him and then provokes him to prove he is a man by drinking more than he should over Thea’s protests.  Eilert goes partying with Tesman and some other friends and ends up disgracing himself at a whorehouse.  He loses the second book that he has been writing with Thea’s help.  Thea is upset but vows to help Eilert get himself together.  She goes in search of him.  Meantime, Eilert’s second book falls into Tesman’s hands.  He debates what to do with it but in the end decides to return it to Eilert.  Too late!  Hedda has burned Eilert’s book.  Eilert returns to Hedda in despair over his missing book.  He feels guilt because he finally realizes that it is Thea who is the source of all of his strength and inspiration.  Hedda gives him a pistol and tells him to die beautifully.  He goes out to another whorehouse to drown his sorrows and accidentally shoots himself with Hedda’s gun and dies.  The fact that it is Hedda’s gun make her a target of blackmail.  Hemmed in by her domestic circumstances and the loss of the love of her life, she commits suicide while Tesman and Thea work to reconstruct Eilert’s book.

Whew!  That was long.

Joan is paralleling the Hedda story pretty well.  She doesn’t have Hedda’s confounding personality but her goals mirror Hedda’s.  Joan had her fun in Manhattan and was the person who held the Sterling-Cooper office together.  But in her early 30’s, she looked around for a marriage partner and not seeing one at Sterling Cooper, she married the next best thing- an up and coming surgeon.  She dreamed of a life of ease in the suburbs.  Except, it turns out that her husband, aside from being a rapist, is not a very good surgeon.  He was hoping to become chief resident.  Instead, he ends up losing his surgical residency.  Joan doesn’t know this when she quits her job in anticipation of living her suburban dream with her doctor husband who promises to provide for her.  She finds out about their sudden change in circumstances on the eve of her last day of work.

Meanwhile, Roger Sterling, the dissolute scion of one of the agency’s founders, has divorced his first wife and married one of his secretaries, Jane.  But Roger and Joan were once an item.  Roger clearly loved Joan but was married to Mona at the time and Joan didn’t see a future for them.  Now that Jane is in the picture, Roger seems to be settling down.  Ok, he still does really offensive things, like singing in blackface at the country club.  But in general, Jane seems to be having a stabilizing effect on Roger.  There is no love lost between Jane and Joan.  Joanie is clearly more intelligent and sympathetic.   Jane is too young for Roger and a gold-digger but for some peculiar, unfathomable reason, Jane gets Roger.

Joan’s storyline is the most uncertain.  She has to get a new job.  Greg has joined the army to practice surgery.  He doesn’t see Vietnam in his future but we do and, Ok, we’re kind of hoping he doesn’t make it.  Joan?  She’s gone to the one person she trusts and feels closest to in order to find a job- Roger.  He is trying to hook her up with a friend.  What happens to her after this season is a mystery.  Will she disappear forever?  Will she come back?  Will she end up an army wife?  Is this a suicide or a homocide by Weiner?

Ok, here’s your chance to tell me I’m all wrong about this theory.  Weiner may have never read Ibsen in his life and this is all original material.  Ehhh, even Shakespeare got his plots from other sources but the language was all his own.  If Weiner is going for Ibsen here, it would make perfect sense.  Ibsen was writing in the Victorian era, which pigeonholed the individual into roles for life.  His plays were all about self-discovery and self-actualization against the mind set of the collective, the consensus reality.  Mad Men is a chronicle of the 60’s and how American culture shook off the stifling conservatism and conformity of the post WWII era.  But the forces of conformity are strong.  In a sense, we are back to that era after having passed through a period of social unrest and sexual revolution.  As we learned to our horror last year, women still do not have the same opportunities to succeed as men.  We have watched confident, capable women reduced to charicatures.  They  are bitches or Caribou barbies, aggressive  or bubble headed.  Our country is also going through an identity crisis.  Are we the land of the selfish or the country of the more perfect union, striving for domestic tranquility and providing for the general welfare? Do we want to nourish creativity or harness it to the ruling class? Where do we go from here?

Your turn…

Oh hvilke skuespillerpræstationer, hvilken fantastisk modernisering af den gamle Ibsen - hvilken herlig oplevelse i det smukke Skuespilhus på denne mørke regnvejrsaften i oktober!

Som du nok har forstået, var jeg i den grad solgt til stykket med den ellers så kedelige titel “Bygmester Solness” – det lyder ikke ligefrem som en sexet sællert, vel? Men både Christoffer Berdals modernisering af den store Hr. Ibens drama fra 1892, Birgitte Mellentins cool og helt igennem gennemførte scenografi på drejescenen og ikke mindst Henning Jensens og Signe Egholm Olsens skuespillerpræstationerne var helt i top! 

Forestillingen handler om den aldrende Bygmester Solness, som desperat og med en vis paranoia klamrer sig til sin store succes og på kynisk vis manipulerer med sin omverden for at undgå at yngre kræfter skulle vælte ham af pinden – eller skulle man sige piedestalen. Samtidig plages han af dårlig samvittighed over at være nået til tops som arkitekt på grund af en brand, der blev årsagen til hans to børns død og et kuldsejlet ægteskab. Handlingen udspiller sig i det stilfulde, arkitekttegnede hus uden strejf af hygge men med en overfladisk coolnes, der understreger kulden mellem Bygmesteren og hans kone, spillet af Tammi Øst.

Jeg ved næsten ikke noget værre end moderniseringer af klassikere, hvis de er moderniseret blot for moderniseringens skyld og skuespil på kanten af det manierede. Og her var fare for begge dele, fortalte mine alarmklokker mig. Men de fik heldigvis ingen grund til at bimle og lyse rødt, for her var den moderne iscenesættelse helt på sin plads og Signe Egholm Olsens fysiske og kraftfulde skuespil var i den grad fængslende og uforglemmelig.

Forfriskende, fræk og smidigt smyger den unge  Signe Egholm Olsen sig rundt om Henning Jensens samvittighedsplagede og ensomme Bygmester Solness. Som en deus ex machina dukker hendes Hilda-karakter op som ud af det blå og vender op og ned på det hele. Er denne rødhårede furie  personificeringen af hans samvittighed, af hans dæmoner eller drømme – eller af det hele på én gang? Der er teater, som skal opleves og optages med sanser og følelser, og så er der Ibsen, som man får lov til at spekulere over i lang tid. Jeg spekulerer stadig og er stadig høj på en enestående teateroplevelse.

Hvad: Bygmester Solness
Hvor: Skuespilhuset, Det Kongelige Teater
Hvornår: 16. oktober – 22. december
Billetter: Billetnet

Hamsuns jubileumsår markeres med bokmesse i Buenos Aires og lansering av Mysterier i Kina. I England er det vel stadig ingen som bryr seg?

