The Pillars of Society, Ghosts and An Enemy of the People were published in a shilling volume [in 1879] … up to the end of 1892 Mr. Walter Scott had sold 14,367 copies. In 1890 and 1891 the same publisher issued an authorized uniform edition of Ibsen’s prose dramas in five volumes, at three, and sixpence each. Of these volumes up to the end of 1892, 16,834 copies had been sold. Thus, Mr. Walter Scott alone has issued (in round numbers) thirty-one thousand volumes … and each volume contains three plays. Thus we find that one publisher alone has placed in circulation ninety-three thousand plays by Ibsen. Other publishers have issued single-volume editions of A Doll’s House, Ghosts, Rosmersholm, The Lady from the Sea, Hedda Gabler and The Master Builder. … Thus, I think, we are well within the mark in estimating that one hundred thousand prose dramas by Ibsen have been bought by the English-speaking public in the course of the past four years. Is there a parallel in the history of publishing for such a result in the case of translated plays? Putting Shakespeare in Germany out of the question (and he has been selling, not for four years, but for a century), I doubt whether any translated dramas have ever sold in such quantities.
(“The Mausoleum of Ibsen,” Fortnightly Review, 1 July 1893)
The official view of Ibsen in England was still the one expressed by E.F.S. Piggott, the Examiner of Stage Plays, in 1892:
I have studied Ibsen’s plays pretty carefully, and all the characters seem to me to be morally deranged. All the heroines are dissatisfied spinsters who look on marriage as a monopoly, or dissatisfied married women in a chronic state of rebellion … as for the men, they are all rascals or imbeciles.
(Testimony to the 1892 Select Committee on Censorship)
However, given such figures – and following Janet Achurch’s success in the extended run of A Doll’s House – it is perhaps not surprising that in 1893 there were successful productions of The Master Builder, Beerbohm Tree’s An Enemy of the People, and an Ibsen “season” at the Opera Comique. From that point on, Ibsen’s naturalistic plays became a standard feature of the English-speaking repertoire, as they had a decade earlier in Germany.
3 A DOLL’S HOUSE
As William Archer remarked, Ibsen’s notes for A Doll’s House “throw invaluable light upon the genesis of his ideas … Of A Doll’s House we possess a first brief memorandum, a fairly detailed scenario, a complete draft in quite actable form, and a few detached fragments of dialogue” (Introduction, From Ibsen’s Workshop, 1912). In particular the notes reveal the feminist critique of patriarchal society at the core of the play, and Ibsen’s concept of the action as a tragedy for all the characters, and the ending as a “catastrophe” – not, even for Nora, a liberation.
The play
Henrik Ibsen, Notes for the modern tragedy
The Works of Henrik Ibsen, New York, 1912
Translated by A.G. Chater
There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of conscience, one in man and another, altogether different, in woman. They do not understand each other; but in practical life the woman is judged by man’s law, as though she were not a woman but a man.
The wife in the play ends by having no idea of what is right or wrong; natural feeling on the one hand and belief in authority on the other have altogether bewildered her.
A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.
She has committed forgery, and she is proud of it; for she did it out of love for her husband, to save his life. But this husband with his commonplace principles of honor is on the side of the law and looks at the question from the masculine point of view.
Spiritual conflicts. Oppressed and bewildered by the belief in authority, she loses faith in her moral right and ability to bring up her children. Bitterness. A mother in modern society, like certain insects who go away and die when she has done her duty in the propagation of the race. Love of life, of home, of husband and children and family. Now and then a womanly shaking off of her thoughts. Sudden return of anxiety and terror. She must bear it all alone. The catastrophe approaches, inexorably, inevitably. Despair, conflict, and destruction.
(Krogstad has acted dishonorably and thereby become well-to-do; now his prosperity does not help him, he cannot recover his honor.)
Scenario: first act
A room comfortably, but not showily, furnished. A door to the right in the back leads to the hall; another door to the left in the back leads to the room or office of the master of the house, which can be seen when the door is opened. A fire in the stove. Winter day.
