When We Dead Awaken

Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken may be the sort of static introspective play that is actually better read than seen. If faultlessly performed it might make robust drama, but the current production by the Theatre Company of Boston is not faultless.

When We Dead Awaken is the last thing Ibsen wrote, a "dramatic epilogue" dated 1899. An aging sculptor, Professor Arnold Rubek, begins to question the cult of creativity to which he has consecrated his life. Simultaneously he regrets his commitment to art and his declining powers as an artist. The creative urge still gnaws at him, but he cannot recover the idealistic dedication he had as a young man.

Rubek speaks for a disillusioned Ibsen. The occasional awkwardness of When We Dead Awaken and the bitterness of its themes have a common source. Its anguish is the pessimism of a 71-year-old dramatist who would never compose another Master-Builder or Hedda Gabler. When We Dead Awaken is not a fitting conclusion to Ibsen's career. Especially in the third act, set on a mountain peak, Ibsen resorts to artificial contrivances that are not characteristic of him.

The production at the Hotel Bostonian does not muster enough reserve to pull off the play's melodramatic interludes. If the actors performed in a more genteel, more Victorian key, they might be able to speak Ibsen's moody lines more comfortably. Their aggressive, coloquial style tends to rinse away the realism which Ibsen wanted to achieve.

Janet Lee Parker plays Maja, Rubek's restless young wife, with an excess of verve. Maja is supposed to be petulant and mischievous. Too often Miss Parker makes her seem simply immature. In the second act she sprawls and bounces about the stage like a hypertense teenager. The contrast between Maja's antics and her husband's morbid ennui is inflated by Richard Shepard's rather monotonous portrayal of Rubek.

Perhaps it is impossible to make appealing theatre out of When We Dead Awaken. Certainly it is hard to distinguish Ibsen's shortcomings from those of director and cast. The Theatre Company's major mistake, I think, was to produce When We Dead Awaken in the first place. In their quest for unusual modern plays, they seem this time to have bitten off more than they--or possibly any company--can chew.