ROBERT FERGUSON: Britisk, men har bodd i Norge siden 1983. Ferguson har skrevet biografier om Knut Hamsun (1987), Henry Miller (1991) og Henrik Ibsen (1996). Han har også skrevet romaner og skuespill, og to ganger vunnet the BBC/Methuen Award for Best Radio Drama. Og så er han en fabelaktig hyggelig fyr! Foto: Knut Falch / Scanpix

– Se her! Det er utrolig.

Den britiske biografen og forfatteren Robert Ferguson legger stolt fram en avisside fra The Times. Ferguson er kommet for å prate om hvorfor verdensforfatteren Knut Hamsun aldri slo gjennom i England, men det får tydeligvis vente litt. Filmregissøren Ken Russell har nemlig fått en hel avisside til å jamre om hvor viktig det er å legge økonomisk til rette for at kunstnere får dyrket fram sine geniale bedrifter, selvfølgelig knyttet til den allestedsnærværende finanskrisen. Visst koster det, men verden vil bli fattigere uten kunstnerne, sier Russell, og henter sine eksempler fra stjernehimmelen. Hvor ville vi vært uten Franz Kafka, T. S. Eliot eller Caravaggio?

– Og se her!

Ferguson peker – stolt?

– Han innleder hele artikkelen med Knut Hamsun og Sult (1890). Briten spør hvor verden ville vært uten nordmannen? Kanskje det er i ferd med å snu –

Markedets grøde

– Tyskland anerkjenner straks Hamsun som en betydelig europeisk forfatter, og han selger etter hvert bøker i bøtter og lass i Russland og Skandinavia. Om vi gjør et unntak for Markens Grøde (1917), solgte Hamsun elendig på de britiske øyer, og bøkene hans ble møtt med enten slakt eller likegyldighet. Blodets hvisken nådde aldri Stor-Britannia. Hva var det dere briter ikke skjønte?

– Hamsuns store ulykke er nettopp at han først slår igjennom med Markens Grøde på det engelske markedet. Romanen er atypisk for Hamsuns forfatterskap, og får ham til å virke gammel og satt. Grunnen til at Hamsun regnes inn blant de største, er at hans første romaner viser fram en ny måte å skrive på; ikke ny i Norge eller Skandinavia, men ny i verden. I ettertid er det lett å se at det går en direkte linje fra Sult og Mysterier (1892) til Virginia Wolf og James Joyce, også helt opp til vår tid. Engelske forfattere, anmeldere og boklesere ble imidlertid først kjent med den gammelromantiske mannen med fascinasjon for jordbruk og evige verdier.

VIRGINIA WOOLF: Den britiske forfatteren avfeier modernisten Knut Hamsun som en representant for den eldre garde.

– Virginia Woolf avfeide Hamsun som en representant for den eldre garde?

– Ja, og da snakker hun nettopp om Markens Grøde. Det er betegnende at det fra England er forfatterne John Galsworthy og H.G Wells som bidrar i festskriftet til Hamsuns 70-årsdag. Det er naturligvis to store navn, den ene er til og med nobelprisvinner. De er imidlertid også ”bigshots of the age-before-last”. I de fleste andre land ble ikke Hamsun oppfattet som en gammeldags forfatter, men som grunnleggende ny og moderne, han stod for et gjennombrudd.  Etter Markens Grøde slår an i England, starter også en katastrofal utgivelsespolitikk. Forlaget gir nå ut Hamsuns tidligere produksjon, blant annet Victoria (1898), Benoni (1908), Under Høststjærnen (1906) og Livet i vold (1910). Anmeldelsene er elendige. ”Det er vanskelig å tro at forfatteren av Markens Grøde kan ha skrevet dette” er omkvedet, og det er egentlig lett å forstå de britiske anmelderne. I Skandinavia, Tyskland og Russland hadde Hamsun kunnet bygge opp forfatterskapet.

– Men Sult ble også gitt ut i England, allerede i 1899?

– Og den ble oversett fullstendig. I en ny utgave som ble gitt ut i 1921 skriver oversetteren: ”I translated Hunger and introduced the author to an English public, which never bought even the limited edition issued”. De få anmeldelsene boken fikk var også svært arrogante: ”But what does it mean, what does it signify morally? […] The translator says that Hunger made a sensation in Christiania. We can believe it … [but] less keen for novelty, and more secure in its critical poise, London will accept Hunger with a cold and inimical calm. For the unlettered will ignore it, and the lettered will perceive that, though it may be surgery, it is not fiction”, skriver en anmelder fra The Academy and Literature. Etter dette følger det tjue år med gravens stillhet rundt Hamsun i England. Anmelderne skjønner heller ikke helt litteraturen. ”Hvor er plotet”, spør de, og det er et litt forkleinet spørsmål å stille til Hamsuns første romaner.

Moralsk forargelse

KNUT HAMSUN: Brøt aldri gjennom den engelske mur, men ble derimot oppfattet som gammelmodig og kynisk av britske anmeldere. Sjøl mente Knut Hamsun at engelskmenn burde vite at han aldri var engelsksinnet.

– For flere av utgivelsene, som Benoni og Victoria, beklager kritikerne seg over dårlig forfatterhåndverk. Det er likevel også mulig å lese en instinktiv motvilje mot det livsbildet Hamsun tegnet i bøkene sine?

– Ja, en kritiker skriver at personene i Siste Kapitel (1923) var som sett gjennom et forminskelsesglass, mens en annen sier at kvinnene i Konerne ved Vandposten (1920) blir utsatt for forakten til en som beklager og unnskylder sitt stoff. Anmelderen skriver også at selv August Strindberg hadde en viss medlidenhet med syndene og svakhetene til dem han så lidenskapelig foraktet. Den samme medlidenheten har altså ikke Hamsun. Det kan kanskje tyde på at det er noe med menneskesynet til Hamsun de dannede britiske kritikerne ikke liker.

– Eller ikke forstår? Vi finner noe av det samme i Norge. Nordnorske Hamsun-lesere vil si at den akademiske vestkant i sør ikke forstår Hamsuns humor og harselas, men derimot leser den som menneskefiendtlighet og kynisme.

– Det finnes en historie som viser noe av avstanden mellom det engelske etablissements dannelse og det primitive geni. I 1920 sendte ærverdige The Times Hamsun et skjema med biografiske spørsmål til den planlagte serien ”Berømtheter i The Times”. Rubrikken for ”Klubber (Vennligst ikke oppgi mer enn tre.)” lar han stå åpent, spørsmål om ”Utdannelse (Vennligst oppgi skoler og høyskoler. De bes ikke begrense utvalget til offentlige skoler og universiteter. Universitetsgrader og utmerkelser bes oppgitt.)” besvarer han med ”Ingen”. Spørsmål 10: ”Karriere (Viktige verv, sportslige utmerkelser, direktørstillinger. Publiserte bøker bes begrenset til de tre eller fire betydeligste.)” besvarer han med: ”lærer, veiarbeider, butikkassistent og postbetjent i Norge. Gårdsgutt, sporvognskonduktør, butikkmedarbeider og leilighetsvis foredragsholder i Amerika. For tiden bonde. I overskuelighet bonde”.