She enters from the back, humming gaily; she is in outdoor dress and carries several parcels, has been shopping. As she opens the door, a porter is seen in the hall, carrying a Christmas tree. She: Put it down there for the present. (Taking out her purse) How much? Porter. Fifty öre. She: Here is a crown. No, keep the change. The porter thanks her and goes. She continues humming and smiling contentedly as she opens several of the parcels she has brought. Calls off to find out if he is home. Yes! At first, conversation through the closed door; then he opens it and goes on talking to her while continuing to work most of the time, standing at his desk. There is a ring at the hall door; he does not want to be disturbed; shuts himself in. The maid opens the door to her mistress’s friend, just arrived in town. Happy surprise. Mutual explanation of the state of affairs. He has received the post of manager in the new joint-stock bank and is to begin at New Year’s; all financial worries are at an end. The friend has come to town to look for some small employment in an office or whatever may present itself. Mrs. Stenborg encourges her, is certain that all will turn out well. The maid opens the front door to the debt collector. Mrs. Stenborg terrified; they exchange a few words; he is shown into the office. Mrs. Stenborg and her friend; the circumstances of the collector are touched upon. Stenborg enters in his overcoat; has sent the collector out the other way. Conversation about the friend’s affairs; hesitation on his part. He and the friend go out; his wife follows them into the hall; the Nurse enters with the children. Mother and children play. The collector enters. Mrs. Stenborg sends the children out to the left. Big scene between her and him. He goes. Stenborg enters; has met him on the stairs; displeased; wants to know what he came back for? Her support? No intrigues. His wife cautiously tries to pump him. Strict legal answers. Exit to his room. She: (repeating her words when the collector went out) But that’s impossible. Why, I did it from love!
Second act
The last day of the year. Midday. Nora and the old Nurse. Nora, driven by anxiety, is putting on her things to go out. Anxious random questions of one kind and another intimate that thoughts of death are in her mind. Tries to banish these thoughts, to make light of it, hopes that something or other may intervene. But what? The Nurse goes off to the left. Stenborg enters from his room. Short dialogue between him and Nora. The Nurse re-enters; looks for Nora; the youngest child is crying. Annoyance and questioning on Stenborg’s part; exit the Nurse; Stenborg is going in to the children. Doctor enters. Scene between him and Stenborg. Nora soon re-enters; she has turned back; anxiety has driven her home again. Scene between her, the Doctor, and Stenborg. Stenborg goes into his room. Scene between Nora and the Doctor. The Doctor goes out. Nora alone. Mrs. Linde enters. Scene between her and Nora. Lawyer Krogstad enters. Short scene between him, Mrs. Linde, and Nora. Mrs. Linde in to the children. Scene between Krogstad and Nora. She entreats and implores him for the sake of her little children; in vain. Krogstad goes out. The letter is seen to fall from outside into the letter box. Mrs. Linde re-enters after a short pause. Scene between her and Nora. Half confession. Mrs. Linde goes out. Nora alone. Stenborg enters. Scene between him and Nora. He wants to empty the letter box. Entreaties, jests, half-playful persuasion. He promises to let business wait till after New Year’s Day; but at 12 o’clock midnight … ! Exit. Nora alone. Nora: (looking at the clock) It is five o’cloc
k. Five; seven hours till midnight. Twenty-four hours till the next midnight. Twenty-four and seven – thirty-one. Thirty-one hours to live.
Third act
A muffled sound of dance music is heard from the floor above. A lighted lamp on the table. Mrs. Linde sits in an armchair and absendy turns the pages of a book, tries to read, but seems unable to fix her attention; once or twice she looks at her watch. Nora comes down from the party; so disturbed she was compelled to leave; surprise at finding Mrs. Linde, who pretends that she wanted to see Nora in her costume. Helmer, displeased at her going away, comes to fetch her back. The Doctor also enters, to say good-by. Meanwhile Mrs. Linde has gone into the side room on the right. Scene between the Doctor, Helmer, and Nora. He is going to bed, he says, never to get up again; they are not to come and see him; there is ugliness about a deathbed. He goes out. Helmer goes upstairs again with Nora, after the latter has exchanged a few words of farewell with Mrs. Linde. Mrs. Linde alone. Then Krogstad. Scene and explanation between them. Both go out. Nora and the children. Then she alone. Then Helmer. He takes the letters out of the letter box. Short scene; good night; he goes into his room. Nora in despair prepares for the final step, is already at the door when Helmer enters with the open letter in his hand. Big scene. A ring. Letter to Nora from Krogstad. Final scene. Divorce. Nora leaves the house.
