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Brand
A powerful production of
Ibsen’s lesser-known early work with Ralph Fiennes’ tour de force
acting as Brand makes this a must-see. Developed as a play
in 1885 from his prose poem, “Brand” was inspired by Greek tragedy,
in which the protagonist, backed by a chorus, is confronted by individuals
offering him choices, attempting in vain to persuade him to change
his unrelenting views.
Resembling the distant  mountain
crags at the base of a symbolic set of wood slats, now green, now
black, Fiennes’ Brand stands with fists clenched or buried in his
pockets, legs akimbo, turned-down mouth, eyes glaring beneath close-cropped
hair. Describing himself as a “mission preacher,” he
travels the harsh terrain, urging his countrymen to rebel against
their comfortable ways and old, paternalistic God and to accept
his vision of the deity as a courageous warrior demanding from them
“all or nothing.”
As the play opens, Brand is symbolically struggling
through Norway’s dangerous mountain ways, with ice cracking under
his feet, heading towards a crevass, as older heads warn him to
turn back and to avoid an avalanche. Complaining that they are dying
of starvation, the people are told “God has scourged you with the
whip of death,” If they have no courage, he warns them, they
are not worthy of salvation.
When the sun appears,  Brand
encounters an old school friend dancing and singing with a beautiful
young girl, Agnes (Claire Price). She is smitten by Brand’s
dynamism, and, as his flock refuse to join him in a boat to
cross threatening waters, only Agnes, inspired, volunteers to accompany
him.
A mad young girl on the mountain warns against
attacks by the dangerous trolls and the Satan-like hawk, and points
out that the church in his village is old and ugly, while the ice-church
at the top of the mountain is large and beautiful. Nearing his gray
birthplace, Brand remarks that it seems smaller, and recalls a lonely
childhood.
Another encounter is with his mother (Susan
Engel), as tough and unrelenting as he is. Her sin, he reminds
her, is that of greed, from which she must repent or die damned.
He remembers his horror as a child seeing her rob his dead father.
The Mayor, a devotee of tradition, senses that Brand is a trouble-maker
and attempts in vain to keep him from settling in his hometown.
The two men declare war.
Although there is talk of going “south,”
the characters never do so, and the harshness of the setting reflects
Brand and his God. Peter McKintosh’s set reinforces
the symbolism, with the shiny stage floor resembling ice on
which one must tread carefully, the green slats at times suggesting
trees, through which light can peer, or darkened by Peter Mumford’s
lighting, becoming a black interior, in which Brand cries, at the
end of the first act, “Jesus, show me the light.”
Three years later Brand and Agnes are married
and have a child. In the most painful sequence in the play,
she is persuaded by Brand that to truly love God, she must give
up all – including their son, who dies. Reminding her, “was
I not a priest before I was a father?” Brand insists that she follow
his credo, that to serve God one must give “all or nothing.” He
orders her to give away the baby’s clothes, which she has treasured,
and to close the shutters against the Christmas candles she lit
in hope that the baby might see them from his grave. Now his “all
or nothing” belief is turned on Brand himself, as Agnes reminds
him that he must now choose: will he truly give “all” and make the
final sacrifice – Agnes herself? He will. Agnes dies.
Freedom of choice is desirable, suggests Ibsen, but warns of danger
if the wrong choice is made. In this scene Agnes represents
love and humanity, while Brand lacks both.
Brand’s dying mother sends for him to give
her the last rites, but he refuses to come until she agrees to give
“all” -- the money she has scrimped and saved over the years.
This she refuses to do, and he refuses to attend her.
When she dies, Brand inherits the considerable fortune she would
not relinquish, even though it meant damnation. He will,
however, use it to build a big, new church in the village. The mayor
declares Brand has won, telling him “you have the people on your
side.” Now the Mayor welcomes the new building for the
town, saving the money he would have spent on a combination poorhouse
and jail.
Although the language is poetic, Ibsen’s condemnation
of restrictive social conventions is outspoken in his characterization
of the hypocritical mayor and that of other public officials.
Their holding onto their comforts, rather than sacrificing for the
greater good, their greed, and their suspicion of Brand as a threat,
all come to a head on the day of dedication of the new church.
The people have flocked to support now-rich Brand. But
he realizes that the newly built church is the same as the old church,
and he mounts the rostrum to exhort the village people to abandon
their old, comfortable ways and strive for a hard new life.