– Men det går fram av biografier at Hamsun, i hvert fall i de tidlige leveår, også skammer seg over sin mangel på dannelse?

– Ja, han gjør nok det, og han er nok også drevet av komplekser. Sigrid Undset sier jo på et tidspunkt av Hamsun aldri har skrevet om annet enn sine mindreverdighetskomplekser. Sånn sett er det bemerkelsesverdig mye likt i Hamsuns og Hitlers historie. De jobbet seg opp til toppen begge to, på tross av helt åpenbare begrensninger. Så de ender opp med å hate aristokratiet og mennesker som er født til posisjoner og rikdom. Hamsun var en klar tilhenger av meritokratiet, at hver mann er sine handlinger; hvert land sine nåtidige bedrifter.

Inn fra skogene

PAN: Det var løytnant Glahn og romanen Pan som vekket Robert Fergusons begeistring for Knut Hamsun. Her er romanen i en kurdisk oversettelse.

– Før vi begynner på politikken: Hvordan oppdaget du selv Hamsun?

– Jeg kom over romanen Pan og ble helt oppslukt. For første gang kunne jeg ikke lenger lese i mitt eget tempo, for Hamsuns språk og tilstedeværelse styrte hele min leseopplevelse. Jeg var i hans vold, for å si det sånn. Du føler at det er han som sitter ved siden av deg og leser høyt. Da jeg ble så revet med av en oversettelse, hva da på norsk? Før jeg lærte norsk, trodde jeg forresten energien måtte ligge et sted i språket. At det norske språket hadde en egen energi. Men nå ser jeg enda tydeligere at det er ordkunstneren Hamsun som får språket til å leve. Og ja, denne intensiteten smittet over på meg, og jeg bestemte meg ganske raskt for å lære norsk og lese mer Hamsun.

– Ikke alle var like imponert som deg. Etter utgivelsen av Pan i 1955 skjøv Times Literary Supplement romanen til side med en nedlatende kommentar: ”Boken vil muligens appellere til dem som beundrer Mary Webb”, forfatterinnen av populære hyrderomaner. Det er omtrent som å si at Pan vil passe godt for dem som vanligvis liker Frid Ingulstad.

– Av og til er det dessverre bare feil anmelder som får boka på pulten.

– Brydde du deg med politikken?

– Jeg møtte ham først og fremst som forfatter. Forfatterens biografi var ikke så interessant på den tiden, og det stod faktisk ingenting om hans liv i den pocketutgaven av Pan som jeg hadde. Vi var vel egentlig ikke så politisk interesserte, mine venner og jeg. Vi leste Jack Kerouac, mer tøffe forfattere, forfattere som ikke tok seg selv så alvorlig. Sånn ville vi også skrive. Vi var ikke moralister, men esteter. For oss var Hamsun stilist og ordkunstner, ikke kronikør.

– Du kom over Hamsun tidlig på 70-tallet. Under en Hamsun-konferanse i Edinburgh i 1997 ble mange av plakatene som annonserte arrangementet tagget på. Folk tusjet ”He was a nazi” på plakatene. Etter konferansen skrev Hamsun-forskeren Arne Kruse: ”I Sentral- og Øst-Europa er Knut Hamsun kjent som en forfatter og ikke bare en nazisympatisør. Dette er ikke tilfelle i England.”

– Det stemte kanskje da, men jeg tror dette bildet er i ferd med å snu. Det viser også Ken Russels artikkel i The Times. Den britiske kritikerens James Woods nye bok How Fiction Works tar også for seg Hamsun, og Wood skriver: ”There is nothing as terrifying in modern fiction as when the narrator of Knut Hamsun’s Hunger starts eating himself”. At en størrelse som James Wood trekker fram nettopp Hamsun er et såkalt tegn i tiden. […] Jeg så en plakat for et Hamsun-arrangement på trikken i dag, og jeg kan ikke helt forestille meg at disse skal bli tusjet på. Jeg tviler på at selv miljøer som Blitz opplever Hamsun som spesielt kontroversiell.

– Da jeg lånte din Hamsun-biografi på biblioteket hadde noen skrevet ”Hamsund [sic] er en kødd” på tittelarket.

– Den letteste måten å framstå som et godt og korrekt menneske er jo å si noe slikt. ”Hamsun? He was a nazi!”, gjerne med litt indignasjon og sinne. Det var den reaksjonen jeg fikk da jeg fortalte nordmenn jeg arbeidet med Hamsun på 80-tallet: ”Hamsun? Men var ikke han nazist?”. Det er menneskelig, men det er ikke dekning for å si at Hamsuns manglende gjennombrudd i England skyldes hans politiske sympatier. Det er samme feilslutning som å forstå Hamsuns antibritiske syn kun som et resultat av hans manglende gjennombrudd der. Han slår ikke heller gjennom i Tyskland på begynnelsen av 1900-tallet fordi han førti år senere skulle støtte nazismen. Men det er jo forunderlig hvor godt alt passer sammen.

EDVARD MUNCH: For å gjøre en veeeeldig kort oppsummering: Britene ville ha nitriste skandinaver som Edvard Munch og Henrik Ibsen. Ikke livfulle humorister som Knut Hamsun.

– Hamsuns motvilje mot England preget ham ifølge biografene hele livet. Hadde hans antibritiske holdninger noe å si for resepsjonen i England tidlig på 1900-tallet?

– Nei, hans litteratur ble jo knapt oppfattet, og enda mindre meningene hans. Den britiske forfatteren Hall Cain skrev til ham i 1914 for å be om et bidrag til en bok om kongen av Belgia. Hamsun fikk henvendelsen for sent, men svarer Caine, og forsikrer ham om at han ville bidratt om han kunne. Med henvisning til Boerkrigen skriver så Hamsun: ”Da var Tyskland Verdens samvittighet, nå er det Englands tur”. I et brev til en bekjent noen dager senere skriver Hamsun at Caine burde vite at ”jeg aldri var engelsksinnet”. Men hvordan skulle Caine vite det? Hamsun brukte mye energi på å hate England og engelskmenn, men for å være helt ærlig gikk nok det de likegyldige britene hus forbi.

– Det er likevel en kobling mellom kunsten, livet og politikken. I biografien din skriver du: ”Det er ikke utenkelig at en mer positiv engelsk holdning til Hamsun på 20-tallet kunne ha tatt brodden av hans fanatisme, og ført til en mindre trangsynt og strengt personlig oppfatning av den historie utviklingen i Europa mellom verdenskrigene”. Det må du utdype.

