Master Builder (eBook)

Henrik Ibsen (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016 | 1. Auflage
96 Seiten
Faber & Faber (Verlag)
978-0-571-33082-9 (ISBN)

Infos

The change will come. And it's not far away, I promise you that. Some figure will emerge from the dark screaming 'Get out of the way'. And not far behind others will follow... The young are waiting. In all their power. Knocking on the door. The master builder Halvard Solness has a fear of falling. A self-made man, without professional qualifications, he has achieved domination in the town but he's increasingly frightened of being displaced by the young. A woman, Hilde Wangel, appears from the mountains, claiming to have known Solness ten years previously, and telling him of a promise he made to her when she thirteen. David Hare has written a new adaptation of one of Henrik Ibsen's most complex autobiographical masterpieces - a mesmeric exploration of control, power, lust and death, which builds to a vertiginous climax. The Master Builder premiered in this English version at The Old Vic, London, in January 2016.

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), Norwegian poet and playwright, was one of the shapers of modern theatre, who tempered naturalism with an understanding of social responsibility and individual psychology. His earliest major plays, Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867), were large-scale verse dramas, but with Pillars of the Community (1877) he began to explore contemporary issues. There followed A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881) and An Enemy of the People (1882). A richer understanding of the complexity of human impulses marks such later works as The Wild Duck (1885), Rosmersholm (1886), Hedda Gabler (1890) and The Master Builder (1892), while the imminence of mortality overshadows his last great plays, John Gabriel Borkman (1896) and When We Dead Awaken (1899).

Textauszug

Act Two

A beautifully decorated small sitting room. On the back wall a glass door leading to the veranda and garden. In the right-hand corner, a large window and flower-stands. There is a corresponding corner on the left, and also a small wallpapered door. On each of the side walls, a conventional door. On the right at the front a console table with a large mirror, and more flowers and plant. On the left, a sofa with table and chairs. At the back, a bookcase. In front of the bay window, a small table and a couple of chairs.

It is before noon. Solness is at the table with Ragnar’s folder in front of him. He is examining the drawings inside. Mrs Solness moves round silently with a watering can, tending to the flowers. As before, she is dressed in black, her hat and coat and parasol lying on a chair by the mirror. Unnoticed, Solness follows her with his eyes a couple of times. Then Kaja comes in quietly from the left-hand door. Solness turns his head.

Solness Ah, good, it’s you.

Kaja I wanted you to know I was here.

Solness Excellent. And do we have Ragnar as well?

Kaja Not yet. He’s had to stay and wait for the doctor. But he wants to come in later and ask –

Solness How’s his father doing?

Kaja Not well. He apologises, but he feels he’ll have to stay in bed today.

Solness By all means. Why don’t you make a start?

Kaja makes to leave, but stops at the door.

Kaja Do you want to have a word with Ragnar when he gets in?

Solness Not much.

Kaja goes out.

Mrs Solness I wonder if he’s not dying too.

Solness Too? Who else do you have in mind?

Mrs Solness I’m talking about Brovik, he’s going to die too, Halvard. You must have noticed.

Solness Aline, my dear, weren’t you about to go for a walk?

Mrs Solness That is my intention, yes.

But she carries on watering. Solness is still poring over the drawings.

Solness Is she still in bed?

Mrs Solness Oh I see, it’s Miss Wangel you’re sitting there thinking about.

Solness (not rising to it) She just floated briefly through my mind.

Mrs Solness She’s been up for hours.

Solness Oh, really?

Mrs Solness When I saw her, she was attending to her wardrobe.

She goes to put her hat on. A silence.

Solness So we did eventually find a use for one of the nurseries, Aline.

Mrs Solness Indeed we did.

Solness Better than leaving it empty.

Mrs Solness You’re right. I hate the emptiness.

Solness closes the folder and goes near her.

Solness Aline, from now on life is going to get better for us. You’ll see. Much pleasanter. Much more liveable. For you.

Mrs Solness From now on?

Solness Trust me about this, Aline.

Mrs Solness You mean, better because of the new arrival?

Solness (checking himself) I meant – I was referring to our new house.

Mrs Solness Oh the new house, Halvard? You think life will be better in a new house?

Solness I think it’s bound to be. Surely you must think so too.

Mrs Solness I don’t think anything about the new house.

Solness It hurts me when you speak like that. It’s for your sake that I’m building it.

She has picked up her coat and now he tries to help her with it. But she pulls away.

Mrs Solness You do too much for my sake.

Solness How can you say such a thing? It hurts me when you talk like that.

Mrs Solness Then I won’t ay them, Halvard.

Solness I stand by what I said. Things are going to take a positive turn when we’re in the new house.

Mrs Solness A positive turn? I don’t think so.

Solness For a start, I’ve gone out of my way – you’ll see – I’ve done everything I can to make it resemble –

Mrs Solness Yes, I know. My family home. Which was burnt to extinction.

Solness I know. I understand. For you, it was unbearable.

Mrs Solness You can build, you can build for a thousand years and you’ll never build me anything I could call a home.

Solness walks away.

Solness Probably best, in that case, that we leave the subject for now.

Mrs Solness Oh leave it, yes. As you always do. Avoid.

Solness Avoid? You think it’s me that avoids? You think I’m the avoider?

But she’s already shaking her head.

Mrs Solness Halvard, I understand you so well. You think you can spare me. And somehow absolve me. As if – you seem to think – as if it were –

Solness You think it’s you that needs absolving?

Mrs Solness I know what I need. I know myself too well.

Solness stares into space. Then he blurts out.

Solness Nothing but reproach!

Mrs Solness All right, when it came to what happened to the house, all right, that much is just bad luck –

Solness You’re right. Accidents happen! They happen!

Mrs Solness But then after the fire. What happened after. That, that, that!

Solness Don’t think about it, Aline.

Mrs Solness No, you’re wrong. I have to think about it. And I have finally to talk about it – for once! Because I can’t endure it any longer. Never to be able to forgive myself –

Solness (amazed) Forgive yourself?

Mrs Solness Who else? I had responsibilities. On both sides. To you and to the children. I should have been more single-minded. Not let fear overcome me. Or grief – I lingered, watching the fire too long. If only I could have, Halvard.

Solness moves slowly across to her.

Solness You have to put these thoughts away, Aline. They lead nowhere. You have to promise –

Mrs Solness Oh promise – marvellous! – promise, as though promise meant anything –

Solness walks away.

Solness Never a ray of sunshine, never a gleam of light. Nothing but despair in our home –

Mrs Solness Home? This is no home.

Solness No. You’re right. And probably right about the next house too.

Mrs Solness It will be just as empty. Just as desolate. It will be no better there than it is here.

Solness Then tell me one thing: why have we built it? With what purpose, with what intention have we built?

Mrs Solness Only you know the answer to that.

Solness And by ‘that’ you mean what? You mean what?

Mrs Solness What do I mean?

Solness Yes. Tell me, tell me, damn it. I try – I’m trying to – underneath your words – under them – tell me, tell me what’s under them.

Mrs Solness There’s nothing under...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.2.2016
• Übersetzer: David Hare
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater
• ISBN-10: 0-571-33082-7 / 0571330827
• ISBN-13: 978-0-571-33082-9 / 9780571330829