Ibsen’s plays rank among those most frequently performed world-wide, rivaled only by Brecht, Chekhov, Shakespeare, and the Greek tragedies. By the time Ibsen died in 1906, his plays had already conquered the theaters of the Western world. Inviting rapturous praise as well as fierce controversy, they were performed in Europe, North America, and Australia, contributing greatly to the theater, culture, and social life of these continents. Soon after Ibsen’s death, his plays entered the stages of East Asia - Japan, China, Korea - as well as Africa and Latin America. . But while there exist countless studies on Ibsen the dramatist and the significance of his plays within different cultures written mainly by literary scholars, none of them examine the ways in which Ibsen's plays were performed, or the impact of such performances on the theater, social life, and politics of these cultures. In Global Ibsen, contributors look at the way performances of Ibsen's plays address problems typical to modern societies all over the world, including: the inferior social status of women, the decay of bourgeois family life and values, religious fundamentalism, industrial pollution and corporate cover-up, and/or the loss of and search for identity.

Contents

Introduction Erika Fischer-Lichte I. What Happened to the Women’s Liberation Movement? – A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler on stage 1. Ibsen on the Platteland: The first professional production of A Doll’s House in Afrikaans goes on tour Temple Hauptfleisch and Hilda van Lill 2. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in America Marvin Carlson 3. A Doll’s House in the Antipodes Jacqueline Martin 4. Canajun-eh? Finding a house for Nora in Canada Errol Durbach 5. Women’s issues and theater style: A Doll’s House in Japan Mitsuya Mori 6. Against love - Nora and Hedda on the contemporary Scandinavian stage Tiina Rosenberg 7. Deborah Warner directs Hedda Gabler: Mercurial Pistols Maria S II. Performing Peer Gynt – Negotiating Cultural Identity 8. Peer Gynt at the pyramids of Giza Nehad Selaiha 9. Peer Gynt in Israel: A national hero returning from exile? Freddie Rokem 10. Antunes Filho’s Peer Gynt - A remarkable production of Ibsen in Brazil Thereza Menezes 11. Patrice Chéreau’s Peer Gynt: A renewed reception of Ibsen’s theater in France Catherine Naugrette 12. Werner Egk’s Peer Gynt in Berlin 1938 - opera and politics Clemens Risi III. Modernization of Society and the Emergence of a New Theatre 13. Ghosts and gods: Ibsen, tragic actors and modern tragedies in contemporary Greek theater practice Platon Mavromoustakos 14. An Enemy of the People - the play that anticipates the future Wang Ning 15. An Enemy of the People as a ‘Trojan Horse’ - Frank Castorf stages Ibsen in the German Democratic Republic 1988 Barbara Gronau 16. Rosmersholm in the Moscow Art Theater (1908) and it’s First Studio (1918) Dmitry Trubotc...