The plays in this volume range from the once shockingly realistic Ghosts (1881), 'the play that launched a thousand ships of critical fury'; through The Wild Duck (1884) with its innovatory symbolism and its touching portrait of a fourteen-year-old girl held in thrall by her feckless father ('Where,' asked George Bernard Shaw, 'shall I find an epithet magnificent enough for The Wild Duck?'); to The Master Builder (1892), showing the semi-autobiographical relationship between an ageing genius and a dynamic young woman. Michael Meyer's translations are 'crisp and cobweb-free, purged of verbal Victoriana' (Kenneth Tynan)
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a Norwegian playwright and poet whose realistic, symbolic and often controversial plays revolutionised European theatre. He is widely regarded as the father of modern drama. His acclaimed plays include A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, An Enemy of the People and The Pillars of the Community. His centenary was celebrated in 2006.
Title: Ibsen Plays One: Ghosts, The Wild Duck, The Master Builder
Author: Henrik Ibsen
ISBN: 9780413463302
Binding:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication Date: 1980-09-25
Number of Pages: 320
Weight: 0.1815 kg
The Master Builder is an 'elegiac late Ibsen play, with its central themes of youth and ageing, renewal and decay.' Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard (London), 17.9.10 'What does it profit a man if he conquers the world but fails to slay his own demons? Ibsen's The Master Builder, first published 14 years before his death in 1906, distils many of his preoccupations as a dramatist into their purest essence. It warns us that what we fear most and seek to avoid is the thing we are bound to confront. It reminds us that the most towering reputation can be built on the weakest foundation. It has the strangeness, simplicity and quiet terror, too, of a fairy tale.' Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph, 18.9.10 The Master Builder: 'Ibsen explores, in often devastating detail, the dark tragedy of betrayal, the consuming needs of sexual passion as well as the thorny crown of ambition' Daily Express - Paul Callan, 19.11.10 The Master Builder: 'A disturbing masterpiece' Guardian - Michael Billington, 19.11.10 The Master Builder: 'Weirdly gripping' Independent on Sunday - Kate Bassett, 21.11.10
