The Ibsen Award

The International Ibsen Award for 2009 goes to French director Ariane Mnouchkine (pictured)

Their website says that "The International Ibsen Award honors an individual, organization or institution in the fields of arts and culture for exceptional achievements defined within the spirit of Ibsen`s work."

Any Ibsen scholars reading this? What would you predict the parameters of such an award would be?

Final performances of Enemy of the People are Fri-Sat, 7:30pm, May 29-30.
Tickets are available through our website.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Robert Oakes on Adapting Ibsen

We asked Red Tape Ensemble Member Robert L. Oakes to discuss his reasons for adapting Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People.

There are a several reasons I chose to adapt this play. First, was the sense that the play had not aged well. In spite of being dramatically compelling, it seemed to lack the psychological weight of some of Ibsen's other scripts.

Second, was a desire to re-imagine the play in a contemporary setting. How would the themes and ideas of script be realized in a contemporary context? And how could those themes and ideas be presented in a way that was compelling and dramatic for a contemporary audience.

Third, was the desire to re-imagine Dr. Stockmann as an Ibsenian woman. I some respects, I think Dr. Stockmann is the woman character Ibsen would write if he were alive today: feminine, intellectually powerful, emotionally independent and deeply conflicted.

Lastly, there was one particular aspect in the original script which I felt needed to be developed and that was the relationship between the two siblings. What does it mean to this story if those two characters actually love each other?

Robert L. Oakes

Enemy of the People runs May 4-30,
Tickets are available through our website.

Norway's Economy Makes Headlines

Company member Mark Jacob Chaitin brought this piece of news to our attention:

Thriving Norway Offers a Lesson in Frugality
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
New York Times
May 13, 2009

The global financial crisis has brought low the economies of just about every country on earth. But not Norway. With a quirky contrariness as deeply etched in the national character as the fjords carved into its rugged landscape, Norway has thrived by going its own way. When others splurged, it saved. When others sought to limit the role of government, Norway strengthened its cradle-to-grave welfare state.

And in the midst of the worst global downturn since the Depression, Norway’s economy grew last year by just under 3 percent. The government enjoys a budget surplus of 11 percent and its ledger is entirely free of debt. By comparison, the United States is expected to chalk up a fiscal deficit this year equal to 12.9 percent of its gross domestic product and push its total debt to $11 trillion, or 65 percent of the size of its economy....

Instead of spending its riches lavishly, it passed legislation ensuring that oil revenue went straight into its sovereign wealth fund, state money that is used to make investments around the world. Now its sovereign wealth fund is close to being the largest in the world....

Eirik Wekre, an economist who writes thrillers in his spare time, describes Norwegians’ feelings about debt this way: “We cannot spend this money now; it would be stealing from future generations.” Mr. Wekre, who paid for his house and car with cash, attributes this broad consensus to the country’s iconoclasm. “The strongest man is he who stands alone in the world,” he said, quoting Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.

Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009
Tickets are available through our website!

Ibsen's Women - The Discussion

Red Tape Theatre's panel, Ibsen's Women, was presented on Sunday, May 10, alongside our
gender-swapped adaptation of Enemy of the People.

Prof. Jacob Juntunen (UIC Dept of Theatre), began with Nora from A Doll's House, who abandons her husband and children. The revolutionary aspect of this may be lost in a time of 50% divorce rates but Nora's action was unthinkable at the time and caused fierce debate among the audiences.

Mr. Robert Scogin (Artistic Director, Shaw Chicago) compared Ghosts to a Greek Tragedy, citing Mrs. Alving as a modern Clytemnestra who kills her husband with her moralizing only to be punished by her children. Mrs. Alving's resignation to stay with her husband despite their incompatibility has also branded her as "Nora grown up."

Prof. Julie Ward (Loyola Dept of Philosophy) commented that this made Hedda Gabler into "Nora on steroids." Unhappy with her timid husband, but unwilling to submit to her immoral admirers she sabotages their lives then ends the life of life of herself and her unborn child with her fathers pistol.

Mr. Scogin argued that in Ibsen's time evil springs from boredom as society leaves his women with nothing to do. Prof. Ward countered with the heavy responsibilities Nora takes by running the finances of her household. Mr. Scogin agreed, but added that society left Nora no legal way to do so, forcing her into forgery. Ibsen's plays critique aspects of a society that does not allow one to make a moral choice.

