The Theatre
Does Ibsen " Date " ?
ABOUT thirty years have passed since London audiences first saw Rosmersholm.
We were then at the height of the Ibsen cult, as it was derisively named in days when Miss Farr and Miss Robins .played Rebecca West in a reverential manner, and Miss Janet Achurch solemnly dedicated herself to the Norwegian. Thirty years is a long time in the theatre ; yet not long enough, evidently, to secure for this great play a performance that shall be " simple, natural, affecting." English actors are still puzzled by Ibsen. English producers are still uncertain whether he is " provincial " and odd, whether he had not better be dressed in the costumes of his period, or whether, as an alternative, it may not be a wise precaution to furbish him up with a cosmopolitan duster. And Sir Barry Jackson exhibits his sense of embarrassment by anglicizing the Norwegian names.
I fail to see that anything is gained by these evasions. The way to make Ibsen sound natural is to realize, in advance of production, that he is so ; at least, in this play—whatever may be said of the later works, such as The Master Builder, which comes next on the list for revival at the Kingsway. If you fear that he begins to date, let him date unashamedly. He can afford it ; for his dating is of the kind that wants so little adaptation, on the part of the audience, to make it fit the twentieth century !
There is Kroll, the schoolmaster, for instance. Already, thirty years ago, many people could not believe in him, because they had never met him. But Mr. Shaw perfectly recognized him as a former member of the London School Board, and, to-day, if you turn Rosmer into a Communist, instead of keeping him a vague democrat, you will find plenty of Krolls (or Crowleys) to walk out of ,his house. At the Kingsway, however .Mr. Rupert Harvey makes the worst of Kroll—rubs in his points gloatingly, emphasizes his pedantry. And, once again, we feel that Kroll no longer exists.
But the Kroll motive, so to call it—the theme of the over- whelming of " advanced " thought by the retarding multitude —is only part of Rosmersholm. The real theme is not there. For Ibsen, at this stage of his disillusionment, the real bar to that rebirth, which, as Rebecca says, ought to come for each one of us continually, isnot only in society with its conventions but in the timid individual conscience, as character or fate. And it is in the pressure, upon the living, of the dead. It comes relentlessly from the ghosts that haunt Rosmersholm, from the past that rises slowly to confront and stifle even the iron-willed Rebecca. Behind these two lonely creatures, Rosmer and her, hover the figures of Rosmer's dead wife and of the mysterious Dr. West. Slowly their past ties and proclivities and ambitions return upon them, deformed, to defeat them ; while all the time, out there in the darkness, rolls the millstream, under the bridge that Rosmer can never cross, within sight of the little town, which is the world of Kroll and his criticism.
These hints of the paste as it clutches at the present, were never presented, with finer poetry, than in Rosmersholm, In spite of the local Kroll, the eccentric Brendel, the old- fashioned housekeeper(admirably acted by Miss Muriel Aked), Rebecca and Rosmer remain, undated, in their tragic dialogue of conscience and desire. She is at the centre of it all and she aught to be shown us the determined woman out of whose gust of passion for Rosmer emerges a protective love ; while the actor of Rosmer has to reveal one too fastidious to be a reformer ; a dreamer who is brave enough to give up old ideas, but not brave enough to cleave. to the new when they come to him with the light of their origin degraded by such men as Brendel and Mortensgaard—or Robinson. Mr. Charles Carson allows himself to drift ; showing Rosmer's weakness only. .I had expected much of Miss Evans. But I confess that she seemed to me to have no secure intellectual grasp of Rebecca. She suggests too often that Rebecca is hysterical, a creature of whims and moods, whereas she is one who foresees everything : even this terrible fact, for her— that what she has long planned and sought she will not be able to take when it is offered her, because her merely physics( passion for Rosmer is conquered by her longing to keep his respect and to remain for him, what she once was, as inspiration. When, for example, he asks her to marry him, unconsciously responding to her own suggestion that he should " form new ties," her first cry is of joy. Then she hesitates; realizes that it is too late—that to take him now would he to .lose him for ever. To keep his belief in her, she must resist him : otherwise he will come to see her as the mere schemer she used to be. Rebecca never really loses control. But Miss Evans played that scene with sudden gestures and little screams that I found meaningless. Only in the last scene, with Kroll, did she show the woman whose sense of had realities allows her no illusions.
We have failed again, then, to get a natural and stable performance of Rosmersholm. But I for one am very grateful to Sir Barry Jackson. If he would give us Little Eyolf, as well as The Master Builder, we should have an even better opportunity of judging whether Ibsen dates, and how much ; whether his lastingly truthful characterization outlives his political and social theses, the queer clothes of his circle, and his own repellent side-whiskers.
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