The Master Builder – Henrik Ibsen, 1892 ★★½

Make Way for Youth

Henrik Ibsen was not the most playful of playwrights, but he did pull off an occasional head fake to confuse his audience. Case in point: The opening act of his later work, The Master Builder.

Hedda Gabler – Henrik Ibsen, 1890 ★★★½

Armed and Dangerous

Is Hedda Gabler a woman misunderstood, or a sociopath who can’t deny herself her own darkest impulses? I won’t play it safe: Whatever makes her tick, she’s one nasty broad.

And nasty is good when served up as Ibsen does here, with subtlety, compassion, and buckets of jet-black humor so dark as to be indistinguishable from despair. While it is hard fixing exactly who Hedda Gabler is, or why she does what she does, there’s no taking your eyes off the stage or the page while she holds court.

A Doll's House – Henrik Ibsen, 1879 ★★★★

Selfishness is Not a Virtue

One is so geared to the view A Doll’s House is proto-feminist art that pushback appears in order. The author himself denied an agenda before a gathering of Norwegian suffragettes in 1898.

Still, the crux of the play deals with limitations society places on a woman; gender sensibility hovers over every one of its three acts.

Ghosts – Henrik Ibsen, 1881 ★★

Something Rotten in Norway

A sensation when it first hit the stage, Ibsen’s Ghosts is hard to enjoy now. You can appreciate how the play pushed boundaries in the 19^th century, giving voice to forbidden ideas; today it feels melodramatic and forced – a four-hankie weeper about a tortured artist and his ever-faithful mother stuck together in the repressive backwaters of western Norway.