As this scenario indicates, although the names of some characters are different, the action of the play has been worked out in detail from its first conception. Apart from the broadening of focus – in the scenario everything is presented from Nora’s viewpoint – the most significant change in the final text is the introduction of the tarantella. Off-stage in the scenario, the dance may have been brought in to capitalize on the abilities of Betty Hennings, the first actress to play the role (at the Copenhagen Royal Theatre, 1879) who had been a ballerina.
All Ibsen’s naturalistic plays aroused protests, but A Doll’s House was met with more vehement denunciation than any other, with the possible exception of Ghosts – and one recurring criticism was that “Nora has only shown herself as a little Nordic ‘Frou-Frou’ and as such she cannot be transformed in a flash to a Soren Kierkegaard in skirts” (Dagens Nyheder, 22 December 1879). The notes make clear that Nora is confused by conflicting value systems; and as Archer was the first to point out, commenting on Eleonora Duse’s performance:
If she were really and essentially the empty-headed doll we hear so much about, the whole point of the play would be gone; so that there is not the least reason why we should demand from the actress a waxen, flaxen prettiness, on which experience has left no traces. The critics, in fact, sublimely unconscious of the way in which they thereby drive home the poet’s irony, fall into the very same misunderstanding of Nora’s character which makes Helmer a bye-word for masculine stupidity, and are no less flabbergasted than he when the doll puts off her masquerade dress and turns out to be a woman after all. And if Nora is not really childish, still less is she “neurotic”.
(Theatrical World, 1893)
A Doll’s House: chronology of major early performances December 1879, Doll’s House, is published by Gyldendal, Copenhagen
December 1879 Royal Theatre Nora: Betty Hennings
Copenhagen
January 1880 Christiana Theatre Nora: Johanne Juell
Stockholm
March 1880 Residenztheater Nora: Marie Ramlo
Munich
1882 Warsaw Imperial Theatre Nora: Modjeska [Helene Modrzejewska]
June 1889 London Novelty Theatre (later the Kingsway) Nora: Janet Achurch
Director: Charles Charrington
February 1891 Teatro di Filodrammatici Nora: Eleonora Duse
Milan
April 1892 Avenue Theatre Nora: Janet Achurch
London
March 1893 Royalty Theatre Nora: Janet Achurch
London
October 1894 Deutsches Theater Nora: Agnes Sorma
Berlin Director: Otto Brahm
May 1897 Globe Theatre Nora: Janet Achurch
London
May 1905 New Lyceum Theatre Nora: Ethel Barrymore
New York
December 1906 Komissarzhevskaya Theatre Nora: Vera
St. Petersburg Director: Vsevolod Meyerhold Komissarzhevskaya
November 1917 Kammerspiele Nora: Irene Triesch
Berlin Director: Max Reinhardt
April 1918 Plymouth Theatre Nora: Alla Nazimova
New York
June 1918 Workers’ Club
Petrograd Director: Vsevolod
Meyerhold
February 1933 Companie Pitoëf Nora: Mme. Pitoëf
Paris
December 1937 Morosco Theatre Nora: Ruth Gordon
New York Director and Producer: Jed Harris
Performance and reception
Apart from the initial performances in Scandinavia between 1879 and 1880, for the first decade, audiences saw adaptations of A Doll’s House with a very different ending from the one Ibsen had written. This was initially due to Ibsen himself. Commenting later on the public reaction to Ghosts, he acknowledged “A writer dare not alienate himself so far from people that there is no longer any understanding between them and him” (Letter to Sophie Adlersparre, 1882). So when the Berlin actress Hedwig Niemann-Raabe, who was to play Nora in the first German production, declared she could never leave her children – and would be unable to play such an unnatural act convincingly – Ibsen revised the ending specifically for her.
