by Henrik Ibsen in a new translation from the Norwegian by Michael Meyer
Produced by Peter Watts
This strange, sometimes puzzling, sometimes irritating, often over-contrived yet continuously fascinating play is among Ibsen's lesser-known works; welcome, therefore, to an excellent new translation by Michael Meyer. Written in 1894, it is a late piece, with Ibsen no longer so concerned with the individual and society as with individuals themselves. Here he comes to closer consideration than ever before of possible marriage problems on the physical side: passion is dead in Alfred Allmers, a rather priggish schoolteacher, though not in his wife Rita, and their crippled only child, Eyolf, suffers in consequence from his father's adoration and his mother's neglect. Also Allmers's relationship with his sister Asta involves complexes more commonly associated with Greek dramatists than the Norwegian. Yet the treatment of this powerful problematical situation is wholly Ibsenite, with its carefully woven provincial atmosphere and characteristic overplay of symbolism in speech and action. Peter Forster