The year 2006 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and was packed with events across the UK to celebrate the man whose plays are claimed to be the world's second performed works after William Shakespeare’s.
The year was kicked off already in December 2005 with London's Donmar Warehouse staging a new version of 'The Wild Duck' which ran until mid-February. By that time, the theatre-goers in the capital had two more Ibsen plays to see, 'Ghosts' was playing at The New Wimbledon Theatre by Logos Theatre Group whilst Dale Teater Kompani performed 'Little Eyolf' at The Riverside Studios.
The Ibsen year itself was officially opened on 24 January at the Riverside Studios by Eve Best, famed for her interpretation of Hedda Gabler which also landed her the 2006 Olivier Award for best actress. At the event, British actress Vanessa Redgrave was presented with the Ibsen Centennial Award for her outstanding work in interpreting many of Ibsen's works over the last decades. In addition, both Best and Redgrave were given artworks from the Ibsen Art exhibition where six Norwegian contemporary artists had been challenged to interpret an Ibsen play in their own art form.
Eve Best and Vanessa Redgrave with the artworks from Ibsen Art 2006 that were presented to them during the official opening of the Ibsen Year in the UK at London's Riverside Studios.
Photo: Thomas Aastad / Royal Norwegian Embassy
The Ibsen Year continued outside of London with 'Hedda Gabler' attracting full houses at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds. Ibsen's twisted heroine gained further exposure in March at Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, before conquering Shakespeare's birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon where community-based drama group Second Thoughts performed the play over four nights.
Innovative and educational theatre company, Twelve Three and A Half, fittingly chose 'A Doll's House' as their first ever production, whilst Ibsen once again proved his popularity 100 years on when 'An Enemy of the People' was staged at Wokingham Theatre. Later, the Royal Manor Theatre Company brought the story of debt, flirtation and adultery to Portland, Dorset, when Nora and 'A Doll's House' hit the town with full force.
During the spring, Asian-led theatre company Tara Arts transported 'An Enemy of the People' to a setting in British India and took the play on tour across the UK. The spring also saw an Ibsen panel discussion at the British Library on 23 May, the exact day of the centenary of Ibsen's death. A number of famous figures from the British theatre world including Vanessa Redgrave, Stephen Unwin, Eve Best and David Thacker discussed Ibsen's continuing relevance to today's audiences, and shared their experiences of acting in and directing Ibsen's dramas. The event, which was chaired by Mariella Frostrup, followed a seminar exploring the theme of Ibsen in the UK. Speakers were Professor Tore Rem from Oslo University, Professor Gunilla Anderman from University of Surrey Guildford and the novelist and critic Paul Binding. The seminar was chaired by Dr Marie Wells.
Mariella Frostrup, Vanessa Redgrave, Eve Best, Stephen Unwin and David Thacker discuss Ibsen at the British Library.
Photo: Line Aandal Røijen / Royal Norwegian Embassy
Ibsen continues to appeal to both established and emerging actors. For instance, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art's final year students chose the rarely performed 'Love's Comedy' as one of their graduating productions. After the summer, Wildfire, a theatre company set up to provide opportunities for aspiring theatre professionals, staged 'Hedda Gabler' at Barons Court Theatre in London. This was the fourth production in 2006 of the play which evolves around a dangerously bored Hedda who returns from her honeymoon to find no outlet for her passion for life, in a house she no longer wants and with a husband she can barely stand. Her only diversions are her father's pistols and her deadly talent for manipulating the lives of her friends and acquaintances.
Ibsen's other infamous female character Nora from 'A Doll's House' was the main inspiration for an installation of more than 30 fashion photographs at London's The Wapping Project. Renowned fashion photographer Thomas Zanon-Larcher shot model Felicity Gilbert in locations around Oslo to portray her as Nora in a fresh, filmic way to tell fashion stories.
Model Felicity Gilbert as Nora, dressed in Margaret Howell, at the Deichmanske Library in Oslo in a photo from the exhibition 'Jerwood: free and framed' at The Wapping Project.
Photo: Thomas Zanon-Larcher
The Ibsen centenary continued in Eastbourne with a new translation of ‘Ghosts’, whilst the Barbican in London hosted an event ‘Women and Ibsen’ in which two films and a screentalk investigated the playwright’s continued impact upon women around the world today. The last 12 months have also seen two new Ibsen studies being published in the UK; Paul Binding’s ‘With Vine-Leaves in His Hair’ and Toril Moi’s ‘Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism’.
The Ibsen Year was also marked in Scotland where, for instance, the five plays ‘Waiting for Romeo’, ‘Hedda Gabler’, ‘The Man of the Future is Dead’, ‘Nora’ and ‘The Gyntish Self’ were staged at the Hill Street Theatre in Edinburgh. Simultaneously, a panel discussion with leading theatre directors and practitioners talking about their Ibsen experiences was chaired by top reporter Joyce McMillan at the Traverse Theatre in the Scottish capital.
Even though the Ibsen Year 2006 is now drawing to a close, 2007 is promising to be another successful year for the Norwegian playwright 101 years after his death. The Gate Theatre in Notting Hill puts on 'Ghosts' in January, and so does the Old Vic in Bristol - only the first of many British theatres set to perform Ibsen next year…
Thomas Aastad / Royal Norwegian Embassy