– Hamsun var et spontant menneske, og hans kone Marie har sagt at han aldri klarte å skille mellom mannen og saken.  Hans store kjærlighet til Tyskland kom delvis av pangermanisme, og strømningene som lå i lufta i visse europeiske miljøer i Hamsuns tid, men også av at han var økonomisk avhengig av salget i Tyskland. Han var avhengig av dette salget lenge, helt fram til Segelfoss-romanene for alvor fikk fart på salget i Skandinavia. Om et land kjøper dine bøker og omfavner det du skaper, og du i tillegg tjener et lass med penger, er det vanskelig å ikke si: ”Jeg liker disse menneskene fordi de liker meg”.

– Det blir som Groucho Marx: ”These are my principles. And if you don’t like them … well, I have others”.

– Jeg har aldri sett på Hamsun som en mann med urokkelige prinsipper, selv om han nok hadde en velutviklet lojalitetsfølelse. Hvis han hadde slått an i England ville han helt sikkert ha forandret syn på landet. Ikke med det sagt at han hadde snudd seg mot Tyskland, men hans ekstreme holdninger ville nok forsvunnet.

Fadermord og landerov

– For Hamsun ble det likevel enten Tyskland eller England. Slik det var enten Knut Hamsun eller Henrik Ibsen?

– Det blir jo spekulasjon, men jeg tror Hamsun så på Tysklands kamp mot England som en metafor for hans egen kamp mot de fire store. Hamsun måtte rydde plass for seg selv og sin generasjon, og det er jo dette han driver med de første årene av sitt offentlige liv: Han reiser rundt i Norge med foredrag om hvor håpløse de fire er, spesielt Ibsen. Det samme mønsteret ser vi i hans politiske sinnelag. Tyskland er en ung og ekspanderende befolkning som trenger plass, og det gamle, arrogante og velhavende England står i veien. England står i veien for Tysklands utvikling, og forstått slik har valget av side lite med nazismen som ideologi å gjøre.

– Ingar Sletten Kolloen har sagt at mange intellektuelle i Hamsuns generasjon hatet det britiske imperiet med like stor intensitet som Kolloens generasjon hatet USA-imperialismen på 70-tallet.

– Ja, forfatterne Nils Kjær (1870-1924) og Sigurd Bødtker (1866-1928) var representanter for de samme antibritiske holdningene som Hamsun. For Hamsun er det nok likevel mer enn tidsånden. Englandshatet hadde han med seg fra barndommen. Dessuten blir Ibsen, som han – i hvert fall tilsynelatende – hadde så mye kunstnerisk forakt for, hyllet som en Gud i England. Det var enda en grunn til å ikke respektere engelskmenn.

– I filmen Hamsun fra 1996 får vi, i en samtale med datteren Ellinor, en enkel forklaring på hvorfor han hater England så mye: ”Pappa, hvorfor hater du England så mye?”, spør Ellinor. ”Imperialismen, industrialismen.. hungerblokaden mot Norge, og mot barna! Massemordene i India, konsentrasjonsleirene i Syd-Afrika, Boerkrigen og kulturen.. i et ord: Arrogansen!”, roper han. Da er det kanskje også snakk om en annen type arroganse?

– Mennesker vil vel alltid føle et hat mot maktens arroganse. Hatet mot USA nådde vel nesten kokepunktet under Bushs regjeringstid, og da handlet kritikken mye om at amerikanerne turet fram som de ønsket, fordi ingen hadde makt til å stanse dem. Slik oppførte nok England seg på Hamsuns tid.

– Men snakker ikke Hamsun også om kunstnerisk arroganse? En britisk anmelder skriver: ”The Norse and Danish literature does not as a rule show traces of much reading in foreign tongues?”. Det er ikke bare en nedvurdering av enkelte romaner, men av et helt folks litterære evner?

– Engelskmenn har lenge vært seg selv nok, rent kunstnerisk. Vi har hatt Shakespeare i banken, og en jevn flyt av gode romaner på engelsk. Det har over tid skapt en helt tydelig island mentality. Den mottakelsen som Hamsun og mye skandinavisk litteratur fikk i England, kan ikke ha vært hyggelig. Spesielt om du da, med rette vil jeg si, mener at kritikerne ikke har skjønt bæret av det du driver med, men likevel skriver som om det er forfatteren selv som ikke har skjønt noe.

PER PETTERSON: Forfatteren av Ut å stjæle hester har som én av få norske forfattere brutt gjennom «den engelske mur».

– Uttrykket ”den engelske mur” brukes for å illustrere hvor vanskelig det er for forfattere å komme inn på det engelskspråklige bokmarkedet. Det er ikke bare Knut Hamsun som har slitt med å slå igjennom i England?

– Det engelske markedet var som sagt selvforsynt med litteratur, og det var få som slapp gjennom. Det har vart opp til vår tid, selv om det de siste årene har vært noen nordmenn med suksess, for eksempel Jostein Gaarder og Per Petterson.

– Ibsens gjennombrudd i England var likevel massivt. Hans stykker ble gjennomdebattert i engelske aviser, og både personen og stykkene fikk mye oppmerksomhet. I dag står A Doll’s House på pensum for engelsk litteratur i England. Det er umulig å tenke seg britisk litteratur fra denne fasen uten å ta med Ibsens påvirkning, og han er en del av engelsk litteraturhistorie på samme måte som Shakespeare er en del av den norske.  Men er Knut Hamsun en levende del av britisk litteraturhistorie?

– Nei, han er nok ikke det. De fleste seriøse skjønnlitterære forfattere i England har lest Hamsun, og du møter iblant også noen vanlige dødelige engelskmenn som har lest ham. Når det kommer til Ibsen er det annerledes. Alle kjenner ham. Det irriterer meg i biografier om Thomas Mann at hans forhold til Hamsun sjelden nevnes. Jeg tror imidlertid dette er på vei til å forandre seg, og jeg synes jeg ser tegnene allerede. Nevnte James Wood er en ledende litterær skikkelse i England, og når han tar for seg Hamsun betyr det noe. Russells artikkel i The Times betyr også noe. Og jeg tror de er på rett spor når de konsentrerer seg om Sult heller enn Markens Grøde.

– Det er uansett noe som har tatt tid. Kjente ikke engelskmennene anno 1900 seg igjen i den blottstilte psykologien i Sult?

– Ifølge klisjeen var norsk kunst og norske kunstnere mørke, melankolske og innadvendte; en klisjé som var skapt og ivaretatt av både Ibsen og Edvard Munch. Engelskmenn hadde nok visse forventninger i denne retningen, og ble perpleks da Hamsun ikke innfridde. Samtidig skal du passe deg for å forvente at Hamsun blir storlest, eller at Sult eller Mysterier blir bestselgere i England. Hamsun solgte heller ikke spesielt godt i Norge før Segelfoss-bøkene kom ut under første verdenskrig. Det er heller ikke så viktig at Sult og Mysterier blir lest av hundretusener. Det som må på plass er anerkjennelsen av at Hamsun er vevd dypt inn i roten til det seriøse britiske skjønnlitterære forfattere driver med i dag.

