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A review by sebds3036
Four Major Plays: Volume 1 by Henrik Ibsen
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.
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.