Playtime
Today the heat wave has broken. It has been a dismally dull wet afternoon, so I spent it curled up reading the script of John Gabriel Borkman found online at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=242159&pageno=2
Play scene-setting background music Saint-Saens Danse Macabre on one piano:
As hirschkuh told me, it was surprisingly easy to read, especially as in my head the parts of Borkman and Ella were clearly heard in the voices of AR and Lindsay Duncan.
I liked this description of the title character:
BORKMAN is of middle height, a well-knit, powerfully-built man, well on in the sixties. His appearance is distinguished, his profile finely cut, his eyes piercing, his hair and beard curly and greyish-white. He is dressed in a slightly old-fashioned black coat, and wears a white necktie.
Yes, I can see that in my mind’s eye very well - except for the beard. I wonder…
After one reading my very brief and uninformed synopsis of the relationship triangle is under the cut...
For a business kingdom, power, and potential glory JGB makes a calculated decision to forfeit the woman who loves him to a rival, in exchange for a profitable position, marrying the woman’s sister instead. But the betrayed sister will not accept another suitor, and her refusal sets in motion a twisted train of events, which lead to vengeful disclosure and ruination. JBG ends up by losing everything. He remains unrepentant to the last, when his hard heart is finally seized in an icy grip, cold as the metals of the earth he valued above any human relationship.
Luckily JGB’s son has the good fortune, despite the strange set up with his mother and aunt fighting for his favour, to depart unscathed in pursuit of healthy and heartfelt happiness. The sins of his father do not mar his positive outlook for the future.
Frank McGuiness' new interpretation of the play is described in the Abbey Theatre online blurb as 'darkly comic'. I didn't exactly think 'comedy' as I read it myself, but I am ignorant of Ibsen's original intentions, and of how the play has been presented in the past. I realise also that this may depend upon direction and delivery. It will be interesting to see what they do with it in Dublin.
However it is presented, this play is going to produce another classic pairing of AR and Lindsay Duncan in a couple of emotive scenes, plus great character contrast between LD and Fiona Shaw as the two disappointed women in JGB’s doomed life. It’s just a pity that the play isn’t actually longer, but I guess Ibsen says it all with sufficient succinctness.
Play scene-setting background music Saint-Saens Danse Macabre on one piano:
Click to viewAs hirschkuh told me, it was surprisingly easy to read, especially as in my head the parts of Borkman and Ella were clearly heard in the voices of AR and Lindsay Duncan.
I liked this description of the title character:
BORKMAN is of middle height, a well-knit, powerfully-built man, well on in the sixties. His appearance is distinguished, his profile finely cut, his eyes piercing, his hair and beard curly and greyish-white. He is dressed in a slightly old-fashioned black coat, and wears a white necktie.
Yes, I can see that in my mind’s eye very well - except for the beard. I wonder…
After one reading my very brief and uninformed synopsis of the relationship triangle is under the cut...
For a business kingdom, power, and potential glory JGB makes a calculated decision to forfeit the woman who loves him to a rival, in exchange for a profitable position, marrying the woman’s sister instead. But the betrayed sister will not accept another suitor, and her refusal sets in motion a twisted train of events, which lead to vengeful disclosure and ruination. JBG ends up by losing everything. He remains unrepentant to the last, when his hard heart is finally seized in an icy grip, cold as the metals of the earth he valued above any human relationship.
Luckily JGB’s son has the good fortune, despite the strange set up with his mother and aunt fighting for his favour, to depart unscathed in pursuit of healthy and heartfelt happiness. The sins of his father do not mar his positive outlook for the future.
Frank McGuiness' new interpretation of the play is described in the Abbey Theatre online blurb as 'darkly comic'. I didn't exactly think 'comedy' as I read it myself, but I am ignorant of Ibsen's original intentions, and of how the play has been presented in the past. I realise also that this may depend upon direction and delivery. It will be interesting to see what they do with it in Dublin.
However it is presented, this play is going to produce another classic pairing of AR and Lindsay Duncan in a couple of emotive scenes, plus great character contrast between LD and Fiona Shaw as the two disappointed women in JGB’s doomed life. It’s just a pity that the play isn’t actually longer, but I guess Ibsen says it all with sufficient succinctness.