When asked if these women are still relevant, Prof. Juntunen answered that the plays present
women who actively reject their socially prescribed roles. The plays still has the power to make husbands and wives very afraid.

Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009
Our next panel, Green Night of Theatre, will be Sunday, May 24.
Tickets are available through our website!

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Ibsen's Marriage

The Stockman’s marriage in Enemy of the People has its share of troubles but they are one of the healthiest couples in Henrik Ibsen’s canon. At today’s panel, Ibsen’s women, we will discuss the fraught relationships in A Dolls House, Ghosts and Hedda Gabler. Critics have enjoyed contrasting these plays to Ibsen’s own marriage.

Henrik Ibsen married Suzanna Thoreson in 1858, at age 30. His one time friend Martin Scheneekloth saw the marriage as a tragedy. In his letters about Ibsen he wrote:

“To find that one does not really love the woman one has married, that one’s requirements for a happy co-existence are so opposed to one’s wife’s that no reconciliation is possible, must be a desperate situation for a man, and that is Ibsen’s. He is a domineering character, egocentric and unbending, with a passionate masculinity and a curious admixture of personal cowardice, compulsively idealistic yet totally indifferent to expressing these ideals in his daily life… She is unwomanly, tactless, but a stable, hard character, a mixture of intelligence and stupidity, not deficient in feeling but lacking humility and feminine love. They can not find peace through love, so they wage war on each other, ruthlessly coldly, and yet she loves him, if only through their son, their poor son, whose fate is the saddest that could befall any child, to see divided what should be reconciled in him.

Whose is the fault if not the man? He took her from her father’s house, led her out into the strange world, and instead of devoting his life to finding some form of reconciliation he gives all his mind and passion to a demonic pursuit of literary fame. It is disturbing to hear him describe his plans to send his wife and child home so that he may work in peace abroad. He lacks the courage to pursue his career without abandoning his domestic responsibilities, to face up to the consequences of his ambition, to work incessantly to give her life fulfillment, to suffer and strive to educate his son. Thus he, who so loudly and brilliantly condemns the cravenness of our age, who in mighty poems proclaims the strength of human will, is himself a craven vacillating weakling. "

However their son Sigurd painted a very different picture. He saw his mother as Ibsen’s greatest champion who forced him to write in the many time she was tempted to give it all up. “The world can thank my mother that it has one bad painter the fewer and got a great writer instead.”

Henrik stayed with Suzannah till his death in 1906. While she encouraged the publishing of his work, she did her best to burn all his letters to her declaring their correspondence private. The letters that have survived are very affectionate. Ibsen referred to her by pet names such as his “cat” or “eagle.”

In 1914, a few days before her death, she spoke to an interviewer. “When we were young, many so-called friends came to Ibsen, but I sent them away… I had many unkind words for it, but I didn’t care. He had to have peace for his work… Ibsen had no steel in his character- but I gave it to him.”

Most likely glimpses of the truth remain in all his late plays of the joys and the sorrows, while the rest remains a mystery.

Our panel on Ibsen's Women is today, May 10, after the 2pm matinee.

Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009.
Ticket are available through our website.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

A Scottish "Enemy" in 1980

It’s the first Saturday after opening. Time to do the laundry, clean the dishes, and clean the apartment. I pop in a DVD for background noise. It’s a BBC adaptation of Enemy of the People buried in an Ibsen collection. I’ve put off watching it and it’s due back at the library soon. Turns out I’m in for a treat.

There’s Peter Stockman, speaking for a crowd in a large factory, about the board’s decision to bottle and sell the water from Scotland’s Baikie springs. As the crowd applauds, the mayors brother rolls his eyes. Then the mayor pushes a button and conveyor belt springs to life filled with bottles of poisoned spring water. As the line of bottles fills the camera the ABBA song “Money, Money, Money” starts to play on the soundtrack. I realize I’ve stumbled on a delightfully irreverent modern adaptation.

Broadcast in 1980 on the BBC, Maggie Allen’s adaptation sticks close to the structure of Ibsen’s original but steers towards comedy and rewrites the text in local dialect.