Mangler litterære gærninger

CHARLES BUKOWSKI: Hvorfor har ikke England fostret «litterære gærninger» som tyskamerikaneren Charles Bukowski, franske Celine eller norske Knut Hamsun?

– Da Ingar Sletten Kolloen lanserte sin Hamsun-biografi i Danmark, var overveldende mange av sakene i danske aviser vinklet på Hamsuns nazisme. At han sendte nobelprismedaljen sin til Goebbels og skrev en panegyrisk nekrolog over Hitler, ble av journalistene brukt som interessefangere og inngang til ”det komplekse geni”. Blir ikke da nazismen, det farlige ved Hamsun, noe som gjør at vi ikke kan legge ham bak oss? Er han ikke nettopp mer interessant på grunn av nazismen?

– Hamsun vil alltid være mer interessant enn en annen genial, men ufarlig forfatter. Hamsun vekker oppmerksomhet fordi han var så voldsomt på kanten med samfunnet, samtidig som han klarte å fange det samme samfunnets oppmerksomhet med sine romaner. Hele hans protestholdning og fraværet av forsonende trekk er kanskje ingenting å beundre, men det gjør ham unektelig mer spennende. Vi lever i en politisk korrekt tid, og jeg kan tenke meg at desto mer uærlige og moralsk disiplinerte folk føler seg, dess mer vil de beundre Knut Hamsun. Han er en mann som visste at folk hatet ham, men likevel gikk han løpet ut.

– Jeg kan ikke komme på noen britiske forfattere jeg identifiserer med det du sier nå. Dere har ikke fostret noen slike litterære gærninger.

– Han er ikke vår, men den franske poeten Louis-Ferdinand Celine var drevet av et motbydelig hat og sinne, men fikk noe positivt kunstnerisk utav det. Men av engelske forfattere — nei, jeg tror ikke vi har hatt noen –

– Er det fordi moralske kriterier har vært viktig i britisk litteratur? I hvert fall om du sammenligner med den mer estetiske franske tradisjonen, eller den stilistiske og absurde russiske?

– Jeg har aldri tenkt på det sånn, men jeg tror altså ikke vi har noen britiske forfattere som skriver på den måten. Det er interessant.

– Hamsun mislikte den engelske filosofi med ”dens praktiske nytte- og lykkebestrebelser”. Han ønsket seg mindre brukslitteratur og mer fanatisme?

– Her tror jeg vi er inne på noe. Vi har riktignok Will Self, en britisk samtidsforfatter kjent for groteske romaner, men han er ikke akkurat noen stor forfatter. Ofte kan det bli lett å forveksle denne forfattertypen med folk som bare er ute etter å sjokkere. Hvor selve den kunstneriske drivkraften er sjokket. Hos dem er det ikke snakk om et organisk ”selv” som uttrykker seg, eller en forfatter som blottlegger seg fullt og helt uten å føle skam eller rødme, som Hamsun skriver i Mysterier. Disse moderne sjokkmakerne bruker sjokket som en måte å markere seg på, og kanskje like viktig: Få oppmerksomhet og øke sin markedsverdi. Det kan du ikke si om Hamsun. Jeg må tenke mer på dette: Hvorfor vi ikke har en Charles Bukowski eller en Hamsun eller en Celine i England? Vi har Graham Greene, den gode katolikk. Vi har ingen gærninger…

– Samuel Beckett?

– Hehe, ja, men alle liker Beckett, og alle vet at han er et godt menneske. Du kan dessuten være sikker på at du er et godt menneske om du liker Beckett. Hamsun får oss imidlertid til å tvile.

Intervjuet er publisert i tidsskriftet Minerva.

Devilishly-cunning Norwegians know how to apply the blowtorch to Obama’s behind or feet or wherever, with a ’premature’ award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the US President. Those sophisticated Scandanavians (Europeans?) know how to boost an ego with old-fashioned flattery and prestigious awards. He’s bound to fall for it, stop all US wars and deliver world peace any time soon.

US critics hit out at those pesky Europeans for ambushing their President, giving him unwarranted plaudits for only talking the talk, etc.  Norwegians are not usually considered machiavellian but their famous poet & playwright Henrik Ibsen knew plenty about irony (‘The Wild Duck’ and other works). And of course, when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize despite his key role in mass killings by US bombing in S.E. Asia during the Vietnam war, Tom Lehrer famously said that his job as a satirist was obsolete.

Ibsen said:   “The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone”.

De ce cîntăriţi argint pentru un lucru care nu hrăneşte? De ce vă daţi cîştigul muncii pentru ceva care nu satură? Ascultaţi-Mă, dar, şi veţi mînca ce este bun, şi sufletul vostru se va desfăta cu bucate gustoase.

[Isaia 55.2]

Banii pot fi coaja multor lucruri, dar nu miezul. Îți pot oferi mîncare, dar nu poftă; medicamente, dar nu sănătate; cunoscuți, dar nu prieteni; slujitori, dar nu loialitate; zile de bucurie, dar nu pace și fericire.

Henrik Ibsen

Cuvîntul Meu, care iese din gura Mea, nu se întoarce la Mine fara rod

Raven Theatre presents:

Death of a Salesman

by Arthur Miller
directed by Michael Menendian
thru December 5th (buy tickets)

Reviewed by Barry Eitel

Perusing Raven Theatre’s season this year, you get the impression they are playing it pretty safe. The three plays in their season are 20^th-Century American classics, and all have become community theater staples. They kick off with Arthur Miller’s Death of Saleman, follow that with Reginald Rose’s courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men, and serve up Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple for desert. Not a particularly daring season. With such well-known fare, Raven must face the challenge of proving these plays can still be invigorating even though the audience have probably seen them a couple of times already. If they can maintain the success of their opener, Miller’s 1949 masterpiece, they’ll prove that these familiar plays still have a lot of mileage left in them.

Right from the start of the show, I was reminded how different the American brand of realism is compared to its European counterpart. While dramatic geniuses like Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O’Neill were drawing stylistic inspiration from traditional realists like Chekhov and Ibsen, they also reveled in theatricality. Death of a Salesman, for instance, presents a very feasible and realistic story juxtaposed with scenes illustrating the delirium and fuzzy memories of a decaying mind. By intertwining the realistic and the psychological, Miller suggests the American dream doesn’t amount to much more than a mass delusion.

Director Michael Menendian makes clear that he both respects Miller’s text but isn’t afraid to do some tinkering. While Kimberly Senior’s All My Sons refused to take risks, Menendian and his team embrace Miller’s stylized vision. Andrei Onegin’s moveable set creates all of the varied settings required, from a two-story house to a restaurant to an office. The machinations of Willy Loman’s mind are nicely emphasized by Amy Lee’s lights. Menendian helps both of them out by exploring the entire space with his staging. All sections of the audience get good views; sometimes characters even invade the house. By not falling into a proscenium trap, Menendian confirms that the 60-year-old piece is as engaging as any of this season’s world-premiers.

