The woman in question De Ambrogi, Marco
The Lancet (British edition),
03/2017, Letnik:
389, Številka:
10073
Journal Article
Recenzirano
...it is Hedda Gabler, the central character of Henrik Ibsen's play of 1891, as presented in a production based on an adaptation by Patrick Marber at London's National Theatre. To cast fresh light on ...this enigmatic character, one of the most avant-garde theatre directors in Europe, Belgian Ivo van Hove, has joined forces with the superb acting skills of Ruth Wilson in the title role.
Henrik Ibsen's plays were written at a critical juncture in late-19th-century European culture. Appearing at a time when notions of evolution and heredity were commonplace themes in literature and ...the arts, Ibsenian drama highlights the creative potential offered by contemporary evolutionary thought. In his plays, Ibsen explores variations on the theme of degeneration, imagining how families can become affected by ill-health or other forms of "weakness" that lead to the extinction of the family line. Ibsen and Degeneration looks at the recurrence of ideas of degeneration in three of Ibsen's plays: In Ghosts, it is the motif of syphilis, highly shocking to Ibsen's contemporaries, which serves as an allegory of degeneration. In Rosmersholm, degeneration is reconfigured as an overcultivation that eventually makes a family unfit for life. In Hedda Gabler, meanwhile, Hedda, having been, for all practical purposes, raised as a man, has come to think of herself as one, a circumstance that informs her final decision to end her life - her final degeneration. By reading these three plays from a fresh perspective, Ibsen and Degeneration sheds new light on some of Ibsen's most enduring contributions to world drama.
Dukore recalls William Archer's lonely voice against censorship at the 1892 Select Committee on Theatres and Places of Entertainment as well as dramatists' increasing recourse to private performances ...to circumvent the Lord Chamberlain's refusal to license plays. The comparative approach to the film versions of Pygmalion, Saint Joan, Major Barbara, and Caesar and Cleopatra opens a constructive analysis of the various forms of censorship at work through the production process and of Shaw's responses, including selfcensorship, in different contexts. ...they reveal that even before the award of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature and his "status enshrined" (158), Shaw had gained a reputation by 1909 that rendered the censors lukewarm about demanding cuts.
While J. R. R. Tolkien theoretically avoids focusing on tragedy, he uses multiple instances of the literary archetype in his legendarium. The tragedy of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings is a two-facet ...conundrum resolved if exposed to its two originating aspects. If the originating phase of the tragedy is proved to be Gollum's time-worn background, then he is regarded as the representative of a prince who undergoes the medieval tradition of tragedy. His greedy aspiration for the Ring--which becomes the symbol of defiling the Fortune--pushes him towards his misery. The aspiration itself is continuous adversity that is consummated in the Mount Doom.
The French windows are present on one freestanding wall, allowing light to flood onto the stage when the curtains are pulled back (no sign of any visible autumnal colour though). Peter O'Brien, the ...costume designer, calls his chosen style "a distillation of Victorian costume" but says that, for Hedda in particular, while he was seeking an uptight image, he also wanted her to look sexy (the Abbey Theatre website). With the first real laugh of the night, generated by Hedda's contempt for Aunt Julie's (Jane Brennan) hat, there is a sense of the audience relaxing and warming to the characters; the production succeeds in making Hedda a sympathetic character, despite her obvious faults.
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