Dr. Stockman to the crowd: “Yeh kinnae be that stupid!”

Billing to Stockman: “Yer talkin’ like a bloody fascist!”

Horster to Petra: “Ach, ye kin buy spa water anywhere in the world, but
there’s very little truth on view.”

I was also pleased to see that Maggie Allen’s Stockman, like ours, considers moving to Canada. “The air is freshest and a chemist can get work!”

Red Tape Theatre’s Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009
Tickets are available through our website.

Paul G. Miller

Season Dramaturge

Hedda's First Impressions

The protagonist of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler agrees to an unsuitable marriage, then destroys everyone in her path trying to get out. The premiere in 1891 was met with hostility by the critics who failed to understand Hedda's behaviour. Their sometimes hysterical responses mirrored a line in the play: "People don't do such things,"

Ibsen scholar Michael Meyer found insight in Gerhard Gran's review for Samtiden:

Gran: “It is a law, or anyway has until now been a law, that drama, in its present state of technical development, can only present comparatively simple characters… Everything that should make this curious being intelligible to us, her development, her secret thoughts, her half-sensed misgivings and all that vast region of the human mind which lies between the conscious and the unconscious – all this the dramatist can no more than indicate. For this reason, I think a novel about Hedda Gabler could be extremely interesting, while the play leaves us with a sense of emptiness and betrayal."

Meyer: "Gran’s remarks explain why people who accepted Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina and Dorothea Brooke wre baffled by [Ibsen's heroines] Ellida Wangel, Rebecca West and Hedda Gabler. Neither actors nor audiences, nor even those who bought the play in book form, were able to read between the lines of dialogue as we can today."

One of Ibsen's worst reviewed works went on to become his most produced among new generations of actors and audiences who wanted to "read between the lines."



I'll be hosting the panel on Ibsen's Women this Sunday, May 10 after the 2pm matinee.

Raven Theatre's Hedda Gabler runs May 3 - June 27, 2009

Red Tape Theatre's Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009.


Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Ibsen's Inspiration

Ibsen scholar Michael Meyer discusses the incidents that inspired the plot of Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People.

He reveals that the father of Ibsen's colleague was stoned and chased out of the town of Teiplitz after speaking up about an outbreak of cholera at their spa in the eighteen-thirties.

Ibsen was also in Norway in 1874 when chemist Harald Thaulow waged ware on the Christiana Steam Kitchens "for neglecting their duty towards the city's poor." The chairman and the crowd prevented him from speaking at their annual meeting. The newspaper account read:

THAULOW: "I won't cast my pearls into the sand. This is a damned insult being inflicted on a free people in a free society. Now I'll go! Stand in the dunce's corner and be ashamed of yourselves!"

Meanwhile in 2009, as swine flu sweeps the news and the poisoned water investigation in Crestwood, IL continues to unfold, Red Tape Theatre's production grows more topical by the day.

Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009
Tickets are available through our website.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Gender Swapping the Stockmans

In Henrik Ibsen’s original An Enemy of the People there are two female roles: Dr. Stockman’s free-thinking daughter Petra and his long-suffering wife Katherine. They lack influence in Ibsen’s society and are relegated to the roles of cheerleader and confidante respectively. Both are punished for the Dr’s defiance of authority and remind him what he stands to lose. Red Tape Theatre’s contemporary adaptation flips the genders of five key characters including the protagonist, Dr. Stockman, placing her against women and men of influence in the town.

Two other productions recently experimented with the gender politics of the work.

In 2007 Strawberry Theatre Workshop in Seattle produced Arthur Miller’s adaptation of the script but swapped the roles of Katherine and Thomas making her the Doctor and him the loyal “househusband.”

"Women began to earn medical degrees in Europe in the early 1700s. And a female whistle-blower who can't get men to listen to her entreaties? That isn't much of a stretch." ~ Misha Berson, The Seattle Times.

"Amy Fleetwood brings something new and invigorating to this traditionally male role; with her piercing blue eyes and surging spiritual energy, her portrayal tips the familiar on its head, injecting Ibsen's portrait of moral outrage with a transformative dose of humanizing charm and understated feminist fury." ~ Richard Morin, Seattle Weekly.

Strawberry’s production left the text virtually unchanged. A more radical rewrite occurred in 2006 at the Rinkogun Theatre Company in Japan.

