Ibsen, Strindberg and the Intimate Theatre: Studies in TV

Presentation by Egil Törnqvist (review)

John Osburn

Modern Drama, Volume 46, Number 1, Spring 2003, pp. 142-144 (Review)

Published by University of Toronto Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mdr.2003.0063

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/501058/summary

[ Access provided at 16 Sep 2021 09:32 GMT from USAL/Servicio de Bibliotecas ]

 REVIEWS

EG IL TORNQVIST. Ibsen, Strindberg alld the Imimate Theatre: Studies in TV

Presentation. Film Culture in Transition . Amsterdam: Amsterdam University
Press, 1999. Pp. 240, illustrated. $49.95 (Hb); $24.95 (Pb).

Reviewed by John Osburn, New York University

Ibsen, Strindberg alld the Imimate Theatre: Studies in TV Presentation, by

Egil Tornqvist, is factually informative but lacking in theoretical follow-
through. Its main value is as a companion text to a viewing of the television
productions themselves, especially in a classroom, where the choices to which
Tornqvist calls our attention could be looked at and debated. In isolation, the
book serves as a kind of reference work, an annotated videography of thirty-
three television productions of thirteen plays, along with a section of eighteen
beautifully reproduced stills.
The descriptive chapters, one for each play, are divided into part one, on
Ibsen, and part two, on Strindberg, and are bracketed by a prologue and epi-
logue that provide a semiotic framework for assessing the relationship
between dramatic texts and stage or screen productions. Each chapter consists
of a critical synopsis of the playscript, followed by an analysis of one or more
television productions. either singly or in alternation. Tornqvist's expertise in
the Scandinavian languages allows for some acute textual observations, both
on the scripts and on translations and other script modifications (he is particu-
larly critical of Michael Meyer's translalions of Ibsen).
The individual chapters are at their most interesting in part two, perhaps a
side effect of Tornqvist's view that the format of Strindberg's plays "fit[s] the
small screen beller than Ibsen 's," that the Ouidity of time and space in the late
plays "anticipates the feature film," and that the preface to Miss Julie "antici-
pates television drama" when it "calls for 'a small stage and a small audito-
rium'" (188). Be that as it may, the perceived greater success of the Strindberg
productions - along with Tornqvist' s admiration for !ngmar Bergman, who
directed more than one of them - may ex plain why the Strindberg productions
are more vividly conveyed than the Ibsen productions. Beyond that, the Ibsen
chapters are limited by a reductive view of Ibsen's thematics, applied to most
of the six plays covered and positing an older pagan past in binary conOict
with Christianity. This theme is a fundamental aspect of Ibsen' s work, but its
relation to Ibsen's social and economic concerns, and how it informs his theat-
rical techniques, are largely unexplored. Moreover, Tornqvist's somewhat
unnuanced fixation on this dichotomy contributes to a literary emphasis that
doesn 'tlend itself to conveying a sense of Ibsen's work in production.
In both sections, however, Tornqvist's examination of the plays is mostly
conventional script analysis, foc using on structure , characterization. theme.
and imagery; and his analyses of the television productions are as much con-
cerned with the interpretative choices made as with an active working of the
 Reviews 143

semiotic frame. Hi s main concern is the relationshi p of these choices to the

un derlying text, not their relationshi p to medi a. There is little to dis tinguish Ihe
directori al choices he calls our attention to in the television productions from
th ose th at mi ght be made in a stage production. As a res uit, Ihe most potent the-
oretical possibil ities that he raises are left to readers to deve lop on their own.
Take the final paragraph of the preface, for example, which both closes
dow n and opens up a potentially powerful historicization of media and theatri-
cal style:

By limiti ng Imy l examination to TV presenlat ions of plays wrillen for the stage,
comparability lof tex ts and productions! is increased - especially since all the plays
were composed in the same relative ly short period by merely two dram ati sts, who
could bot h be seen as ances tors of the intimate realism characteristic of telev ision
drama. The rea lism, or belter illusioni sm, that in Ibsen's and Strindberg's time dom-
inated th e stage has, with the arrival of the screen media, come to be assoc iated with
these med ia - whereas the stage has come to be seen as a place where stylisation.
non-illu sionism, should reign supreme. Paradox ically, th e more or less mimeti c kind
of presen tati on intended by the two Scand inav ians is nowadays largely taken care of
in med ia that existed hardly (film) or not at all (televis ion) in their lime. (25)

