TRAVEL

Ibsen

The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom,

these are the pillars of society – Ibsen

Local literary geniuses. There have been many, from places we have lived.

Liverpool gave us William Russell and Helen Forrester, South Africa, Athol Fugard. And Norway has given us Henrik Ibsen. When we came to Norway, I wanted to retrace the footsteps of playwright Henrik Ibsen. A Dolls House had been one of the works I had enjoyed studying the most at college.

We heard of The Ibsen Museum in Grimstad. The website reads:

“In 1843, a 15-year-old Henrik Ibsen came to Grimstad to work as an apprentice for apothecary Reimann. During the six intense years he lived in the town, he became an apothecary’s assistant, a social critic and an author. With a newly published “Catilina” under his belt, he left town in 1850 determined to work with theatre.” (https://www.visitnorway.no)

The Ibsen Museum had celebrated its 100th anniversary a few years ago, and it marked the occasion with a newly restored building. There is now a new exhibition which details the story of Ibsen’s life and work after he left Grimstad, and examples of Ibsen’s literary work, which typically featured financial difficulties, suffering women feeling trapped in their lives and moral conflicts.

But this was travel, in a time of Coronavirus. The museum was closed. So we made a plan. I contacted the museum and enquired about the possibility of a private tour. I received a reply the next day:

“The museum is currently closed, but we will make an exception for you. You are welcome for a tour in May. Due to the corona situation, you cannot touch any of the objects in the museum, and we must keep a good distance. You must wash your hands before and after the visit and not be more than 4 people in the group.”

We were delighted. A private tour.

We re-visited Ibsen’s work, watching a brilliant adaptation to the Arabic setting in Danu Dubai’s production of A Doll’s House. 

I remembered what had struck me about his work. Ibsen put women centre stage. He gave us plays about women. And his work reflected how advanced the Scandnavian countries were, in terms of women’s rights.

In A Doll’s House, the character of Nora, the ‘doll’, borrows money to pay for her husband’s illness and secretly pays it back. Of course the tension builds to the point in the play where the secret gets out. And the marriage falls apart. The play is a story of female struggle and it becomes a celebration of female independence. And it raised the question of whether a woman should leave her husband and her children, an idea that was shocking for society at that time. Ibsen had always shown sympathy for women and their powerlessness in his work. The play continues to speaks to many different cultures around the world,  exploring concepts in marriage, relationships and gender.

And so we ventured out. During the lockdown in Norway, we hadn’t left the island of Hisoy in eight weeks. But restrictions are slowly being lifted and the country is slowly opening up.

We took a local bus to Grimstad.

We were warmly welcomed at the museum, which has been closed for many months. We were the first visitors since January. We saw the living room where Ibsen wrote his first play Catilina. It was fantastic standing there, by the table, imagining him writing his first play in that room. Literary history. We were taken into the original pharmacy, the room adjacent to the living room, which administered medicine to the community 24 hours a day.

We learned about Ibsen’s poetry. He wrote twenty six poems while he lived in Grimstad. We listened to a recording of ‘To The Star’, a love poem he had written for a girlfriend. And we learned more about the man himself and the events in his life. Therese, the museum’s Head of communication had a wealth of information about the Playwright and answered all our questions.

Norway will celebrate its national day this weekend. And Henrik Ibsen would be considered a famous Norwegian, a local hero, whose work has gained notoriety worldwide.

Who is a local hero, where you are?

© Maggie M / Mother City Time.