"Set in modern Japan, the classic play from 1882 was fully recognisable, save for a few modifications. Among Tokyo’s neon lights and skyscrapers, the originally masculine main character Dr. Stockman had become a woman… Nora [from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House] wanted to help her sick husband, just as Dr. Sudo wishes to help her painter husband suffering from mental problems. When Dr. Sudo wants to open an “onsen,” the townspeople and Dr. Sudo’s sister, the town mayor, thoroughly support her. Tests reveal however that the spring water is bacteria-infested." ~ Ibsen in Japan

"Nowadays, in Japan, many of the leaders of citizens' campaigns are women, and also the leader of the Social Democratic Party has been a woman for a while. So it was necessary to change it to a heroine to be in tune with the modern day." ~ Director/Adaptor Yoji Sakate, The Japan Times

Sakate found the work more than relevant in the contemporary setting.

“Well, if you look at current society in Japan, for example the scandal over forged documents regarding the earthquake resistance of new buildings, or the scandals over financial corruption that happen every day and everywhere, these lies routinely pass by with hardly any fuss…”

In other words, political corruption never goes out of style.

Red Tape’s production of Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009.
Tickets are available through our website!

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Ibsen ain't afraid of no Ghosts!

The title of Henrik Ibsen’s play, Ghosts, refers to the outdated social rules and superstitions that hinder the lives of the main characters. Should a wife stay with an abusive husband because she was told to “love, honor and obey?” Should a daughter care for her ailing father even after he’s expressed sexual interest in her? Should a pastor forgo insuring an orphanage and trust in a “higher power” to protect it? Ibsen answered with a loud NO! Ghosts declared that rape, adultery, incest, and venereal disease among the middle classes were issues that existed and must be addressed. Not everyone agreed with him.

“The play is one of the filthiest things ever written in Scandinavia.” ~ Ludvig
Josephson, Theatre Owner

At first no theater in Europe would produce the work. It premiered at the Aurora Turner Hall in Chicago with Danish Actress Helga von Bluhme as Mrs. Alving. The published script was seen as something not fit for decent homes, but gathered a loyal following among a younger generation of theatre artists.

[I like Ghosts] less for its own sake than for the insight it gives me into this
elegant, cautious, decorated, slightly snobbish person who… has always had a
secret desire to say; “Damn and blast!” in the midst of all his elegance – and
has now acquired the courage.” ~ Alexander Kielland, Book Seller

The personal attacks that the work provoked from the “so-called liberal press” infuriated Ibsen. He resumed work on a piece he had set aside, making corrupt newsmen into central figures. On June 21 1882 Ibsen wrote: “Yesterday I completed my new dramatic work. It is entitled An Enemy of the People, and is in five acts. I am still a little uncertain whether to call it a comedy or simply a play; it has much of the character of a comedy, but there is also a serious basic theme.’
Ibsen had never finished a work faster. He was again ready to speak the “unpleasant truths” that must be heard.

Quotes taken from Ibsen by Michael Meyer.

Shaw Chicago presents Ghosts from April 18 - May 11, 2009.

Robert Scogin, the Artistic Director of Shaw Chicago, will speak on Red Tape's panel, Ibsen's Women, on Sunday, May 10, 2009.

Red Tape Theatre presents An Enemy of the People from May 4-30, 2009.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Pastor Manders: The Tears of Righteous Men

"We haven't the right to be happy" claims Pastor Manders. The antagonist of Ibsen's Ghosts has denied sanctuary to a woman who loves him, shaming her into returning to an abusive husband for the sake of propriety. Last night I attended Shaw Chicago's production of Ghosts at the DCA Theater. Ibsen's original audience was scandalized by the immoral characters that the Pastor faced. A contemporary audience greets his harsh words with laughter. Ibsen seems to be saying that we, like the characters in Ghosts, should know better than to listen to moralists.

Pastor Manders presents an intriguing contrast to Mayor Peter Stockman, the antagonist of An Enemy of the People. Both men cling to their reputations and suck the oxygen out of any room they attend. They think nothing of entering a friends house and saying "You can't afford that food" or "how dare you read these scandalous books!" But while the Mayor cynically manipulates all those around him, the Pastor will naively believe any man who flatters him. This leads him into one business blunder after another.