One does not expect, in a work whose purpose is to focus on the issue of tele-
vision productions of theatrical texts, that the "examination" be expanded to
include stage or film prodUl,;tiulIs. Bu l it is a letuUWJl to fintlthat this cumplex
(and splendidly ex pressed) phenomenon - the transference of stage realism to
television - is not dealt with in a sustai ned way in the ensuing chapters. What
one receives instead is a catalog of televisual choices that, although they serve
this historical process, are not discussed in relation to it.
Similarly, th e preface defines a key issue in un packin g the relationship
betwee n text and performance, namely the need to "disting uish between th e
first-time recipient - someone who reads or watches a play for the first time -
and the re-rec.:ipielll, someone who does it for the second or hundredth time"
( 16). Tornq vis t's point is that readership, bOlh lay and scholarly, makes re-
reception particularly re levant to we ll-known "class ic" plays. Why, then, is a
link not made wi th his observati on in the epilogue th at " Ibsen and Strind berg
wrote their dramas for a double audi ence, for Ibothl readers and spectators,"
and that their plays were for the most part perform ed after they had been pub-
lished and read (186)? The obvious possibility is that television creates re-
recipients today j ust as print may have prev iously. This missed opportun ity is
especially obvious given Tornqvist's earlier statement (reflec ti ve of a deep
knowledge of Ihe Scandinavian milie u) Ihal in Norway and Sweden, "it has
been natural for a long time to consider televis ion drama an alternative to
stage drama for th ose livi ng in densely populated areas and a substitute for
th ose living far away from theatres" ( 2 I) .
144 REVIEWS

Tornqvist points the way to a weightier critical study and by doing so gives
ample evidence of his own capacity to produce one. For now, however, he
proffers a useful international survey, ranging from a racially pOlent South
African Miss Julie to a serialized Swedish version of The Wild Duck. It is fas-
cinating to Jearn of such innovations, even as the larger issues await fuller and
more meaningful ex.plication.

EGIL TORNQVIST. Strindberg's "The Ghost Sonata." Amsterdam: Amsterdam

University Press, 2000. Pp. 269, illustrated. $45.00 (Pb).

Reviewed by Robert F. Gross, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

At the beginning of The Ghost Sonata, the student Arkenhol z views the appar-
ently secure fa~ade of a prosperous house with admiration, only to discover by
the conclusion that the house is filled with unsettling anomalies and imperfec-
tions. I am left with a similar feeling aner reading this volume devoled to the
most canonical of Strindberg's chamber plays. Egil Tornqvist has assembled a
work of immense value to students, literary critics, theatre historians, and
practitioners, covering the play from its origins through to a careful reading of
the text, a study of English translations, and a history of major productions on
stage, televi sion, and radio, and ending with an overview of the work' s influ-
ence on the modern theatre. It is both an accessible introduction for the novice
and a rich reference for the Strindberg scholar, and it deserves a place in every
theatre library.
Parts of the book have appeared in five previous sources, most notably
Tornqvist's [973 Bergman och Strindherg, which focuses on Ingmar Berg-
man's [973 production at the Dramaten, a production that also dominates this
volume. Not only is nearly a third of the book devoted to Bergman's four pro-
ductions of The Ghost Sonata, but most of that third documents the 1973 stag-
ing, including a detailed transcription of the production, fourteen photographs,
a short rehearsal diary, and a "configuration chart" or French scene break-
down. If only for this careful documentation of a fascinating production by a
major director, Strindherg' s "The Ghost Sonata" deserves high praise.
And yet the more one contemplates the book, the more disconcerting it
appears. Strindberg referred in a letter to his chamber plays as "mosaic work"
( r I), and this volume increasingly appears as a mosaic as one peruses it. The
painstaking attention given to Strindberg's text and Bergman's [973 produc-
tion seem oddly proportioned when viewed against the remaining, often
sketchy material. Neither the book nor individual chapters are unified by
clearly articulated theses. Transitions are often abrupt or non-existent; chap-
ters, like that on Strindberg's text, sometimes break off rather than conclude.