Menendian’s choices wouldn’t mean anything, though, if the casting wasn’t superb. The success of a production of Salesman more or less depends on the quality of the actor portraying Willy. Fortunately for all involved, Chuck Spencer is completely tuned to Miller’s text. He is simultaneously charming, vindictive, unstable, yet feeble. We visibly witness Willy’s mind breaking apart as his hopes collapse around him. Most of these hopes are for Biff, whose restlessness, passion, and self-loathing are captured by Jason Huysman. Greg Caldwell’s Happy is a slimy and callous “other son.” Caldwell makes it clear that Hap, although he doesn’t seem to be aware, is following in his father’s delusional footsteps towards self-destruction. The weakest performance of the bunch is Joann Montemurro’s matriarchal Linda. It takes a few scenes for her to key in with the rest of the ensemble. Once that happens, though, she can be as devastating as anyone else in this “common man’s tragedy.” The pace of the piece stays at a gallop and the cast skillfully pulls off the frenzied energy needed for Willy’s nostalgic hallucinations. The only other issue of note is that the actors become too physical with each other too fast. This dissipates the enormous tension of Miller’s words; the impassioned grappling and grabbing that come into almost every scene would have a better effect if saved up for a few hyper-intense moments.

In writing Salesman, Miller wanted to toss out the Aristotelian notion that tragedy could only involve kings and royalty (Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear). He shows us through Willy Loman that even the middle-class can have tragic flaws. Instead of a vast kingdom, however, it is single household that is torn asunder. And just like we can be moved by Euripides and Shakespeare today, Raven’s crushing production verifies that Miller’s opus is still terrifyingly resonant.

Rating: «««½

“Death of a Salesman” Creative Team

I found some strange stories about Nobel laureates.

1. Robert Lucas is winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in economics for his work on the theory of “rational expectations,” split his $1 million prize with his ex-wife.

Robert Lucas

If there were a Nobel Prize for Foresight or Timing, she should be nominated, based on a clause in their divorce settlement from seven years earlier: “Wife shall receive 50 per cent of any Nobel Prize.” The clause expired on October 31, 1995. Had Lucas won any year after, he would have kept the whole million.

2. Physicist Lise Meitner, whose work helped lead to the discovery of nuclear fission, was reportedly nominated for the Nobel Prize 13 times without ever winning (though nominations are kept secret, so we don’t know for sure).

Lise Meitner

This makes her the Dynasty of the Nobel Prize scene — that show was nominated for 24 Emmy Awards but never won. Other analogies we’d accept: The Color Purple (11 Oscar nominations in 1985, no wins), the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings (4 Super Bowl losses each without a victory) and William Jennings Bryan (three-time Democratic nominee for President, losing twice to McKinley and once to Taft.)

3. People who refused the Nobel Prize:

(i) Le Duc Tho was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with Henry Kissinger for their roles in brokering a Vietnam cease fire at the Paris Peace Accords.

Le Duc Tho

Le Duc Tho with Henry Kissinger

Citing the absence of actual peace in Vietnam, Tho declined to accept.

(ii) Jean Paul Sartre waved off the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Jean Paul Sartre

His explanation: “It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.”

(iii) Afraid of Soviet retribution if he travelled to Stockholm to claim his prize, Boris Pasternak declined to accept the 1958 Prize in Literature, which he’d earned for Doctor Zhivago.

Boris Pasternak

The Academy refused his refusal. “This refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award. There remains only for the Academy, however, to announce with regret that the presentation of the Prize cannot take place.” Yevgeny Pasternak accepted the prize on behalf of his deceased father in 1989.

(iv) Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt won Nobel for Literature in 1918.

Erik Axel Karlfeldt

He did not accept because he was secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize. He was given the award posthumously in 1931. This was allowed because the nomination was made before Karlfeldt died — no candidate may be proposed after death.

4. In 2007, 90-year-old professor Leonid Hurwicz became the oldest person to ever win (one-third of the Prize in Economics); at 87,

writer Doris Lessing became the oldest woman (Literature).

Doris Lessing

5. DNA expert Kary Mullis — 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry — was scheduled to be a defense witness in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial.

Kary Mullis

However, Simpson’s lawyer Barry Scheck felt the prosecution’s DNA case was already essentially destroyed, and he didn’t want Mullis’ personal life to distract jurors (he’d expressed an affinity for LSD.)

6. Big names who never won:

Dmitri Mendeleev, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein, Henrik Ibsen, Joan Robinson, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Jules-Henri Poincaré, Raymond Damadian and Mahatma Gandhi.

Dmitri Mendeleev

Gertrude Stein

Henrik Ibsen

James Joyce

Joan Robinson

Jules-Henri Poincaré

Leo Tolstoy

Mahatma Gandhi

Marcel Proust

Mark Twain

Nikola Tesla

Raymond Damadian

Thomas Edison

Virginia Woolf

7. Winners without the greatest reputations:

(i) Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who won in 1976 for his research in human slow-virus infections, spent 19 months in jail after pleading guilty in 1997 to charges of child molestation.

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek

(ii) Johannes Fibiger won in 1926 after discovering parasitic worms cause cancer — a breakthrough that turned out to not be true.

Johannes Fibiger

(iii) Yasser Arafat shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.

Yasser Arafat

Shimon Peres

This decision caused Nobel Committee member Kare Kristiansen to resign.

Yitzhak Rabin

“What consequences will result,” he asked at the time, “when a terrorist with such a background is awarded the world’s most prestigious prize?”

(iv) William Shockley won for Physics in 1956 for his role in the invention of the semiconductor, but his support of the eugenics movement alienated the scientific community.

William Shockley

Shockley also donated sperm to the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank developed to spread humanity’s best genes.

8. As part of his divorce settlement, Einstein’s Nobel Prize money went to his ex-wife, Mileva Maric.

Mileva Maric with einstein

9. The Curie family is a Nobel Prize machine, winning five: Pierre and Marie for Physics in 1901;

Pierre Curie with Marie

Marie solo for Chemistry in 1911; daughter Irene and her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie for Chemistry in 1935;

Frédéric Joliot with Irene Curie

and Henry Labouisse — Irene’s daughter Eve’s second husband — accepted on behalf of UNICEF in 1965. No family has won more.

Henry Labouisse (left)

10. Marie Curie’s second prize was marred by a scandal. Then a widow, Curie had an affair with a married scientist, Paul Langevin — a former pupil of Pierre Curie.