These men sacrifice all who love them to protect their incomes but it has been said that Ibsen writes no true "villains." They are allowed a sliver of pity, for their investments are doomed to fail and they will left completely alone.

Shaw Chicago presents Ghosts from April 18 - May 11, 2009.

Robert Scogin, the Artistic Director of Shaw Chicago, will speak on Red Tape's panel, Ibsen's Women, on Sunday, May 10, 2009.

Red Tape Theatre presents An Enemy of the People from May 4-30, 2009.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Dr. Stockman: Hero or Villain?

Today I'm sharing two contrasting viewpoints of Dr. Stockman, the protagonist of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People who uncovers a scandal his hometown would prefer stayed covered.

VILLAIN says Hermann J. Weigand in The Modern Ibsen

“The fact is, once the conflict had become acute, we didn’t give a tinker’s dam about the Baths or the Town. We had forgotten all about technical and economic considerations. All we saw was a moral issue, in which from moment to moment the contrast… became more intense. It served them [the town] right, we felt… to reap the fruits of their lying hypocricy... We see the Doctor as uprightness personified, as the defender of the truth for truth’s sake; we are tricked into forgetting that it is personal jealousy, an extremely good opinion of himself, a thirst for power and the love of stirring up a tempest, which are at the bottom of his conduct.”

HERO says Brian Johnston in Text and Supertext in Ibsen's Drama

“The joy-of-life and the sunrise… seems to have set the stage for An Enemy of the People, which is notably “sunny” and buoyant in atmosphere. The spirit of this play is not that of painfully uncovering the guilty reality beneath the consciousness of a hard-earned good but, instead, of a zestful, naïve, combative individual taking it upon himself to be the champion of truth and freedom. This has so dismayed some Ibsenists that they actually have gone against the whole spirit of the play (and of comedy) to discover sinister and devious motives behind Stockmann’s championship of the truth… This … shows to what lengths the critic, anxious to load a clear and coherent artistic structure with a subtle and confusing “ambiguity,” will go."

Come and decide for yourself.

Meanwhile check out our friends at The New Colony who are currently discussing the subject of theatrical adaptations on their blog.

An Enemy of the People runs May 4-30.
Tickets are available through our website.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Ibsen on the Aristocracy

Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People polarized audiences in 1882 with its praise of aristocracy. However Ibsen’s definition of aristocracy was very specific. The following is taken from a speech for the Trondhjem Workers Association on June 14, 1885, as quoted in Michael Meyer’s biography Ibsen.

“There is still much to be done in this country before we can be said to have achieved full freedom. But our present democracy scarcely has the strength to accomplish that task. An element of aristocracy must enter into our political life, or government, our members of parliament and our press.

I am of course not thinking of aristocracy of wealth, of leanring, or even of ability or talent. I am thinking of aristocracy of character, of mind and of will. That alone can make us free. …

And this aristocracy… will come to us from two sources, the only two sections of society which have not yet been corrupted by party pressure. It will come from our women and from our working men. The reshaping of social conditions which is now being undertaken in Europe is principally concerned with the future status of the workers and of women. That is what I am hoping and waiting for, and what I shall work for with all my might.”

An Enemy of the People runs May 4-30.
Tickets are available through our website.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Stella Adler on the Stockman Brothers

Stella Adler (1901 - 1992) ran a celebrated Method Acting Conservatory for four decades. In her book Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strinberg and Chekov (Vintage Books, Random House reprint 2000) she praises Henrik Ibsen's work and the moral ambiguity of his play An Enemy of the People.

In the play, Dr. Thomas Stockman is pitted against his brother the Mayor. In some ways, Adler writes, Thomas is a typical Ibsen protagonist:

"In Ibsen, the hero is in conflict with the social and moral system that he lives under.... Ibsen laughed at what the middle class considered honorable. He attacked the institution of marriage. He was highly skeptical of standard ideals of family and friendship. He said they were all open to discussion."

In other ways he's very unusual:

"Most men in Ibsen are overprofessionalized. Competition and their need for success leave them nothing for the family. Ibsen lets the Doctor off the hook- he works all day but is with his sons at night, aware of them and his wife. It is the last happy family man in a realistic play. He is the portrait of an ideal man. Dr. Stockman is probably Ibsen's first and maybe only positive hero."

