Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

form the play was given eight times the following seasons. Since January 24, 1882, it has not been performed in Norway.9

At the beginning of the next season, October 29, 1854, Much Ado About Nothing was introduced to Kristiania theater-goers under the title Blind Alarm. The translation was by Carl Borgaard, director of the theater. But here, too, contemporary documents leave us in the dark. There is merely a brief announcement in the newspapers. Blanc informs us that Jomfru Svendsen played Hero, and Wiehe, Benedict.10

After Blind Alarm Shakespeare disappears from the repertoire for nearly four years. A version of The Taming of the Shrew under the title Hun Maa Tammes was given on March 28, 1858, but with no great success. Most of the papers ignored it. Aftenbladet merely announced that it had been given."

Viola, Sille Beyer's adaptation of Twelfth Night was presented at Christiania Theater on November 20, 1860, the eighth of Shakespeare's plays to be presented in Norway, and again not merely in a Danish text but in a version made for the Copenhagen Theater.

Neither the critics nor the public were exacting. The press hailed Viola as a tremendous relief from the frothy stuff with which theater-goers had been sickened for a season or two. "The theater finally justified its existence," says Morgenbladet,12 “by a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays. Viola was beautifully done." The writer then explains in conventional fashion the meaning of the English title and goes on-"But since the celebration of Twelfth Night could interest only the English, the Germans have "bearbeidet" the play and centered the interest around Viola. We have adopted this version." He approves of Sille Beyer's cutting, though he admits that much is lost of the breadth and overwhelming romantic fulness that mark the original. But this he thinks is compensated for by greater intelligibility and the resulting dramatic effect. "Men hvad Stykket ved saadan Forandring, Beklippelse, og Udeladelse saaatsige taber af sin Fylde idet ikke alt det Leende, Sorgløse og Romantiske vandre saa ligeberettiget side om side igjennem Stykket, mens det Øvrige samler sig om Viola, det opveies ved den større For

See Blanc's Fortegnelse. p. 93.
10 See Blanc's Fortegnelse. p. 93.
"Aftenbladet. March 22, 1858.
12 November 23, 1860.

staaelighed for vort Publikum og denne mere afrundede sceniske Virkning, Stykket ved Bearbeidelsen har faaet." As the piece is arranged now Viola, and her brother are not on the stage at the same time until Act V. Both rôles may therefore be played by Jomfru Svendsen. The critic is captivated by her acting of the double rôle, and Jørgensen's Malvolio and Johannes Brun's Sir Andrew Aguecheek share with her the glory of a thoroughly successful performance.

Sille Beyer's Viola was given twelve times. From the thirteenth performance, January 21, 1890, Twelfth Night was given in a new form based on Lembcke's translation.

A thorough search through the newspaper files fails to reveal even a slight notice of The Merchant of Venice (Kjøbmanden i Venedig) played for the first time on Sept. 17, 1861. Rahbek's translation was used, and this continued to be the standard until 1874, when, beginning with the eighth performance, it was replaced by Lembcke's.

We come, then, to A Midsummer Night's Dream (Skjærsommernatsdrømmen) played in Oehlenschläger's translation under Bjørnson's direction on April 17, 1865. The play was given ten times from that date till May 27, 1866. In spite of this unusual run it appears to have been only moderately successful, and when Bjørnson dropped it in the spring of 1866, it was to disappear from the repertoire for thirty-seven years. On January 15, 1903, it was revived by Bjørnson's son, Bjørn Bjørnson. This time, however, it was called Midsommernatsdrömmen, and the acting version was based on Lembcke's translation. In this new shape it has been played twenty-seven times up to January, 1913.

The interesting polemic which Bjørnson's production occasioned has already been discussed at some length. This may be according added, however: A play which, to the poet's confession, influenced his life as this one did, has played an important part in Norwegian literature. The influence may be intangible. It is none the less real.

More popular than any of the plays which had thus far been presented in Norway was A Winter's Tale, performed at Christiania Theater for the first time on May 4, 1866. The version used had, however, but a faint resemblance to the original. It was a Danish revision of Dingelstedt's Ein Wintermärchen. I shall

discuss this Holst-Dingelstedt text in another place. At this point it is enough to say that Shakespeare is highly diluted. It seems, nevertheless, to have been successful, for between the date of its premiere and March 21, 1893, when it was given for the last time, it received fifty-seven performances, easily breaking all records for Shakespearean plays at the old theater. And at the new National Theater, where it has never been given, no Shakespearean play, with the exception of The Taming of the Shrew has approached its record.

It

Aftenbladet13 in its preliminary review said: "Although this is not one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, it is well worth putting on, especially in the form which Dingelstedt has given to it. was received with the greatest enthusiasm." But Aftenbladet's promised critical review never appeared.

More interesting and more important than most of the performances which we have thus far considered is that of Henry IV in 1867, while Bjørnson was still director. To his desire to give Johannes Brun an opportunity for the display of his genius in the greatest of comic rôles we owe this version of the play. Bjørnson obviously could not give both parts, and he chose to combine cuttings from the two into a single play with Falstaff as the central figure. The translation used was Lembcke's and the text was only slightly norvagicized.

