Ibsen in America

Book excerpt: "Dramatic freaks," "a cataract of vapid talk," "an offence to taste"--such were the epithets coined by American critics in the late 19th century about the dramas of the "Bard of Bacteria," Henrik Ibsen. By the 1970s, however, attitudes had reversed. When Washington's Kennedy Center opened its new Eisenhower Theater, they premiered with Ibsen's A Doll's House. This shift in one century from rejection to acceptance, from avant-garde to establishment status, did not occur without considerable resistance. Schanke analyzes this evolution from iconoclast to icon. With actresses' essays and interviews about the playwright, index, bibliography, and illustrations of Ibsen productions.