Ghosts | Page 3

doors to the tragedy.
Not until April 1886 was Gespenster acted in Germany, and then only
at a private performance, at the Stadttheater, Augsburg, the poet
himself being present. In the following winter it was acted at the

famous Court Theatre at Meiningen, again in the presence of the poet.
The first (private) performance in Berlin took place on January 9, 1887,
at the Residenz Theater; and when the Freie Bühne, founded on the
model of the Paris Theatre Libre, began its operations two years later
(September 29, 1889), Gespenster was the first play that it produced.
The Freie Bühne gave the initial impulse to the whole modern
movement which has given Germany a new dramatic literature; and the
leaders of the movement, whether authors or critics, were one and all
ardent disciples of Ibsen, who regarded Gespenster as his typical
masterpiece. In Germany, then, the play certainly did, in Ibsen's own
words, "move some boundary-posts." The Prussian censorship
presently withdrew its veto, and on, November 27, 1894, the two
leading literary theatres of Berlin, the Deutsches Theater and the
Lessing Theater, gave simultaneous performances of the tragedy.
Everywhere in Germany and Austria it is now freely performed; but it
is naturally one of the least popular of Ibsen's plays.
It was with Les Revenants that Ibsen made his first appearance on the
French stage. The play was produced by the Théâtre Libre (at the
Théâtre des Menus-Plaisirs) on May 29, 1890. Here, again, it became
the watchword of the new school of authors and critics, and aroused a
good deal of opposition among the old school. But the most hostile
French criticisms were moderation itself compared with the torrents of
abuse which were poured upon Ghosts by the journalists of London
when, on March 13, 1891, the Independent Theatre, under the direction
of Mr. J. T. Grein, gave a private performance of the play at the
Royalty Theatre, Soho. I have elsewhere [Note: See "The Mausoleum
of Ibsen," Fortnightly Review, August 1893. See also Mr. Bernard
Shaw's Quintessence of Ibsenism, p. 89, and my introduction to Ghosts
in the single-volume edition.] placed upon record some of the amazing
feats of vituperation achieved of the critics, and will not here recall
them. It is sufficient to say that if the play had been a tenth part as
nauseous as the epithets hurled at it and its author, the Censor's veto
would have been amply justified. That veto is still (1906) in force.
England enjoys the proud distinction of being the one country in the
world where Ghosts may not be publicly acted. In the United States, the
first performance of the play in English took place at the Berkeley

Lyceum, New York City, on January 5, 1894. The production was
described by Mr. W. D. Howells as "a great theatrical event--the very
greatest I have ever known." Other leading men of letters were equally
impressed by it. Five years later, a second production took place at the
Carnegie Lyceum; and an adventurous manager has even taken the play
on tour in the United States. The Italian version of the tragedy, Gli
Spettri, has ever since 1892 taken a prominent place in the repertory of
the great actors Zaccone and Novelli, who have acted it, not only
throughout Italy, but in Austria, Germany, Russia, Spain, and South
America.
In an interview, published immediately after Ibsen's death, Björnstjerne
Björnson, questioned as to what he held to be his brother-poet's greatest
work, replied, without a moment's hesitation, Gengangere. This dictum
can scarcely, I think, be accepted without some qualification. Even
confining our attention to the modern plays, and leaving out of
comparison The Pretenders, Brand, and Peer Gynt, we can scarcely
call Ghosts Ibsen's richest or most human play, and certainly not his
profoundest or most poetical. If some omnipotent Censorship decreed
the annihilation of all his works save one, few people, I imagine, would
vote that that one should be Ghosts. Even if half a dozen works were to
be saved from the wreck, I doubt whether I, for my part, would include
Ghosts in the list. It is, in my judgment, a little bare, hard, austere. It is
the first work in which Ibsen applies his new technical
method--evolved, as I have suggested, during the composition of _A
Doll's House_--and he applies it with something of fanaticism. He is
under the sway of a prosaic ideal-- confessed in the phrase, "My object
was to make the reader feel that he was going through a piece of real
experience"--and he is putting some constraint upon the poet within
him. The action moves a little stiffly, and all in one rhythm. It lacks
variety and suppleness. Moreover, the play affords some slight excuse
for the criticism which persists in regarding Ibsen as a preacher rather