Second only to Shakespeare in terms of performances, Ibsen is performed in almost every culture. Since Ibsen wrote his plays about bourgeois family life in Northern Europe, they have become part of local theatre traditions in cultures as different as the Chinese and the Zimbabwean, the Indian and the Iranian. The result is that today there are incredibly many and different 'Ibsens' around the world. A play like Peer Gynt can be staged on the same continent and in the same year as a politically progressive piece of theatre for development in one place, and as a nationalistic and orientalistic piece of elite spectacle in another. This book charts differences across cultures and political boundaries, and attempts to understand them through an in-depth analysis of their relation to political, social, ideological and economic forces within and outside of the performances themselves.Through the discussion of productions of Ibsen plays on three continents, this book explores how Ibsen is created through practice and his work and reputation maintained as a classics central to the theatrical repertoire.

This book addresses a deceptively simple question: what accounts for the global success of A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen's most popular play? Using maps, networks, and images to explore the world history of the play's production, this question is considered from two angles: cultural transmission and adaptation. Analysing the play's transmission reveals the social, economic, and political forces that have secured its place in the canon of world drama; a comparative study of the play's 135-year production history across five continents offers new insights into theatrical adaptation. Key areas of research include the global tours of nineteenth-century actress-managers, Norway's soft diplomacy in promoting gender equality, representations of the female performing body, and the sexual vectors of social change in theatre.

A unique collection of everything that Ibsen wrote about the theatre. Three new productions of plays by Henrik Ibsen open somewhere in the world every week. Moreover, they are adapted into multiple genres: Chinese and Western Opera, Japanese Noh theatre, puppet plays, musicals, dance performances, tourist spectacles, promenade performances, applied theatre, community events, and every possible screen technology. The more successful Ibsen became as a playwright, the more reluctant he was to make public pronouncements about the practice of theatre, but his thoughts on the art form can be gleaned by mining his prefaces, letters, speeches and newspaper articles. For the first time, these fragments have been gathered together in one volume. Arranged chronologically, they throw a unique light on Ibsen's views on theatre production, casting, translation, the business of theatre, and most importantly his own plays. The result is an invaluable resource for those who seek to know what Ibsen himself thought about his work and about the theatre of his time. Ibsen on Theatre is edited, introduced and annotated by Frode Helland and Julie Holledge, with new translations by May-Brit Akerholt. Also included is a foreword by Richard Eyre. Ibsen on Theatre is in the Nick Hern Books ...On Theatre series: what the world's greatest dramatists had to say about theatre, in their own words. 'For anyone interested in Ibsen's plays-actors, directors, students, audiences-[this is] a marvellously accessible compendium of the thoughts of a man I now unhesitatingly describe as a very great playwright.' Richard Eyre, from his Foreword

This book addresses a deceptively simple question: what accounts for the global success of A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen's most popular play? Using maps, networks, and images to explore the world history of the play's production, this question is considered from two angles: cultural transmission and adaptation. Analysing the play's transmission reveals the social, economic, and political forces that have secured its place in the canon of world drama; a comparative study of the play's 135-year production history across five continents offers new insights into theatrical adaptation. Key areas of research include the global tours of nineteenth-century actress-managers, Norway's soft diplomacy in promoting gender equality, representations of the female performing body, and the sexual vectors of social change in theatre.