Reviews

Four Great Plays by Henrik Ibsen by Henrik Ibsen

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balinmoreno's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

biolexicon's review against another edition

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1.0

Ugh. Maybe this review is going to be less about Ibsen and more about me. But oh well. There's a certain naivete and simplicity that runs throughout this book that just turns me off. Maybe that's indicative of this historical time, it's less connected and people knew less about the world around them. I've just been reading a bunch of historical plays and that's a feeling that I'm stuck with and I can't relate to it at all.
Also, about halfway through I'm thinking to myself "I'm not enjoying this" but trying to push through so I can understand it and why it's so important to the literary canon. But, after thinking it through, I don't think it's right for me to finish. I tend to read classics and some of them are far less interesting than the criticism and meta writing done about them. The actual classic itself is a bore.
So, after a while, I was just like, if I'm so interested and motivated by the literary canon maybe I should just go read some criticism and drop the original text.
So that's what I’m doing. It could completely be a misguided step but it's honest, in my quest as an intellectual and a reader that's all I can demand of myself.

casspro's review

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3.0

I don't know how I made it through 4 years of undergrad in a theatre program without ever having to read "A Doll's House." I'd always heard the reference to the most shocking exit in modern playwrighting, but I can now place it in its true context. Nora is a bit cloying, what with her whole performing squirrell routine, but she's got cajones.

I orginially got this collection for an acting class. I was assigned the scene in "An Enemy of the People" when Petra stands up to Hovstad about the book he needs translating and ultimately shames him for failing to stand behind a cause. It's a great political play with some feisty characters. An unexpected find.

"The Wild Duck" is my least favorite. A family of photographers are keeping a wild duck in their attic, which is I'm sure is another bird-in-a-cage metaphor. The pace is very slow compared to the other plays in the collection. But, three out of four ain't bad.

sebds3036's review against another edition

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5.0

Ibsen is ridiculously good at writing. Every character he creates has motive for their actions, and half of them you can't help hate from first sight because of how disgustingly prideful, scornful or dumb they are. Yet the wonderful thing about Ibsen is that in less than 100 pages and about four acts your perception of a character will utterly change.
Ibsen writes what is called the problem play, a convention of writing he created based on the "well-made play." Ibsen thus created a landing for modern literature. His work often reminds me of a sitcom, as the problems are simple yet delicately intertwined between many of the characters he creates. He is hands down one of the best in creating a scene that is real. Best of all, most of his plays in this series happen in one place, or one room, so you really get to know one setting and how it affects each of the characters.

A Doll's House is about Nora, married to Torvald Helmer, a woman who is decidedly happy about her life, yet is completely trapped in her past. Her character seems stupid flighty whiny and needy. When two characters form her past reappear Mrs. Linde and Krogstad who both vie for a position within the Helmer's life, Nora is forced to become a new person in an attempt to keep her life as it is, while it spirals out of control.

The Wild Duck follows the story of the Ekdal family, seemingly happy and satisfied with life. But when an old friend Gregers Werle appears, inviting Halmar Ekdal to join a party at his father's house, the hidden past of Gina Ekdal, Halmar's wife and their daughter Hedvig soon emerge. It is then that I came to dislike Halmar, for his blindness as well as his selfish and foolish actions. In this play familial ties plays a great role as well as the idea of sacrificing.

In Hedda Gabler, newlyweds Hedda and George Tesman arrive at their new house, dominated by a portrait of the late General Gabler, as well as furnishings depicting an arosticratic household. Yet Tesman is a bourgeois scholar attempting to attain professorship, to support Hedda his pregnant wife, who at first glace is a sour, frigid woman whow ants nothing to do with the Tesmans. As friends and ghosts from the past come visit Hedda is torn bewteen her duty to society and keeping up her farce of a marriage with Tesman or letting herself be once again affected by the debauched and Eilert Lovborg, who is seemingly 'rehabilitated' by Thea Elvstead, a former flame of Tesman. When Judge Brack inserts himself into the picture, slimy and propositioning Hedda, the situation goes awry. Throw in some guns, a stove, a manuscript, and a death motif associated with babies and you are in for a wild journey!

In the Master Builder, Mr. Solness, the master builder attempts to keep his position as the best builder in town by squashing the Brovik family, making them work for him. By seducing Kaja, Ragnar Brovik's betrothed Solness plans for the future as he prepares to move into a new home with his wife Aline, built where her family home once stood. When Miss Hilda appears in Solness' life, claiming that he owes a debt to her, his plans begin to go awry as she seduces him with her imagination.