Global Ibsen: Performing Multiple Modernities

Ibsen’s plays rank among those most frequently performed world-wide, rivaled only by Brecht, Chekhov, Shakespeare, and the Greek tragedies. By the time Ibsen died in 1906, his plays had already conquered the theaters of the Western world. Inviting rapturous praise as well as fierce controversy, they were performed in Europe, North America, and Australia, contributing greatly to the theater, culture, and social life of these continents. Soon after Ibsen’s death, his plays entered the stages of East Asia - Japan, China, Korea - as well as Africa and Latin America. . But while there exist countless studies on Ibsen the dramatist and the significance of his plays within different cultures written mainly by literary scholars, none of them examine the ways in which Ibsen's plays were performed, or the impact of such performances on the theater, social life, and politics of these cultures. In Global Ibsen, contributors look at the way performances of Ibsen's plays address problems typical to modern societies all over the world, including: the inferior social status of women, the decay of bourgeois family life and values, religious fundamentalism, industrial pollution and corporate cover-up, and/or the loss of and search for identity.

Erika Fischer-Lichte is professor of Theatre Studies at the Freie Universitaet Berlin and Chair of the Institute for Advanced Studies on "Interweaving Cultures in Performance" founded in 2008. From 1995 to 1999 she was President of the International Federation for Theatre Research and member of the Academia Europaea, the Academy of Sciences at Goettingen, and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.

Barbara Gronau is a lecturer at the Institute for Theatre Studies at the Freie Universitaet Berlin and a postdoctoral member of the Interdisciplinary Research Center "Performing Culture".

Christel Weiler is currently Program Manager and Associate Director of the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures". Her previous publication includes "Intercultural exchange in the Theatre", and numerous articles on contemporary theatre, "Performance Analysis. An Introduction" (to be published in 2010).