Bjørnson's original prompt book is not now available. In 1910, however, H. Wiers Jensen, a playwright associated with the National Theater, shortened and slightly adapted the version for a revival of the play, which had not been seen in Kristiania since February 8, 1885. We may assume that in all essentials the prompt book of 1910 reproduces that of 1867.

In this Kong Henrik IV the action opens with I Henry IV, II-4, and Act I consists of this scene freely cut and equally freely handled in the distribution of speeches. The opening of the scene, for example, is cut away entirely and replaced by a brief account of the robbery put naively into the mouth of Poins. The opening of Act II is entirely new. Since all the historical scenes of Act I of the original have been omitted, it becomes necessary to give the audience some notion of the background. This is done in a few lines in which the King tells of the revolt of the nobles and of his

13 May 5, 1866.

own difficult situation. Then follows the king's speech from Part I, Act III, Sc. 2:

Lords, give us leave; the prince of Wales and I

must have some conference. . . .

and what follows is the remainder of the scene with many cuttings. Sir Walter Blunt does not appear. His rôle is taken by Warwick. Act II, Sc. 2 of Bjørnson's text follows Part I, Act III, Sc. 3 closely.

Act III, Sc. 1 corresponds with Part I, Act III, Sc. 1 to the point where Lady Mortimer and Lady Percy enter. This episode is cut and the scene resumes with the entrance of the messenger in Part I, Act IV, Sc. 1, line 14. This scene is then followed in outline to the end.

Act III, Sc. 2 begins with Part I, Act IV, Sc. 3 from the entrance of Falstaff, and follows it to the end of the scene. To this is added most of Scene 4, but there is little left of the original action. Only the Falstaff episodes are retained intact.

The last act (IV) is a wonderful composite. Scene 1 corresponds closely to Part II, Act III, Sc. 4, but it is, as usual, severely cut. Scene 2 reverts back to Part II, Act III, Sc. 2 and is based on this scene to line 246, after which it is free handling of Part II, Act V, Sc. 3. Scene 3 is based on Part II, Act V, Sc. 5

A careful reading of Bjørnson's text with the above as a guide will show that this collection of episodes, chaotic as it seems, makes no ineffective play. With a genius—and a genius Johannes Brun was-as Falstaff, one can imagine that the piece went brilliantly. The press received it favorably, though the reviewers were much too critical to allow Bjørnson's mangling of the text to go unrebuked.

Aftenbladet has a careful review.14 The writer admits that in our day it requires courage and labor to put on one of Shakespeare's historical plays, for they were written for a stage radically different from ours. In the Elizabethan times the immense scale of these "histories" presented no difficulties. On a modern stage the mere bulk makes a faithful rendition impossible. And the moment one starts tampering with Shakespeare, trouble begins. No two adapters will agree as to what or how to cut. Moreover, 14 February 18, 1867.

UNIV. OF

101 CALIFORNIA

it may well be questioned whether any such cutting as that made for the theater here would be tolerated in any other country with a higher and older Shakespeare "Kultur." The attempt to fuse the two parts of Henry IV would be impossible in a country with higher standards. "Our theater can, however, venture undisturbed to combine these two comprehensive series of scenes into one which shall not require more time than each one of them singly a venture, to be sure, which is not wholly without precedent in foreign countries. It is clear that the result cannot give an adequate notion of Shakespeare's 'histories' in all their richness of content, but it does, perhaps, give to the theater a series of worth-while problems to work out, the importance of which should not be underestimated. The attempt, too, has made our theater-goers familiar with Shakespeare's greatest comic character, apparently to their immense delight. Added to all this is the fact that the acting was uniformly excellent."

But by what right is the play called Henry IV? Practically nothing is left of the historical setting, and the spectator is at a loss to know just what the whole thing is about. Certainly the whole emphasis is shifted, for the king, instead of being an important character is overshadowed by Prince Hal. The Falstaff scenes, on the other hand, are left almost in their original fulness, and thus constitute a much more important part of the play than they do in the original. The article closes with a glowing tribute to Johannes Brun as Falstaff.

Morgenbladets goes into greater detail. The reviewer seems to think that Shakespeare had some deep purpose in dividing the material into two parts-he wished to have room to develop the character of Prince Henry. "Accordingly, in the first part he gives us the early stages of Prince Hal's growth, beginning with the Prince of Wales as a sort of superior rake and tracing the development of his better qualities. In Part II we see the complete assertion of his spiritual and intellectual powers." The writer overlooks the fact that what Shakespeare was writing first of all-or rather, what he was revising-was a chronicle. If he required more than five acts to give the history of Henry IV he could use ten and call it two plays. If, in so doing, he gave admirable characterization, it was something inherent in his own genius, not in the materials with which he was working.

15 February 17, 1867.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »