Product Description

The translations, created through a fresh approach to the Norwegian original in tandem with a keen sense of Ibsen's theatricallity and playability, have all been tested and refined in productions at professional theaters.

The translators have paid particular attention to three aspects of Ibsen's technique: his wit and humor, his "supertext" - the web of rich allusions and references that he weaves in and around his dialogue - and the bold theatricallity of the plays. The result is an Ibsen that sounds contemporary without being slangy or colloquial - an Ibsen of strong ideas but also living characters - and surprisingly different from the image of the cold, forbidding "scold of the North" that we often associate with this giant writer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5065581 in Books
• Published on: 1965-01-02
• Original language: Norwegian
• Binding: Paperback

From Library Journal
Students and theater artists engaged in either the study or performance of Ibsen's work have traditionally encountered the dichotomy of being faithful to Ibsen's intense realism while struggling with conservative and stilted translations. Davis and Johnston, a director/dramaturg and a professor of dramatic literature, respectively, responded to this inherent difficulty by collaborating to create new and excellent translations of four of Ibsen's most produced plays: A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, and Hedda Gabler. Standard English translations by Michael Meyer and Rolf Fjelde are comparatively dense and theatrically thick next to Davis and Johnston's texts. Their efforts are more forceful, given the production-oriented impetus of their original work together. The profanity, for example, found throughout An Enemy of the People is not diluted as it is in most translations, but given full vent. Davis and Johnston have successfully translated Ibsen for the contemporary stage, and this major work will be of significance to anyone involved with the playwright's work.?Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In his time, Ibsen was a radical and freethinker who loved to shock the sleepy bourgeoisie with his art. You would never guess this from the stuffy, stiff, unspeakably dull translations of his plays long current in the English-speaking theater. Rick Davis and Brian Johnston attempt to ameliorate this lamentable state of affairs with new versions of A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, and Hedda Gabler. For the most part, they succeed. The immensely readable translations of the latter two plays in particular are absorbing, exciting, and inspired. Less satisfying is their Ghosts, a play, however, which has long been unsatisfying, thanks to its medically discredited premise that venereal disease is hereditary. All four of these versions have been "production-tested," which shows in their graceful and believable dialogue and their sheer theatricality. Davis and Johnston have unlocked the power in Ibsen's works and made it clear why Ibsen was once the playwright for firebrands, Fabians, and other progressives throughout the world. Jack Helbig

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Norwegian

Customer Reviews

Ibsen, by Rick Davis
This multi-volume set of Ibsen's work, edited and compiled by Chicago/Evanston author Rick Davis is a little masterpiece.

The new adaptations are marvelous, and Mr. Davis' commentaries show us how Ibsen is a master crafsperson, and how his work may be best contrasted with Strindberg -- who is anything but a master editor and foundation layer.

I think Mr. Davis shows us how important precision and planning can be to the writing process. Therefore I think this book is a must have for screenwriters, as well as fiction-writers -- not to mention playrights.

An Enemy of the People
I intend only to review one play of these four, An Enemy of the People. As for the Signet editions and their translations, well, in terms of paper and print, you get what you pay for. You can carry them in your jeans pocket, but don't wait too long to read them, lest the paper yellows and crumbles in your fingers.

An Enemy of the People is Ibsen's most explicitly political play, and the one that critics refer to most often when attempting to pin down the playwright's political stance. The fourth act of the drama consists chiefly of Doctor Stockman's spontaneous ranting and raving against the tyranny of the majority - the democratic mass of ignorant and short-sighted ordinary people who have failed to accept his advice. "The majority is never right!" he declares; "That's one of those social lies that any free man who thinks for himself has to rebel against.... all over this whole wide earth, the stupid are in a fearsomely overpowering majority..... The right is with me, and the other few, the solitary individuals. The minority is always right." Later in his tirade, he continues: "I'm thinking of the few, the individuals among us, who've mastered all the new truths that have been germinating. Those men are out there holding their positions like outposts, so far in the vanguard that the solid majority hasn't even begun to catch up..." Such anti-democratic, anti-liberal declarations have earned Ibsen a reputation among some critics of being a prophet of fascism -- he was in fact Hitler's favorite playwright -- but a careful comparison will show that Doctor Stockman sounds a good deal more like a character in an Ayn Rand novel than like the 'hero' of Mein Kampf. Listen to Stockman's last words, at the end of act five, standing in the middle of his vandalized clinic and confronted a ruined career: "I've made a great discovery!... the strongest man in the world is the one who stands most alone!"

