Rosmersholm – Henrik Ibsen

“Phasma” Art Company

First performance: December 25, 1991

Last performance: April 19, 1992

[…] The four-act drama Rosmersholm is widely regarded as the apex of Ibsen’s creative maturity. It was written in 1886, between The Wild Duck and The Lady from the Sea.

Initially titled White Horses, a title that immediately evokes the imagery of death, Ibsen eventually chose to give his play the emblematic title Rosmersholm, encompassing the tremendous influence and absolute dominance that the ancestral manor, the land of the Rosmers, exerts on the characters of the drama. This imposing place, situated on the banks of a fjord, burdened by the ancestral generation and the invisible presence of the dead, with the shadow of the deceased Beata, Rosmer’s wife who threw herself into the rapids, corrodes consciences and leads inevitably to catastrophe. The intellect and moral values of Rosmersholm ennoble humans but also kill happiness, transforming the psyche of the liberated, wilful Rebecca West. They also affect the spiritual journey of former pastor Johannes Rosmer, so that after mutual confessions, the admission of guilt, and the triumph of the past over the present, Rebecca and Johannes jointly choose the path of suicide, plunging into the fateful rapids. […]

Eleni Varopoulou, The Wanderings of Henrik Ibsen: Social Issues and Drama of Conscience. From the performance programme.

Ibsen’s language compels you to follow its laws. You must surrender yourself to penetrate its rhythms and architecture. And of course, it is not easy. […] It took time for his language to begin revealing its secrets. Ibsen’s language does not “hurry.” It is a structure where every word is functionally necessary, and you must seek its precise meaning in relation to the specific moment because words are illuminated differently depending on the flow of the text. Then comes the moment when you must decipher the rhythm of the text and, above all, respect it. Everything obeys an almost mathematical symmetry that generates music.

Antonis Antypas. In Search of the Language of Rosmersholm. From the performance programme.