Page, Stage and Screen The Opening of Ibsen’s Gengangere…精选.pdfVIP

Egil Törnqvist PAGE, STAGE AND SCREEN: THE OPENING OF IBSENS GENGANGERE (GHOSTS) Thirteen years ago I dealt with the opening of Ibsens Gengangere (1881) in this journal. 1 I was then primarily concerned with two problems: the rela- tionship between the first-time-recipient (R1) and the rerecipient (R2) with regard to drama2 and the inclination among drama critics to make little or no distinction between the reader of a play and the spectator of a (hypothetical) performance based on it. The opening of Gengangere was chosen as an example simply because a number of critics have analyzed it in some detail. The present article may be seen as a complementary sequel to the earlier one. I shall deal with exactly the same part of the play,3 but this time I wish to focus on the way it has factually been presented in six television productions, three of which are moderately adjusted stage versions. It could of course be argued that a comparison between various stage performances would have been more fair to Ibsen, since the stage, not the screen, was his intended medium. On the other hand, it is a fact that play productions on the small screen in our time reach considerably more spectators than stage performances. 4 Apart from this sociological justification, a comparison between the text and different screen versions is of interest in its own right, as a switch from one medium (text) to another (screen) sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly (via the stage). Another practical reason for my choice is that screen performances, unlike stage versions, can be preserved on videotape the way they appeared to the spectators when they were transmitted. As a 1Hur inleds Ibsens Gengangere?