Recent audiences seem disposed to take Stockman at his own estimation. The BBC adaptation of Enemy transposes the danger to the community that Stockman has discovered from sewage contamination of the Spa to chemical pollution, and portrays Stockman as a staunch monitor against environmental catastrophe. It would, I think, be quite easy to rewrite Ibsen's play as an outcry of alarm against the deniers of global warming. But frankly, I don't think Ibsen had anything so obvious and unambiguous in mind. Perhaps I'm just reluctant to accept the idea that a great playwright could be a total fool. The play is clearly not about pollution, but about the 'balance' of values between the exceptional individual and the ordinary throng.

Doctor Stockman, by his own evaluation, is the exceptional individual, and for the moment at least the embodiment of the "prophet without honor in his own country." However, the play is rife with clues that we the audience are not required to accept Stockman's self-assessment. First, of course, any rash madman can proclaim himself a genius, and Stockman is plainly a bit of a madman. He has, after all, put himself and his family in dire straits. He's also, by his own admission, remarkably naive for an "exceptional" mind -- utterly blind to the possibility that others might have other understandings than his. He loudly declares his indifference to public opinion of his personal worth, yet in fact he is painfully susceptible to the doubts of others about his motives and hysterically committed to vindicating his "honor'. In the end, he'd rather 'be right' - in his own mind - than 'do right'. His bizarre father-in-law, in fact, provides him with the chance to do something concrete - not without struggle and cost, but effectively for the best interest of the community - to take on the pragmatic task of cleansing the Spa of disease organisms. The mere possibility that the community might suspect him of self-interest, however, throws him into a tizzy of abnegation and isolation, and the scary scheme of 'educating' his sons and a few other children essentially as disciples of his proto-Objectivist philosophy. Stockman may be totally right about the hazard of pollution and yet be recognized as a quixotic megalomaniacal crank, a man of no possible use to his community.

What then did Ibsen intend? After all, in Peer Gynt he'd already expressed his horror of everything mediocre; Doctor Stockman would have no reason to fear the "button-maker" who comes to recycle the 'souls' of ordinary men. But "An Enemy of the People" is too rich in irony and tragicomedy to be another affirmation of libertarian individualism. It can only be coherently read as proof of the futility of the 'superior' outsider. It's just a quick half-turn from Doctor Stockman to Ralph Nader... or to my own Harvard classmate Ted Kaczynski.

Are the Pillars of Society, Really Pillars of Society?
Four Major Plays, Volume I (Signet Classics)

An Enemy of the People


Dr Stockman: "The whole Bath establishment is a whited, poisoned sepulcher. I tell you - the gravest possible danger to public health! All the nastiness up at Mollidol, all that stinking filth, is infecting the water in the conduit pipes leading to the Reservoir.
(Pointing to letter) Here it is! It proves the presence of decaying organic matter in the water; it is full of infusoria. The water is absolutely dangerous to use... either internally or externally." (An Enemy of the People, Act I)

Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People" tells the story of a conscientious man of science, Dr. Stockman, who, as the public health official for his town, feels duty bound to report scientific evidence of disease; and the burgomasters and civic leaders who see his warnings about pollution of the new public baths as a negative factor in the city's progress. The play can be read as a corollary on global warning, dependence on oil, or conspicuous consumption and Wall Street Greed. Or, as Arthur Miller interpreted it in his 1950's adaptation of Ibsen's play, a commentary on the folly of popular opinion: expressly, the public hysteria over McCarthyism.

HOVSTAD: The man who would ruin a whole community must be an enemy of society!
DR. STOCKMANN: It doesn't matter if a lying community is ruined!... You'll poison the whole country in time; you will bring it to such a pass that the whole country will deserve to perish. And should it come to this, I say, from the bottom of my heart: Perish the country! Perish all its people!

Ibsen is a tragedian in the tradition of the Greeks, Marlowe and Shakespeare. His language may be a bit stilted for today's tastes, but his message is still relevant.