The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-12-21
IBSEN and HIS TEACHINGS.
THE MORAL PURPOSE BACK or
HIS PLAYS.
One Quality That Sets Him Aside From
His Cont empOraries-Need Of studying
Him at First Hands, lie an tnarch?
Social Maiadies That lie Attacks.

Him at First Hands lie an Anarch?
Social Maiadies That lie Attacks.
A dozen years ago the writer asked bril-
liant Maurice Barrymore his opinion OF Hem
rik lbsen. Obscene and not heard was the
witty irrelevant answer. The dramatst OF
"Nadjezoa over the possession of which
he came to warfare with Sarah Bern
hardt-had little sympathy for the man who
wrote "Ghoets." Barrymore confessed that
he had never read lbsen. and had seen but
few of his plays performed. And he repre-
sented there the attitude of both actor
and average playgoor. lbsen spelled
something horrible: he was surgeon OF
souls; he unIDandaged moral sores in
word, he was a man of genius gone wrong.
At least the genius was admitted-and that
was a step in the right direction.
Since 1890 We have had few struggling
performances of Ibsen. but without much
affecting the public curiosity. Disagree
able" and powerful" were the epithets
applied Some of the older critics refused
to discuss him; and Paul Potter once asked
us if the Norwegian was not All immoral
man: Ibscn, whose married life has been
miraculously free from discord! De-
cideoly Ibsen has failed to touch our ma
tional Consciousness. The afternoon of
Feb. IS, 1894, Mrs. Fiske played Nora in A
Dolls House" at the Empire Theatre. Ii
was a benefit performance. Her support
was unusually strong; ". H. Thompson,
the Kroostdd evoked critical admiration
for the manner in which he suggested the
shades of a character whose possibilities
for good and evil are perpleXingly inter-
woven. Mrs. Fiske was however the sur
prise OF the day. Shedding her Frou-Frou
skin. she sounded every note on the key
board Of Nora HeImer's character Sine
was bird-likc, evasive, frankly selfish,
boiling with material enthusiasms, a Great
ure of air, fire, caprice, gayety and bitter
ness. Excepting Agnes Sorma no one
has Indicated with such fnessc Of modula-
ton the awakened moral nature Of the
woman. And il is TO be doubted if Mrs
Fiske ever beitered that first rapturous
Interpretation.
Judge then of our regret when reading
this gifted artists formal abjuration of
Ibsen in the Christmas number of the
Theatre. She admits Ibsens tremendous
and original dramatic power" but he fur
nshes food for the aienist and the patholo-
gist. rather than for the normal thinker
again appears that man Of straw, ~the
normal thinker.0 He is not picturesque,
poetic, beautiful; he is interiors; he not?-
to Dumas, and has -banished beauty,
nobility, picturesqueness and poetry from
the stage To the last clause we must
take exception. Mrs. Fske is at the pres
ent time appearing in picturesque poetic
play by Heyse Mary of Magdala, !" Blanche
Bates is to be seen nightly in a gorgeous
Japanese fantasy. THE Darling of the
Gods Julia Marlowe, richly endowed
by nature for the portrayal of exquisite
types. is giving all her energies to the COM
monplace-God knows it's nor maitland
scattered throughout the length and
breadth Of this great city sentiment sizzles
at dramatic CRATES: even Shakespea res
withers are wrung by Mansfield.
Little fear. then, Of too mu CHI Ibsen in
huence; though later we propose to show
Pinero caught in the cross-currents of his
genius. The sad thing is Mrs. Fiske's
detection, for with her clear brain and
powers Of adaptability she would have
been an ideal interpreter of the Scandi-
navan's varied feminine gallery. But are
her assertions to pass unchallenged? Il
Ibsen a creator Of abnormal types? Is
he the anarch of dramatic literature?
What does Ibsen stand for? A confusing
chorus of imprecations and wildly diverg-
Ing praise assails the ears. George Ber-
nard Shaw reads into the plays much Of
his Fabian socialistic theories-fancy Ibsen
a Socialist-and did the same for Richard
Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs" Henry
james. ever the Sultan Of the epithet,"
happily hits of in phrase the way lbsen
"snubs our intellectual sympathies-
Then there is Edmund Gosse. first in the
English field with his Northern Studies"
(isS9), and George Brandes, most cos
mopolitan, most catholic Of critics, who
discovered the poet in 1867. Nor must
level-headed William Archer he forgotten;
his translations have enabled us to an
proach approximately the many-sided man
whose name always brews critical tempests.
Yet with all these authorities, apologists
and panegyrists, lbsen remains difficult
nut to crack. His perversities of execu-
ton, alterations in form. contrarities and
monumental obstinacy are too much for
the average commentators nerves-whv
should he be enjoyed by the public when
doctors Of the drama disagree? His
warmest admirers deny him the gift Of
humor, and we believe that he is the great
est humorist-as well a., dramatist-o of the
nineteenth century. No man, not even
Browning. has kept such rigid features
In the very face of idiotic abuse and still
more silly praise. Not sense of humor?
After a Dolls House" came Ghosts,
totally contravening the thesis, or sup
posed thesis. of that problem play: after
Ghosts, AN Enemy Of the People, which
declared for the rights Of the individual;
after this piece the maddenng and angular
ironies of THE Wild Duck" in which he
mocks himself, his theories: and then as
If to explode the whole Ibsen mine, "Ros-
nersholm" appeared. Therein the re-
former, whether idealist or of the ordinary
peddling political stripe. is mercilessly
faSed and Rebeccd West. his wonderful
incarnation of passion, deceits, femininity
and renunciation. sacrifices her life to a
false ideal to "Rosmersholm ideals" and
mocks herself as she joins in the double
suicide. No humor! What, then, of
-Hedda Gabler," the young woman of
to-day; shallow-cultured, her religious
underpinning gone, vacillating, cerebral,
all nerves, full of Bashkirtse like charm,
this Heddd who is so modern. who peeps