Norwegian, Iranian stage artists discuss Ibsen’s plays

TEHRAN,Feb.1(MNA) -- Norwegian theater artists shared their experience in performing the works of the world famous Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) with their Iranian counterparts. Norwegian actress Juni Dahr, musician Chris Poole and theater coordinator Martina Sguazzin held a workshop for a number of female Iranian theater students at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on Wednesday. The Norwegian troupe came to Iran to take part in the 32nd Fajr International Theater Festival, which is currently underway in Tehran. Dahr performed her monodrama “Ibsen’s Women-Put an Eagle in a Cage” at the Nazerzadeh-Kermani Hall of the Iranshahr Theater Complex on Thursday and Friday. The play explores six female characters in Henrik Ibsen’s works. During the play Dahr has encounters with Hilde, Hedda, Mrs. Alving, Nora, Ellida and Hjordis. Over twenty female Iranian students along with theater scholar Farindokht Zahedi, stage directors Nassim Adabipur and Samaneh Zandinejad attended the workshop. During the event, Dahr explained about Norwegian culture and her own interest in performing Ibsen’s works. Ibsen is a realist dramatist whose characters are inspired by real characters in society, Dahr said during the workshop. She called Ibsen a social critic, whose characters are like mirrors in front of the actors during the play. She pointed to Ibsen’s famous play “A Doll’s House” saying that it is a social criticism that talks about freedom. Gender is not an important issue in Ibsen’s plays since he believed in the freedom of the human spirit, Zahedi added during the event. Freedom has different meanings in different parts of world, Poole mentioned during the workshop. However, he said that Ibsen’s plays can satisfy these different aspects of freedom for audiences from different parts of world. Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theater director and poet. He is often referred to as “the father of realism” and is one of the founders of Modernism in theater.