FOREIGN DRAMA ON THE ENGLISH AND 



AMERICAN STAGE (SCANDINAVIAN 



AND HUNGARIAN) 



By Charles C. Ayer 

 V. SCANDINAVIAN DRAMA 



Though the foreign plays known on the EngUsh and American 

 stage are mostly from French' and German^ sources, with only occa- 

 sionally a piece borrowed from some other European^ language, Nor- 

 way has produced one dramatist whose name transcends all others 

 in the history of the modern theater — Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). 

 This distinguished poet, playwright, and thinker has passed from 

 earth so recently that his influence is still keenly alive with us. His 

 plays have not yet all been given on the stage in Enghsh, but the 

 majority of them have become familiar to us in book form. Ibsen's 

 conquest of the stage is a simple but interesting story. Germany, the 

 real connoisseur, discovered him first. England and America became 

 interested and then France took him up, though with the uncomfort- 

 able feeling that he was something foreign and therefore not quite 

 comprehensible unless perhaps to the frequenters of Antoine's Theatre 

 Libre. Within very recent years too some of Ibsen's plays have been 

 given in Japan by the foremost of Japanese actresses, Sada Yacco. 

 It is therefore clear that no dramatist has ever had a wider influence 

 than Ibsen, and yet no dramatist has been more misrepresented than 

 he. In Germany at the outset he was received with frankness and 

 understanding, and why not ? There is nothing in Ibsen which need 

 frighten a person. Nevertheless, thirty years ago when his name 

 was first heard in this country it was a synonym for what, in 



' See "Foreign Drama on the English and American Stage," I. French Drama, University of Colorado 

 Studies, Vol. VI, No. 4, pp. 287-07, June, igog. 



' See "Foreign Drama on the English and American Stage." II. German Drama, University of Colorado 

 Studies, Vol. VII, No. i, pp. 63-71, December, 1909. 



3 See "foreign Drama on the English and American Stage," HI. Italian Drama, IV. Spanish Drama, 

 University of Colorado Studies, \'ol. X, No. 3, pp. 149-59, November, 1913. 



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