THE THEATRE
AN EARLY IBSEN
[PILLARS OF SOCIETY. BY HENRIK IBSEN. EVERYMAN TH EATRE.]
P.ISEN'S Pillars of Society was first produced in 1877. What. plays of that period have survived into the twentieth century with so vigorous a life as this comparatively early one by the author of The Wild Duck and of Rosmersholm ? Yet William Archer told us long ago that " by the time the English, American and French public had fully awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown the phase of his development marked by Pillars of Society that the play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned." Old-fashioned it does seem ; but only in the details of its observation of transient manners. The no doubt accurately sketched scandal-mongers in " one of the smaller coast towns in Norway" now look like grotesques, as they sit round the table of Consul Bernick's "garden-room," sewing for "poor fallen creatures," and listening to Schoolmaster Riirlund, as he reads an instructive talc with such a good moral ! It seems incredible that they should regard the coming of the railway as a sign of fatal degeneration, that they should murmur " God forgive us ! " as they recall the abandoned days when revelry in th; small seaside town was typified by the existence of a Dancing Society, a Musical Society and even a Dramatic Club ; where Hilmar Tiinnesen, side-whisk- ered chief of the grotesques, produced his one play for only one performance. It is worse than incredible—it is irritating —that I lilmar should grunt about the stage, uttering innumer- able fig/is! " upholding the banner of the ideal," and cumbrously exhibiting the irony of an early Ibsen who made the odd creature talk of his longings for a life of adventure and then shrink from the toy crossbow of Berniek's little son.
Old-fashioned too—or commonplace—is the insistence upon the social aspect of " the spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom" as they exist in the individual conscience. Consul Bernick was indeed a tremendous fraud. his prosperous life, his public position, were built upon the lie which con- demned another man to bear the blame for this " pillar's " meannesses. But society has not suffered ; and the "pillar," though morally rotten, stands as a sufficiently effective physical or financial support to the comnumity—composed, it seems, mainly of dolts—that relies upon him for its amenities and its trade. He has a ease ; and he puts it forcibly in the fine scene with the truth-telling Lona, who, like the wrecker of The Wild Duck, would have him clear his mind of cant at the expense of who knows what ruin to hundreds who live upon the consequences of his "vital lie." Nietrsche's phrase returns to one, as one sees Bernick publicly confessing in the stormy final scene, faced by an outraged town, which is placated, however, by the news that it will profit by his latest and largest enterprise. There, perhaps, is a touch of the finer Irony ; of the later Ibsen. Bernick's sins are admitted. Bernick's conscience is appeased. With a " preachy " rhetoric, Lona proclaims the advent of truth and freedom. But society will get shares in the railway scheme.
The old-fashioned portions of the play arc by no means evaded, attenuated, in the Everyman production.
There are Miss Sybil Arundale, as Lona, and Mr. Michael Hogan as Bernick's victim, very much the Wild-Western American emigrants, in cowboy clothes, aggressively "letting in fresh air." Mr. Brember Wills softens none of the unin- telligible splutterings of Hilmar. Even Mr. Milton Rosmer gives an unflinchingly sanctimonious tone to Schoolmaster Riirlund's prosy utterances. In fact, both as actor and as producer, Mr. Rosmer has chosen to show that the play is early Ibsen. It is for Mr. Charles Carson to select, out of the old-fashioned, a fashion that never changes--the supremely Interesting spectacle of a mind tortured by ambition, in its collision with remorse and fear. He makes Bernick's a very moving story. And Miss Gwendolin Evans, Mr. Orlando Barnett and Miss Josephine Wilson also allow us to forget exit their parts have any date. With Mr. Carson, they renew our admiration for the dramatist who was able, even in this "phase of his development," to create characters that
seem to live not only in and for a particular play, a particular situation, but to pass out beyond it, to have suffered before its action begins ; so that imagination sees them still in their ways about a world that changes its manners swiftly, its
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