23. On Ibsen's Dramatic Technique

The modernity of Henrik Ibsen's spirit can be observed in his dramatic technique no less than in the problems he deals with. One need only compare the dramatic structure of Hamlet or Wallenstein with that of Ghosts to see what modern drama is. Edgar Steiger has described this spirit of the new drama in his book "Das Werden des neuen Dramas" (Berlin, 1898. F. Fontane & Co.) in a way that will find little favor with scholars, which is by no means flawless, but nevertheless appealing and full of light.

He rightly points out that Ibsen's technique is in some respects similar to that of the old Greek tragedians. Just think of "Oedipus the King". All the events here take place before the poet begins his drama. Only the immense torments of the soul and the sublimely gruesome moods that develop from these events come before our eyes. It has therefore been said that the Greeks did not produce complete dramas, but only fifth acts. And is it not the same with the "Ghosts", for example? Isn't everything decisive and objective here also before the beginning of the drama?

Steiger aptly points out the differences in the sources from which such similarities in technique between the ancients and Ibsen emerge. For the Greeks, drama developed from musical-religious cults, from the worship of Dionysus. They were not interested in the depiction of external events, but in the expression of the devotion which the counsels of the gods, who brought about those events, instilled in them. They wanted to express their devotion, their religious mood in their poetry; not to embody what they had observed.

And Steiger explains just as clearly how, under the influence of a different world view, Shakespeare had to develop a different dramatic technique. "Shakespearean tragedy has no such distinguished past as ancient Greek tragedy. The medieval mysteries and carnival plays, in which we have to see the ancestors of the newer theater, both paid homage to the brave principles of Goethe's theater director in "Faust": above all, they wanted to entertain the people. The mysteries were intended to compensate the devout for the boredom of the sermon, and in the carnival plays the worthy fellow citizens were allowed to laugh at the stupidity and meanness of their dear neighbors." The aim of the play was not the solemn elevation to the gods, but the amusement of worldly things. "The main thing, then, was to give the people plenty to look at; for if only the eye had its constant occupation, the poets and players need not fear for success. The more sad and funny adventures, sublime speeches and mean jokes alternated with each other, the better! ... Shakespeare thus found a real play, from which the audience demanded that the great deeds of history, the adventures of the heroes and the follies of their dear neighbors be presented to them in the flesh. Thus, unlike the Greek poets, he did not have to sensualize musical sentiments and lyrical thoughts, but to internalize external events and adventures, murderous deeds and pranks."

The way Shakespeare went about it shows that he was a child of his time. He lived in an era in which attention was focused on the great, on the external. It was the great main and state actions, the actions visible from afar, that people's eyes were focused on at the time. "Kings and heroes walk across the stage on a gigantic scale, and the fools become like kings. Everything grows immense. Only the times and the historical distances shrink according to an arbitrary perspective. We clearly sense that we are living in the age of the telescope."

Natural science was also inspired by this spirit at the time. What was visible to the naked eye was studied. Nothing was known of the microscopic small things from which modern science seeks to investigate the laws of the great. If Shakespeare had wanted to show from the stage the subtle vibrations of the soul into which people were transported by the outside world, no one would have understood him. No one would have visualized the external causes, the actions themselves, from the effect on people's inner selves. That has changed today. The modern poet has adopted the microscopic view of the modern naturalist. "We see too much: that's why we have to narrow our field of vision. To exhaust a single human soul with our gaze seems to us a Danaid's labor. That's why we don't need kings and heroes in poetry; the poorest devil of a worker can be more interesting to us under certain circumstances. After all, we don't want to paint crowns and purple cloaks, but only souls, living human souls - and who knows whether we would find one under the purple - at least the kind we need, a soul in which the great, torn century is reflected? "

Henrik Ibsen therefore cuts out a microscopic specimen of human life and lets us guess everything else from it. This is the basis of his dramatic technique. He gradually works his way towards this technique. In the "Bund der Jugend", in the "Stützen der Gesellschaft", in the "Volksfeind" he still seeks to present a macroscopic picture, as complete a plot painting as possible; later he only describes the interior of the souls who have experienced this painting, and opens up the retrospective view of the painting to us. How little happens in the "Ghosts"! In the morning, a pastor visits a widow; on the following day, he is to dedicate an asylum to the memory of her deceased husband. The asylum burns down; the pastor leaves without having achieved anything; and after his departure, the widow's son goes mad. - But what is going on in the souls of those involved during this meagre plot? A look back into a rich past, into a rich drama opens up before us.

Now Ibsen has a special secret of dramatic technique. In the limited slice of reality that he presents to us, he suggests everything we need in order to draw our attention to the entire plot that is under consideration but not depicted.

Steiger draws attention to individual such suggestive features. "For the time being, through the inner tension of the dramatic process and the vivid power of the skilfully stylized sounds of nature, he brings the trembling soul of his people so close to us that we feel their memory images as if they were real." But once this has happened, he needs a second means. He lets us experience an external event on stage, which we only need to move backstage so that dramatic reality is transformed into fantasy, "and we have actually experienced both past and present in the same way. The objectification of the image of memory and the internalization of stage reality thus work into each other's hands in order to achieve sensual effects just as strong as the appearance of the earlier theater. We find a classic example of this in the first act of "Ghosts. In Mrs. Alving's animated narrative, the entire past of the house comes before our eyes as vividly as if we were seeing and hearing the deceased chamberlain himself bantering with his maid in the flower room. Suddenly we really do hear the whispering voices of Oswald and Regina from the flower room and see Mrs. Alving, pale as death, slowly rising from her chair and, as if petrified, pointing to the door, slurring the half-stitched words: "Ghosts! The couple in the flower room is dead!" Here we have a past dramatically embodied before us in an immediately present action.

The art of directing must take up this peculiarity of Ibsen's technique when presenting his works. From this point of view, the question of dramatic technique becomes a dramaturgical one. What one is entitled to call Ibsen style on stage must begin at this point. For the art of acting has the task of embodying. It must present with external stage means, visible to the senses, what the poet has in mind in his imagination. The parallel processes - one of reality, the other as an image of memory - must be worked out by dramatic art. How this is to be done in each individual case must be left to the stage practitioner. The only certainty is that we will only experience satisfying performances of Ibsen's dramas when the stage style is developed in this direction. As long as this is not the case, these stage works will always seem like dramatized novellas to the audience. We must realize that even in these dramas it is not the what that matters, but the how. To express the what, Ibsen could also choose any other form of poetry. He needs the stage because he uses artistic means that go beyond mere narration, which must be embodied if they are to be effective in all their power.

Steiger again aptly remarks: "The dramatic double images, the second of which brings the first to mind in a flash, are not an invention of Ibsen's, but this poet must make excellent use of them in his modern technique. Perhaps all it takes is a gentle nudge and one or other of our directors will become a treasure digger, dragging hidden glories from the depths of Shakespeare's poetry onto the stage. In Ibsen's work, no one passes by these double images carelessly. Because here they must immediately catch the eye of anyone who is not blind."