Figure 4.1 A Doll’s House, Royal Theatre, Copenhagen: 1879. The ‘tarantella’ scene in Act II with Betty Hennings
At the same time in an open letter Ibsen protested against the change. Despite the growing acceptance of his work, he was forced to continue defending the integrity of the original ending by theatre managers who wished to stage the play in a form more acceptable to their audiences. His correspondence indicates the extent to which bourgeois society felt threatened by A Doll’s House, even over a decade after it first appeared.
Ibsen’s revised ending – with its sentimental appeal, restoration of the sexual status quo, and evasion of the moral issues raised in the preceding discussion – was preferred by such leading dramaturges as Heinrich Laube in Vienna and Maurice in Hamburg. It became the standard ending for European productions between 1880 and 1882, and formed the basis for further adaptations – as in Helene Modjeska’s Thora, first performed in St. Petersburg in 1881 then toured across America in 1883 – though even critics who objected to the original ending found the revision inconsistent:
A brilliant audience crowded Macaulay’s Theater last evening, the occasion being the first presentation in America of ‘Thora’, a Norwegian drama by Henrik Ibsen …
The drama opens promisingly … The third and last act, however, does not fulfill the promise of the first and second. It begins dramatically, but ends turgidly … finally through the medium of the children and some indefinite talk about ‘religion’ there is a reunion, a rushing together and a falling curtain on a happy family tableau. The principal inconsistency of the play is at this point. A woman cherishing as high an ideal of her husband as Thora did, and finding him as unworthy of it as Helmer was, cannot mount him again on his pinnacle through any such superficial means as here employed. In the original drama, Thora carries out the logic of the situation by leaving her husband. Probably after all the most consistent ending would be her death.
(Louisville Courier-Journal, 8 December 1883)
The most notorious of these adaptations was the English version of A Doll’s House, performed by Beerbohm-Tree in 1884 under the tide of Breaking a Butterfly. Although greeted with mixed reviews, the critical consensus was that this play – and, since it was taken to correspond to Ibsen’s text which was not yet available in translation, the original too – was unimportant and trifling. However, those English critics familiar with Ibsen’s text condemned the adaptation as a travesty. Arguing that “Ibsen’s drama is, in short, a plea for woman’s rights – not for her ri
ght to vote and prescribe medicine, but for her right to exist as a responsible member of society” William Archer pointed out that the adaptation had cut Nora’s children, removing the source of her anguish. In addition, a comic sister for Nora’s husband is substituted for the sombre figure of the dying Doctor; and Mrs. Linde, the woman who plays on the blackmailer’s better nature and persuades him to send back the forged document, is replaced by a book-keeper who steals the “fatal paper”. As one critic (Edward Aveling) pointed out, “the authors of this conventional little play have succeeded in the Herculean labour of making Ibsen appear common-place” and the type of alterations “are a sad reminder of the condition of our bourgeois morality generally” in reducing social analysis to standard melodrama:
… the whole moral of the Norwegian play is lost in the English version by Helmer taking upon himself the crime supposed to have been committed … It is however in the ending that the dramatists have most deeply sinned. Whatever may be thought of Ibsen’s ending, it is not conventional … the ending is as unhappy as it is truthful, and British audiences require the last words of a play to part of a chorus of general congratulations.
(Today, 1884)
4.3.2 Henrik Ibsen, the revised ending to A Doll’s House
Translated by Richard Badger
NORA. That our life together would be a real marriage. Goodbye. (She is about to go.)
HELMER. (Takes her by the arm) Go, if you must, but see your children for the last time.
NORA. Let me go. I don’t want to see them. I cannot.
HELMER. (Draws her towards the door at the left) You must see them. (Opens the door and says softly:) Do you see – there they sleep carefree and quiedy. Tomorrow when they awaken and call for their mother, they will have none …
A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre Page 12