John Gabriel Borkman is a 1896 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was his penultimate work.
John Gabriel Borkman is a 1896 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was his penultimate work.
The Borkman family fortunes have been brought low by the imprisonment of John Gabriel who used his position as a bank manager to speculate with his investors' money. The action of the play takes place eight years after Borkman's release when John Gabriel Borkman, Mrs. Borkman, and her twin sister Ella Rentheim fight over young Erhart Borkman's future. Though John Gabriel Borkman continues the line of naturalism and social commentary that marks Ibsen's work over the preceding thirty years, the final act suggests a new phase for the playwright which was brought to fruition in his final symbolic work When We Dead Awaken .
The Norwegian historian Halvdan Koht stated that the play could have been based on an incident that Ibsen might have recorded from an earlier period in his life around 1851, the attempted suicide of an army officer who had been accused of embezzlement. [1]
In 1925 Eva Le Gallienne produced, directed and performed in a successful run of the play in repertory with The Master Builder at the Princess Theatre, New York City. This was a critical step in her creation of the Civic Repertory Theatre in 1926. [2] [3]
In 2010, a revival of the play was performed in the Abbey Theatre as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival. In a new version by Frank McGuinness directed by James Macdonald, it featured actor Alan Rickman as John Gabriel Borkman, Fiona Shaw as his wife Gunhild and Lindsay Duncan as Ella. [4] [5] The play had previously been performed in the Abbey Theatre in 1928. [6] In 2011, the production moved to New York and received mixed reviews. [7]
In 2015, David Eldridge adapted the play into a two-part production directed by Helen Perry and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on March 8 and 15, starring David Threlfall as Borkman, Susannah Harker as Ella Rentheim, Gillian Bevan as Mrs. Borkman, Philip Jackson as Vilhelm Foldal, Luke Newberry as Erhart Borkman. [8]
In August 2017, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival a new production in English based on a contemporary translation and adaptation by Fox and Orchid Theatre Company and played by just two actors portraying seven characters was performed. It was entitled "(My Father) John Gabriel Borkman".
In 2022 the play was performed in a new translation and updated to a more modern period at the Bridge Theatre, London, with Simon Russell Beale in the title role. [9]
Henrik Johan Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and the most influential playwright of the 19th century, as well of one of the most influential playwrights in Western literature more generally. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder, and When We Dead Awaken. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House was the world's most performed play in 2006.
Hedda Gabler is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The world premiere was staged on 31 January 1891 at the Residenztheater in Munich. Ibsen himself was in attendance, although he remained back-stage. The play has been canonized as a masterpiece within the genres of literary realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama. Ibsen mainly wrote realistic plays until his forays into modern drama. Hedda Gabler dramatizes the experiences of the title character, Hedda, the daughter of a general, who is trapped in a marriage and a house that she does not want. Overall, the title character for Hedda Gabler is considered one of the great dramatic roles in theater. The year following its publication, the play received negative feedback and reviews. Hedda Gabler has been described as a female variation of Hamlet.
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse written in 1867 by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. It is one of Ibsen's best known and most widely performed plays.
Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in Danish and published in 1881, and first staged in 1882 in Chicago, Illinois, US, performed in Danish.
The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Eva Le Gallienne was a British-born American stage actress, producer, director, translator, and author. A Broadway star by age 21, in 1926 she left Broadway behind to found the Civic Repertory Theatre, where she served as director, producer, and lead actress. Noted for her boldness and idealism, she was a pioneering figure in the American theater, setting the stage for the Off-Broadway and regional theater movements that swept the country later in the 20th century.
Susannah Harker is an English film, television, and theatre actress. She was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award in 1990 for her role as Mattie Storin in House of Cards. She played Jane Bennet in the 1995 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
The National Theatre in Oslo is one of Norway's largest and most prominent venues for performance of dramatic arts.
The Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen inspired by the ballad Agnete og Havmanden. The drama introduces the character of Hilde Wangel who is again portrayed in Ibsen's later play The Master Builder. The character portrayal of Hilde Wangel has been portrayed twice in contemporary film, most recently in the 2014 film titled A Master Builder.
Gregan McMahon, CBE was an Australian actor and theatrical director and producer.
Catiline or Catilina was Henrik Ibsen's first play. It was written during winter 1848–49 and first performed under Ibsen's name on 3 December 1881 at the Nya Teatern, Stockholm, Sweden. The first performance of Catilina in Norway not under Ibsen's pseudonym was at Det Nye Teater in Oslo on 24 August 1935.
Margaret Webster was an American-British theater actress, producer and director. Critic George Jean Nathan described her as "the best director of the plays of Shakespeare that we have."
Margaret Rawlings, Lady Barlow was an English stage actress, born in Osaka, Japan, daughter of the Rev. George William Rawlings and his wife Lilian Rawlings.
Michael Leverson Meyer was an English translator, biographer, journalist and dramatist who specialised in Scandinavian literature.
Knut Kirsebom Wigert was a Norwegian actor, known for his many Ibsen roles and the establishment of an Ibsen museum in Oslo.
Ragna Wettergreen was a Norwegian actress.
Zuleikha Chaudhari is a theatre director and lighting designer based in New Delhi and Mumbai, India. She is also a Visiting Faculty at The Dramatic Art and Design Academy, New Delhi.
Ilona Aczél was a Hungarian actress at the National Theatre in Budapest.
Else Lehmann was a German stage actress.
Alfred Jørgen Gjems Selmer was a Norwegian actor.
John Gabriel Borkman public domain audiobook at LibriVox 