While his brother, Peter, is the antagonist, Adler argues that:

"Ibsen builds this very carefully. You do not. You right away see the Mayor as a villain. He is not the villain. Be very careful of that. He is simply practical. Ibsen gives you an absolutely valid argument of an official man who represents an official idea that is excellent."

At the same time, in Ibsen there are no true "heroes."

"Ibsen aims to trap you. He introduces you to a man who is good and you side with him. But in the second act you recognize that he isn't as good as you thought he was. Ibsen catches you by making the character both right and wrong... Perhaps, then, you go home with some other idea that belongs exclusively to you, to solve it for yourself. Ibsen seldom solves it for you."

Red Tape Theatre's adaptation of An Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009.
Purchase tickets through our website.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Ibsen's Legacy

March 20, 2009 is the 181st anniversary of Henrik Ibsen's birth. His legacy is larger than his body of work, having influenced generations of playwrights.

• Luigi Pirandello: “After Shakespeare I unhesitatingly place Ibsen first.”
• Eugene O’Neill found Ibsen: “Much nearer to me than Shakespeare.”
• Anton Chekov was first exposed to Ibsen through poor translations. Once he came closer to the source material he proclaimed: “You know Ibsen is my favorite writer.”

Michael Meyer concludes his biography, Ibsen (1967), with the following thoughts:

“Ibsen’s contribution to the theatre was threefold, and in each respect the drama owes more to him than to any other dramatist since Shakespeare. Firstly, he broke down the social barriers which had previously bounded it. He was the first man to show that high tragedy could be written about ordinary people and in ordinary everyday prose, and the importance of that seemingly simple achievement can hardly be exaggerated… Before Ibsen, tragedy had (always excluding Buchner) concerned itself with kings and queens, princes and princesses or, at the lowest, Montagues and Capulets. .. He was not the first dramatist to attempt this, [but the first] that got off the ground.

His second contribution – He threw out the old artificialities of plot which … Shakespeare and Schiller were also guilty: mistaken identities, overheard conversations, intercepted letter sand the like. It was a slow and painful process to rid himself of these; something of the old machinery is still there as late as A Dolls House, but his last ten plays are free of it.

Equally important he developed the art of prose dialogue, to a degree of refinement which has never been surpassed; not merely the different ways people talk, and the different language they use under differing circumstances, but the double-density dialogue which is his peculiar legacy, the sub-text, the meaning behind the meaning.”

Red Tape Theatre presents Robert Oakes' original adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People from May 4-30, 2009.
Tickets are available on our website.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Ibsen's gifts thrown into the mud

In the play An Enemy of the People, (1882) Henrik Ibsen's protagonist, Dr. Stockman, delivers a polarizing lecture to the citizens of his town outlining their faults. At a recent workshop of Red Tape's adaptation this lecture was analyzed from many angles. Ibsen could be very shy until provoked, and delivered a few harsh truths of his own.

In Michael Meyer's fascinating biography, Ibsen (1967) an incident is described that merits attention. In 1878 Ibsen resided in Rome where he spent many days at the Scandinavian Club. He proposed that a woman be allowed to apply for the position of club librarian and that they vote on all club matters. The first request was accepted, the second failed by one vote. Gunnar Heiberg, who attended the clubs subsequent Gala writes that Ibsen rose before the crowd to lecture them on their failings.

Ibsen "had wished to do the club a service, he might almost say a great favor, by bringing its members abreast with contemporary ideas. No one could escape these mighty developments. Not even here - in this community - in this duckpond! He did not actually use the word duckpond but the contempt around his mouth proclaimed it loudly. And how had his offer been received? As a criminal attempt! Rejected by a paltry couple of votes. And how had the women reacted - the women for whom his gift had been intended? They had intrigued and agitated against him. They had thrown his gift into the mud. What kind of women are these? They were worse - worse than the dregs, worse than scum... Thump! A lady, Countess B., fell to the floor."

As Ibsen's speech continued his anger grew, shaking his head and thrusting out his underlip. When he was done he left in silence.