Paul Langevin

Love letters were involved, eventually leading to a duel between Langevin and the editor of the newspaper that had printed them (no shots were actually fired.) According to NobelPrize.org, when it was suggested that Curie not accept the prize, she wrote a shrewd letter, “which pointed out that she had been awarded the Prize for her discovery of radium and polonium, and that she could not accept the principle that appreciation of the value of scientific work should be influenced by slander concerning a researcher’s private life.”

11. Singing support — While there’s no evidence the Nobel judges can be swayed by theme songs, that hasn’t stopped Loriana Lana from composing one for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Loriana Lana

“Peace Can” includes the lyrics, “Silvio forever will be / Silvio is reality / Silvio forever! /Silvio gives us trust.”

12. Alfred Nobel — inventor of dynamite — may have been inspired to create the Nobel Prize after a premature obituary in a French newspaper called him a “merchant of death.”

Alfred Nobel

13. Nobel died on December 10, 1896. The formal awards ceremony is held in Stockholm each year on the anniversary of his death. The first awards show took place on December 10, 1901.

Pics courtesy: Google

Begging the pardon of all the glass half full folks, I have to say this week has drained my glass empty.
Been doing a lot of research, a lot of talking….a LOT of talking…..and coaching my heart out to strangers, friends and family.

So in lieu of the kind of pithiness I might have hitherto engaged in, I’m simply going to share some of the things I have come across this week. I hope you find them valuable.

Quote:

“Money may buy the husk of things, but not the kernel. It brings you food but not appetite, medicine but not health, acquaintances but not friends, servants but not faithfulness…”

(this quote by Henrik Ibsen was lifted from my friend Dave Romanelli’s newsletter “The Schtick”. Check out yeahdave.com. And for a REAL laugh go to YouTube and watch Dave’s insanely funny videos about a yoga teacher searching for the truth)

Article:

“When Success is Slow, What can You Do?”
Pop Quiz: Can success be sped up? Is there an antidote to slow outcomes despite arduous planning and actions taken? What’s the secret for seeing huge results right now?!
I get versions of these questions frequently from people who feel frustrated at sluggish progress in their success journey – despite all the know-how and principles they rigorously employ.
Let’s get one thing straight…
When we admire someone’s success, or even our own, we often focus on the end result and not so much on the effort (and time) that it took to get there. This can cultivate unrealistic expectations, especially the idea that overnight success can happen through careful strategy and an execution of sound advice.
The truth be told, success typically follows a series of little events and achievements that can seem to take an eternity, that include a few disappointments along the way, and that challenge everything about you to the core – your stamina, courage, integrity, and even your willingness to keep going.
If you focus on what’s not working, guess what: You’re likely coming from a place of aggravation as your mind wraps around all that is wrong.
You may even have negative thoughts like “I’m not good enough,” “It will never work,” or “Something must be wrong with me.”

(this tantalizing snippet is from a wonderful article written by Jack Canfield. Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul© and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com)

Article:

“I’m struck by how many people had so much bottled-up love ready to pour out in this moment. I can see that, just as we hold in our breath when we’re busy and anxious, so do we hold in our love too. This experience has shown me we are all eager to share our love, but until something big happens (good or bad), we don’t always connect to it or practice extending it to everyone around us.”

(this was taken from the Editor’s Letter in this month’s Yoga Journal. Kaitlin Quistgaard, editor in chief, had to face one of life’s most tragic moments. Her nephew lost both of his legs in a motorcycle accident.)

Websites:

http://www.planetsark.com
http://www.philosophersnotes.com
http://www.robynnola.com
http://www.hayhouse.com

Quote:

“In the face of adversity, uncertainty and conflicting sensory information, I hereby pledge to remain ever mindful of the magical, infinite, loving reality in which I live. A reality that conspires tirelessly in my favour.
I further recognize, that living within space and time, as a Creation amongst my Creations, is the ultimate Adventure, because thoughts become things, dreams come true, and all things remain forever possible.
As a Being of Light, I hereby resolve to live, love and be happy, at all costs, no matter what, with reverence and kindness for All. So be it.”

(this is “The Oath” required of all who sign up for Tut’s Adventure Club (tut.com). I love this thing. I go back and read it again every once in a while. Mike Dooley, founder of the “club” and author of “Notes from the Universe” has an incredible sense of humour and every morning I get a note from THE UNIVERSE, speaking through Mike )

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I’m empty. Done. Finito. Caput.

Donations of laughter and moral support accepted by this author. Open your window and send them by ether mail.

I mean, why wouldn’t you?

Here at Counterforce, we have three simple rules for dealing with all life:

1. Jai Alai is fucking stupid.

2. Funny, sad, tragic, or fitting, death is always weird, no matter where you go or who the hell you are.

and

3. No sailors. No way.

That said, ruminate on last night’s episode of Mad Men, “The Arrangements.” Normally August Bravo would be here to join me, but, well, he didn’t heed Peggy’s mom’s warning and moved to Manhattan. And he got raped.

Somewhere out there in the ether there’s a t-shirt waiting to be dreamt up: I Moved To Manhattan, Got Raped, And All I Got Was This Lousy Fucking T-Shirt. Oh, And A New TV. I’d wear it, but only to classy parties.

Last week I mentioned that Sally Draper was becoming one of my favorite characters and this week, if you didn’t agree with me, let’s face it, that shit was all over your face. Little Kiernan Shipka acted her way nicely (and, yes, adorably) out of the damp paper bag that was the Grandpa Gene storyline (which I respect so much more now, because Gene Hofstadt was a real grandfather, crazy warts and all), and did so marvelously. And she fits so perfectly into the scheme of the show that it hurts.

Oh, and interestingly enough, for a show that’s all about the multi-faceted horridness of 1960s masculinity, I have to say that Bobby Draper, you’re just not cutting it. You’re just there, kid, taking up space, and taking dead men’s helmets. If you’re not careful, you might go upstairs one day, and like the little sister on Family Matters, just never come back down again…

Families are tough, man. And this was an amazing episode about seeking out familial approval, and how you’re never going to get it. Not really. You may always get their love, but they’ll never really understand you. Not in the way you need to be understood.

And the same for the previous generation. You’ll ache to see out their approval, but it’s not coming. And right now, it really feels like that’s what so much of this show is about, at least this year: Looking to the people older than you for understanding and approval and guidance. And finding nothing. Only more confusion.

It’s not their fault. The older generation of America at this time didn’t know how to love. Maybe they still don’t. But back then they didn’t know how to get past the horrors they’d seen within and without and to connect with another human being.

And saddest of all, they haven’t realized that the world changed around them when they weren’t looking and now they’re hopeless to catch up. They don’t even know they’ve been left behind, much like Roger in last week’s episode.

Though it doesn’t say much in credit of the younger generation when they have nicknames like Ho Ho and think that jai alai is the future. And in color! On all three networks!