If you thought Fiennes as Brand had reached
the acting heights already, you were mistaken. There is even
more. This amazing actor has resources of power he now unleashes,
as he preaches at the people, working them up into a frenzy, as
entranced, they wave their arms about their heads and shout his
name in unison. Director Adrian Noble is to be commended both
for his work with the individual actors, all of them excellent,
and also for the choral crowd scenes. Noble is attuned
to Ibsen’s command of theatricality as this scene mounts in tension,
with the people rushing off at the end, following Brand.
But as they ascend the mountain, they cannot
bear the hardships in this replay of the opening scene. Not
finding a land of milk and honey, they turn against Brand and stone
him. In the final scene, stumbling and bleeding, he enters
alone. His impassioned final soliloquy questions his beliefs
and his choices, and he hears a voice from above declaring the importance
of love. Brand’s final encounter is with the mad girl.
She remarks that the palms of his hands are bleeding as if they
had had nails in them, and that the blood on his forehead might
have been made by a crown of thorns. To shoot the Satan-hawk,
she fires a rifle, something to be avoided in mountains piled deep
with snow. The play concludes with a deafening sound as the
ice cracks, and the wood panels lift to reveal a dazzling white
avalanche.
Ghosts
The audience was shocked again
by the subject matter of "Ghosts," -- venereal disease. 
The play concerns the damage done to a woman by strict adherence
to the conventions of marriage, regardless of the circumstances.
Married to a profligate husband, whose excesses she discovers soon
after the wedding, she flees to Pastor Manders for refuge.
Despite their affection for each other, Manders encourages her to
return to Alving and preserve the marriage. To save their
son, Oswald, from learning the truth about his father, she sends
the boy away to school, and creates for him and the community at
large an image of Alving as an upstanding philanthropist and citizen.
Pastor Manders encourages this endeavor.
As the action begins, Oswald, now grown but in ill
health, returns home for the dedication of an orphanage in the name of his
father, perpetuating the myth of Alving’s virtues. Manders, who has
handled the details of the building, arrives to welcome Oswald, and
although the parson has not changed his narrow views over the years, Mrs.
Alving has read liberal publications and has widened her outlook – she is
the New Woman. But she is trapped once again, as Oswald’s illness
increases and his symptoms reveal that he has inherited the venereal
disease of his father.
A brilliant production in London in the summer
of 2001 starred Francesca Annis as Mrs. Alving and Anthony Andrews
as Parson Manders. In their memorable encounter, in which
we learn how the years have affected each of them, these expert
actors revealed hidden depths of feeling through their nuances
in speech and gesture. In the final scene, when Oswald
pleads for euthanasia, Annis was brilliant as his anguished mother.
Hedda
Gabler
Henrik Ibsen, to
whom Arthur Miller acknowledges a debt in his Introduction  to
the Collected Plays, is represented in London
by what must the best production of Hedda
Gabler in recent memory. Miller admired Ibsen’s ability to “dramatize
what has gone before” to achieve “a viable unveiling of the contrast
between past and present” and his “insistence upon valid causation.” These qualities are admirably present in Richard
Eyre’s production. With
Eve best in the title role, Hedda is
a woman with no outlet for her emotions, taking refuge from boredom
by manipulating others, and lacking the
opportunity or inclination to attain the freedom
that eludes her. As her
boundaries close in upon her, realizing that she will be forced
to submit to the advances of Judge Brack (Iain Glen), the neighbor she encourages but detests,
she takes the only path open to her. As in all Ibsen’s plays,
the end is inevitable.
Miss Best as Hedda
is an incarnation of “The Scream,” the most famous of all Norwegian
painter Munch’s masterpieces. Her ability to display the many facets of Hedda is phenomenal : the surface of cool disinterest concealing
a boiling frustration within; the malicious jibes at her husband’s
beloved Aunt, the envy of golden-haired Thea
(Lisa Dillon) who has done what Hedda
lacks the courage to do – walk out on the security of her home
– and the cruel disdain for her eager-to-please husband, scholarly
Tesman (Benedict Cumberbatch), all build up to her destruction of the life
and the work of the one man she might have loved. Not only does Ms. Best act with great economy,
every detail adding to her characterization, but also she reacts
brilliantly to the actions and dialogue of other members of the
excellent ensemble cast,
reactions that reveal much about the character.
By the end, we know Hedda better than
we know many who are close to us.
Hurry to the Duke of York’s Theatre, for this is a limited
run. (St.Martin’s Lane, London
WC2N 4BG, phone 0870 060 6623)
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