Ibsen clung to ideals of human conduct that he could not achieve in his life. He struggled between his desires for society and isolation as the world failed to live up to his moral code. He shared these struggles with many of his characters including the mighty Dr. Stockman. Red Tape looks forward to exploring these ideals as we adapt the work to a contemporary setting.

An Enemy of the People performs May 4-30, 2009.
Tickets will be on sale at http://www.redtapetheatre.org/.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Ibsen vs. the Status Quo

In Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (1882) the protagonist, Dr. Stockman, discovers that the town's lucrative baths are polluted. When the town officials attempt to cover this up he lambasts the public in a town lecture hall. Stockman's speech causes controversy both within the play and with audiences. In my research I'll be examining various interpretations of the government Stockman is proposing.

Stockman's views on "the compact majority" reflected many of Ibsen's own. The following passage is from a letter he wrote ten years before "Enemy." His colleague, Georg Brandes, had been denied a position at Copenhagen University for his statements that Danish thinking was "reactionary and divorced from reality." Ibsen offered Brandes his full support.

4 April 1872

"My dear friend, the liberals are the worst enemies of Freedom. Spirtiual and intellectual freedom flourish best under absolutism; that was proved in France, then in Germany and it is now being proved in Russia...

"You say everyone in the faculty of philosophy is against you... If they did not bar the door against you it would show that you had failed to frighten them...

"How this mortal combat between two epochs will end, I do not know; but anything is preferable to the status quo - of that I am certain. I do not promise myself that victory will result in any permanent improvement; every historical development has been but a lurch from one delusion to another. But the battle itself is good, healthy and invigorating; your revolt is a mighty and emancipating declaration of genius...

"Do not rely implicitly on everyone who joins you; what matters is whether they do so for the right reason... my own conviction is that the strongest man is he who stands most alone. But I sit here outside it all while you stand there in the midst of the storm; that makes a big difference."

The latter statement was to become Dr. Stockman's battle cry as the press, the government, the town, and members of his family abandoned him. I shall continue to research how Ibsen's views on absolutism developed in his own life.

Quotes cited from Ibsen by Michael Mayer, Penguin Books 1967

Red Tape Theatre's adaptation of Enemy of the People runs May 4-30, 2009.
Tickets will be available through our website: www.redtapetheatre.com.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge
Red Tape Theatre Company

Quotes on Ibsen's Early Work

The following quotes highlight stages of Henrik Ibsen's early growth as a playwright.


Ibsen's reviews a colleague's work in 1857 and shares his thoughts on tragedy:

"It has become customary to expect from tragic characters a loftiness, a purification, a greatness of thought and expression, will and action, that shall fulfill the function of the Greek cothurn - namely to give us the feeling that we are outside the realm of everyday life. But this achieves the exact opposite of its purpose. The world portrayed by the dramatist is rendered completely foreign to the spectator... so he cannot fully engage our sympathy."

and on symbolism:

"Every notable human being is symbolic, both in his career and in his relationship to history. But bad writers, misconstruing the theory that the significant phenomena of life should be intensified in art, make this symbolism conscious... Instead of it existing hidden in the work, like a vein of silver ore in a mountain, it is continually being dragged into the light of day."

The director Bjoornstjerne Bjornson criticizes Ibsen's epic fantasy play The Vikings at Helgland in 1858:

"I hope someday to get him to be himself and turn away from all this damned pastiche. The day Ibsen admits he is small he'll become a perfectly enchanting poet... The point is, he's a rather small and gnomish little chap, with no chest or rump, so he feels that as he has no other gifts he has to strain most fightfully when he writes. And so he doesn't write what he'd really like to, and could."

Ibsen begins to write "what he'd really like to" with Love's Comedy in 1863 and defends it from the critics:

"The play aroused a storm of hostility... When, in my comedy, as best I could, I cracked the whip over the problem of love and marriage, it was only natural that the majority should rush shrieking to the defense of those institutions. Not many of our critics and readers have acquired the intellectual dicipline and training which enable a man to recognize delusions... The only person who approved of the play was my wife."

Quotes cited from Ibsen by Michael Mayer, Penguin Books 1967

Red Tape Theatre presents our adapation of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, May 4-30, 2009.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

Henrik Ibsen - A Brief Timeline

As my research for Red Tape's adaptation of An Enemy of the People continues I will post some information on the life of it's author, Henrik Ibsen. I thought I'd start with a timeline and some links to other Chicago companies producing Ibsen this season. If you know of any other Ibsen works being produced in Chicago this season, please bring my attention to them.