Poor Betty Draper. As much as I want to root for her, she keeps falling into the category of the precious sad victim. And as much as I want to feel bad for her, I can’t. This woman is terrified of intimacy, of anything outside a perfect world that hasn’t existed in a long, long time, and even when it did, it may have only been in the revisionist history of her pretty little head. In fact, Betty and Ho Ho have a lot in common in that their parents meant the best for them, but know that their kids are unprepared for the world.

Betty Draper = Worst Mother Of The Year, 1963.

Instead, the Mad Men housewife I do actually feel real remorse for is, of course, Sal’s poor wife, Kitty. Her husband’s a commercial director now, ripping off the finest for ad work, but with a little luck, Kitty’s realized something powerful there about the man she loves. And hopefully it’s not that everyone just wants photographs.

She doesn’t need a lot, Sal. But she does need… tending.

And the saddest part of all? On this show, they’re easily the most functioning couple. The truth may be kept at arm’s length, but there is a closeness there. And more importantly, there’s a mutual respect in their bedroom.

I love that Don Draper operates by a certain set of rules that he holds dear. They may not be the same as society’s, not the surface of what society says anyway, but they’re his rules. He’s a man of few words, and they’re sharp, cutting, to the point when they have to be. Surgical strikes, dripping with wit (particularly the line about the guy going off to direct a feature in Hollywood).  And he has no problem taking money from that guy, Horace, for his stupid jai alai campaign, but he’s going to seek out the approval of his elders, and he’s going to at least warn the guy that he’s a moron.

Question for you: Pete’s line about his father and money: “This is his kind of investment.” Is he just playing the account man, trying to line up the sweet deal, or is this his subtle acknowledge of his father’s own financial failures?

Warning sign #1, Ho Ho: If you have to pitch your idea to the ad men, your idea’s crap. If it’s good, they’re just going to sell it right back to you to get your cash.

I think Pepsi certainly learned their lesson there with the Patio commercial. But like Don says there, even a failure can mean reaching a new plateau. Or, to use the parlance of today’s television lingo, reaching a new “game changer.”

“Game changer” is the buzzword/phrase, I hope, that killed “jumping the shark.” All TV jumped the shark five or six years ago, and now we’re all praying for game changers.

Speaking of Patio, you had to adore Peggy’s satisfied grin as she walked out of that meeting. She was right. Maybe she wasn’t right for the her own reasons, but still, she was on the winning side, no matter what was in or out of her toolbox.

And I think I love Peggy’s new roommate. So much so that I want them to have their own spin off. And it shall be called I Love To Have… Fun!

And Joan, Joan, Joan. The Tex Avery girl brought to life. We saw a little bit of it last season when dealing with Harry Crane and the television scripts, but Joan is clearly meant for more than just being a secretary and house mother figure to a bunch of confused young ladies with” stupid looks on their faces.” Her spicing up of Peggy’s ad was perfect. No more stage directions from an Ibsen play here! Just look at the catch it nabbed Peggy. Just don’t forget, Peggy: A door should only be closed for one thing. You know what we’re talking about.

I have to say it again: Poor Sally Draper. Her path, at least through the rest of this season and, one presumes, next season as well, is going to be an interesting one. Her mother can’t acknowledge her sadness because she’s too busy trying to ignore her own. Her father is doing the best he can but he doesn’t know who he is. And she’s growing up without that guidance or nurturing in a confusing and confused world, raised by people unprepared for the social forces about to knock them down. The pope is dead and monks are lighting themselves on fire.

Before long, she’ll stop mixing Tom Collins for her parents and just making them for herself.

And so Saint Paul continues, ‘I may speak in tongues of men or of angels, but if I am without love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging symbol. I may have gifts of prophecy, and know every hidden truth; I may have faith strong enough to move mountains; but if I have no love, I am nothing.’ (1 Corinthians 13.1-2, NEB). In reading these familiar words we must be alert to the context of discussion in which they are situated: the greatest achievements which Paul thinks meaningless without love are gifts of the Spirit, vocations, particular callings to which one is summoned individually, which will distinguish this man’s service from his neighbor’s and will mark his history out as a unique and personal history. It is not that Paul deprecates the individual and personally distinctive; it is not that he suspects all striking manifestations of it a secret hypocrisy.

His point is simply that a life considered solely as the fulfilling of a personal destiny, the working-out of an individual charisma, is a vacant abstraction. The particularity of vocation must serve as a window through which the universal character of all Christian life may appear. Just as the variety of voices within the church are unified in a common confession, ‘Jesus is Lord’, so the variety of forms of life are unified within a common form of life according to God’s order, the life of love.

– Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order (1986), p. 222

Individualism is a pretty attractive idea. We tend to admire people who manage to achieve some sort of individualism against the odds. We admire people who think for themselves, who refuse to be defined by the society or tradition they are a part of. Rogue figures like Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault and Marcel Proust (or Elizabeth Bennet) insist on not fitting into any predefined role society may have had for them, and of not letting any group, institution or one perspective tell them who they really are, or tell them what they ought to aspire to. As Samuel Coleridge once said, heroes invent the terms and categories by which their life will be judged.

This leads to the question – what is the opposite of individualism? If the Nora from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House who leaves and slams the door is a heroic individual, what would we say of the Nora that stayed?

The quote above from O’Donovan suggests that the opposite of individualism need not be ‘conservatism’, ’submissiveness’, ‘resignation’ or ‘ordinariness’. He suggests that the opposite of individualism is seeing your life not as the subjective expression of a unique take on life, but as the subjective expression of something universal. If individualism is the subjective expression of the particular, the contingent, the unique, the self-constructed then it’s opposite is the subjective expression of the universal, the fixed, the necessary, the received. Construing things this way shows that it is not the moment of subjective ethical expression which is under threat, but the source of this expression.

O’Donovan argues that all Christian ethics needs to be an expression of love. Christians are free to perform ethical action and engage in ethical reasoning and to still call what they are doing Christian so long as it seeks to be an expression of love, particularly the kind of love that God displayed on the cross. The person who speaks in tongues of angels, does so from love. The person who prophesies, does so from love. The person who lives in faith, does so from love. The Christian who buys only Fair Trade chocolate, does so from love. The Christian who befriends someone who is utterly different to them, does so from love. The Christian who takes a position on abortion, war, torture or sexual ethics, does so from love.

This quote from O’Donovan draws attention to an important and unique characteristic of Christian ethics. Christians hold that the ethical life has a certain shape – the life of love. Amongst all the complexity and subjectivity of contemporary life Christians hold that ethical living is living which is built on and shaped by a particular non-negotiable – love. Henry David Thoreau once said that living well, living ethically, is a matter of ‘dwelling as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.’ Christianity replies, there is only one channel. Life which aspires to fulfill a personal destiny is vacant abstraction, and morally speaking is neither here nor there. Life which attempts to embody something universal, is good.

To many, this idea of subjectively expressing something universal is much more attractive than subjectively expressing something of your own making. Which idea are you more attracted to as the task of ethical living?