A History Lesson

For those of you who don't know, my last name is Ibsen. Ibsen also happens to be the last name of a very famous Norwegian playwright, first name Henrick. Henrick is my great, great uncle. Last week, I took a lunch hour and went over to a Norwegian Lutheran Church that's in the neighborhood. They were having a little talk about Ibsen from the director of a playhouse in Southern Minnesota.

I like to go to these things because I think its funny to hear people say things like:

"I'm very passionate about Ibsen"

and

"Over the years, I've really come to cherish Ibsen"

Henrick Ibsen is the second most influencial and internationally recognized playwright, the first being William Shakespere. In fact, he is known as the "Father of Modern Drama".

Henrick was the oldest of five children. His father owned a distillery, until the state took it away from them and they went bankrupt. Damn the man always keeping us down!

They moved around for a while, and Henrick went from booze to drugs as he got a job as an apothacary's apprectice. He stayed there until he accidentally impregnated the maid at age 18. He never acknoledged the kid as being his, but he did financially support it until it grew up.

This haunted him, as most people said that Henrick himself always looked more like one of the family's good friends than his actual father.

He got married, had a legitimate kid, and exilled himself to Rome where he wrote his first truely famous plays. He returned home to write his final four plays. He had the first of a series of strokes in 1900, and finally died in 1906. This year is the 100th aniversary of his death. Unbeknownst to me, the year has been crisioned "Ibsen Year", and there are many "Ibsen Festivals" being held by a lot of the world. Yeah - that's just too weird.

Ibsen's plays were always pros, mostly dark, featured middle-class heros, and very controversial. He didn't keep friends very long, because he tended to flipflop the focus of his plays. In "A Doll's House" for example, the main character feels trapped in her marriage and ends up leaving her husband and her family to be true to herself. In his next play "Ghosts" (in which the main character has Syphilis which he contracted at brith from his father), the woman decided to sacrifice her dreams and stay in the trapped marriage out of duty. People who sided with Ibsen one year would turn against him the next. But, he remained true to himself and his persuits.

None of the state theaters in Europe would release "Ghosts" at first, because of the taboo subject matter. But, European teens and twenty-somethings wanted to make it happen (probably to piss off their out-of-touch parents). Suddenly, little theater houses sprang up all over Europe, establishing the careers of many other playwrights at the time. This is one of the reasons he's knows as the "Father of Modern Drama".

Another reason for the title is Ibsen's focus. Most people think of him as a feminist. In reality, he was actually more of a humanist. His plays are very relevant, even today, because he tried to bring to light the dark issues that we all struggle with. All the other plays that were coming out at that time very formulaic, melodramas (chick-flicks). While that was well and good, Ibsen's plays changed the ways in which people thought.

When one thinks about modernism (in terms of modern thought), three names should spring to mind: Darwin, Frued, and Ibsen. And while Darwin and Frued tried to answer the tough questions, Ibsen tried to give the questions a shape. And as long as people have a need to sit in a darkened room with other people and share stories about what connects us and what we all struggle with, Ibsen will continue to be relevant and influencial.