• 1828 Born on March 20 in the town of Skien on the coast of Norway.
• 1850 Catiline - regarded by many as Ibsen's first play
• 1866 Brand
• 1867 Peer Gynt
• 1877 The Pillars of Society
• 1879 A Doll's House
• 1881 Ghosts (Being produced by Shaw Chicago, 4/18-5/11, 2009)
• 1882 An Enemy of the People (Being produced by Red Tape Theatre, 5/4-30, 2009)
  
• 1884 The Wild Duck (Being produced by the Court Theatre, 1/15-2/15, 2009)
  
• 1886 Rosmersholm
• 1888 The Lady from the Sea
• 1890 Hedda Gabler (Being produced by Vintage Theatre, 2/6-22, 2009 and Raven Theatre, 4/28-6/27, 2009)
  
• 1892 The Master Builder (produced by The Building Stage in Fall 2008.)
  
• 1894 Little Eyolf
• 1895 John Gabriel Borkman
• 1899 When We Dead Awaken
• 1906 Died on May 23 after a series of strokes.

From Ibsen by Michael Meyer, Penguin Books 1967 :

"At noon on 22 May he opened his eyes, pressed Dr Bull's hand and murmered: 'Thank God!' A little later the nurse said to others in the room that he seemed to be a little better. From the bed came a single word: 'Tvertimod!' ('On the contrary!'). It was the last word Ibsen ever spoke."

Adapting the Classics - The Discussion

Red Tape Theatre's panel Adapting the Classics was presented on Saturday, October 11 at 4:30 p.m., alongside our adaptation of Dog in a Manger. I led a discussion with four Chicago artists who'd successfully helmed their own adaptations

The panelists were:

• Libby Ford, Associate Artistic Director of Greasy Joan & Co.


• Tony Lewis, Artistic Director of MidTangeant Productions


• Katie McLean, Artistic Ensemble Member at Lifeline Theatre Company


• Blake Montgomery, Artistic Director of The Building Stage

In Mr. Montgomery's production of The Master Builder, he felt he couldn't let an ensemble member play a character who "dies in act one and then sits in the green room. First of all we don't have a green room!" The decision to double cast the supporting roles led to greater discoveries. As the paranoid title character unraveled , the reality of those he meets became ambiguous. Do they exist? Are they creations of his rivals or his imagination?

Ms. Ford's production of The Misanthrope examined the contrasts of a decadent society in a time of war, as France indeed was. She described Kevin Depinet's set as a "bombed out mansion" in which Celimine and her followers were "squatting." Her rank was established in her refusal to acknowledge the hole in the wall. If she ignored it, so must her suitors, who entered through the doorway instead. Alceste, the title character, of course entered through the wall.

When Ms. Mclean began Lifeline's adaptation of The Mark of Zorro she was surprised by the darkness in the original books. Zorro's justice lacks mercy as he tortures and eventually kills his foes. In a post-Dark Knight age it seemed appropriate to instead explore the comic aspects of the story. She described the excitement of collaborating with actor James Elly, who not only explored Zorro the fighter and Don Diego the clown, but the mystery man who wears both masks. (Code named "Z").

Mr. Lewis received a variety of responses to the finale of A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Queer Tale. The production transformed Shakespeare's lovers into same sex couples fleeing a tyrannical government to a fairy land of drag queens, club kids and leather daddies. While the popular show had a festive, party atmosphere the finale introduced a somber tone with a closeted homosexual actor committing suicide in the middle of "Pyramus and Thisbe." In a production commenting on gay rights, Mr. Lewis felt it important to respect those who would be "left behind" when the rest of the communities "needs were met."

At the end an audience member asked when an adaptation ceases to be connected to the original work. The panel agreed that every production had it's own line in the sand. In most cases, they felt, you avoid crossing it. On special occasions, one added, one must embrace the opportunity to tell their own story. That's when you not only step over the line... you leap!

Dog in a Manger has been extended through November 2.
Visit http://www.redtapetheatre.com/ for details and to purchase tickets online!