Frederick J. Marker

William Bloch and Naturalism in the Scandinavian Theatre

Stage naturalism made its first appearance in Denmark—and, for that matter, in Scandinavia as a whole—unaccompanied by the fanfare or enthusiastic manifestoes which heralded its arrival in many other countries. The breakthrough of this new style of theatrical production did not coincide with the founding of small, independent art theatres like Andre Antoines Theâtre Libre (1887), Otto Brahms Freie Buhne (1889), J. T. Greins Independent Theatre (1891), or, somewhat later, Stanislavskis Moscow Art Theatre (1898). Nor was it acclaimed from the outset as a pioneering realization of a novel aesthetic program. On the contrary, the methods and techniques of the new naturalism were introduced, and proceeded to take root inconspicuously, when the Danish Royal Theatre in Copenhagen engaged the 36-year-old playwright William Bloch as a stage director in 1881, having been impressed with an “unusual eye for scenic requirements” in his plays. Two years later, Blochs epoch-making production of Ibsens An Enemy of the People firmly implanted the new ideas.

A History of Scandinavian Theatre

Part I. From the Middle Ages to a Golden Age: 1. Early stages 2. Theatre at court 3. Playhouses of the eighteenth century 4. The Gustavian age 5. The romantic theatre and its aftermath Part II. Pioneers of Modern and Postmodern Theatre: 6. Ibsens Norway 7. Naturalism and the director 8. The Strindberg challenge 9. The modernist revolt 10. Tradition and experiment since 1945 11. The plurality of postmodern theatre.

Ibsen and the Scandinavian Theatre

A comprehensive stage history of Henrik Ibsen’s plays is long overdue. When, as we must all hope it will, such a project finally does become a reality, a central place within it will be reserved for the history of Ibsen performances in the Scandinavian theatre-from the context of which he emerged as a dramatist and to which his plays have never ceased to bear a unique and seminal relationship. From the outset of his career, as a stage director in Bergen and subsequently in Christiania (now Oslo), Ibsen developed a keen sense of the practicalities and performance conditions of the living theatre that never left him. These early experiences as a director should not be neglected, for they sharpened his extraordinary sensitivity to the poetry of environment in the theatre. In staging the first productions of his own early saga dramas, he taught himself to write a carefully visualised, highly charged physical mise-en scene into his plays, aimed at concretising the psychological states and spiritual conditions of his characters and designed to create a specific mood that would enhance and strengthen the spiritual action. Costumes, settings, props and lighting effects remained, from the beginning of his career to its end, the syntax of his dramatic poetry.