Whatever inconsistencies may be detected now and again by a minute
analysis of motive,--and after all these inconsistencies are slight and
infrequent,--the characters that Ibsen has brought upon the stage have
one unfailing characteristic: they are intensely interesting. They are
not mere puppets moved here and there by the visible hand of the
playwright; they are human beings, alive in every nerve, and obeying
their own volition. The breath of life has been breathed into them; they
may be foolish or morbid, headstrong or perverse, illogical or fanatic,
none the less are they real, vital, actual. And this is the reason why
actors are ever eager for the chance to act them. Where Scribe and
Sardou and the manufacturers of the "well-made play" give the performers
only effective parts, to be presented as skilfully as might be, Ibsen
has proffered to them genuine characters to get inside of as best they
could,--characters not easy to personate, indeed, often obscure and
dangerous. Because of this danger and this doubt, they are all the more
tempting to the true artist, who is ever on the alert for a tussle with
technical difficulty. The men and women who people Ibsen's plays are
never what the slang of the stage terms "straight parts"; they are never
the traditional "leading man" and "leading woman"; in a sense they are
all of them, male and female, young and old, "character parts," complex,
illusive, alluring. They are not readily mastered, for they keep on
revealing fresh possibilities the more searchingly they are studied; and
this is why the reward is rich, when the actor has been able at last to
get inside of them.
Even when he has done this, when he has put himself into "the skin of
the personage" (to borrow the illuminating French phrase), the actor
cannot be certain that his personation is finally right. No one of
Ibsen's characters is presented in profile only, imposing its sole
interpretation on the baffled performer. Every one of them is rounded
and various, like a man in real life, to be seen from contradictory
angles and to be approached from all sides. No one is a silhouette; and
every one is a chameleon, changing color even while we are looking at
it. Every part is a problem to the actors who undertake it, a problem
with many a solution, no one of which can be proved, however assured the
performer may be that he has hit on the right one. To the actor the
privilege of an artistic adventure like this comes but rarely; and it is
prized accordingly. Not often does he find under his hand material at
once fresh and solid. He feels the fascination of this chance and he
lays hold of it firmly, even tho he has a haunting fear of failure,
absent from the easy, daily exercise of his professional skill. He
relishes the opportunity to speak Ibsen's wonderful prose, that dialog
which seems to the mere reader direct and nervous, and which impresses
the actual auditor in the theater as incomparable in its veracity, its
vivacity, its flexibility, its subtlety, and its certainty; but which
only the actor who delivers it on the stage can praise adequately, since
he alone is aware of its full force, of its surcharged meaning, and of
its carrying power.
To act Ibsen is worth while, so the actors themselves think; and it is
significant that it is to the actors, rather than to the regular
managers, that we owe the most of our chances for seeing his plays
presented on the stage. That Ibsen offers opportunities not provided in
the pieces of any other modern dramatist is the belief of many an actor
and of many an actress longing for a chance to rival the great
performers who have gone before, leaving only their fame behind them. So
it is that the 'Pillars of Society' is set up in our theaters now and
_again_, and that 'Ghosts' may revisit our stage from time to time. So
it is that the ambitious leading lady, abandoning the _Camille_ and the
_Pauline_ of a generation or two ago, yearns now to show what she can do
as _Nora_ and as _Hedda Gabler_, unable to resist the temptation to try
her luck also in impersonating these women of the North, essentially
feminine even when they are fatally enigmatic.