READING COMPLETED: This week I read over the handout given in class. This was quotes from Ibsen and were in the book Pillars of Society, A Doll’s House; Ghosts. I wanted to read through this again to understand some of ideas and concepts that went into Ibsen writing ghosts as for the time that it was being written (1881) some of the ideas e.g. euthanasia, are considered not only quite modern but quite controversial also. Ibsen was aware of this as in a letter the Hegal in 1882 he states “My book holds the future”. This is interesting as in a letter to Sophus Scharndorph in 1882 Ibsen states “My intention was to try and give the reader the impression of experiencing a piece of reality”. This is interesting as it suggests that as a playwright that Ibsen was well ahead of his time as within 1881 in London the first theatre using electric lighting was established. When taking this into consideration it is quite a daunting task to think about merging Ibsen’s Ghosts into the style of Pina Bausch as Ibsen wanted to present reality whereas in Bausch’s Tanztheater that is the complete opposite to realism.  

Ibsen, H (tr. McFarlane, J) (1961) The Oxford Ibsen, Vol. 5, Pillars of Society, A Doll’s House; Ghosts, London: Oxford University Press  

MONDAY:It now was the second week of the production process. In class we continued to read the play. Having already read the play this was helpful as I got to focus on different aspects of the play – for example for the second time reading it, recognising the importance `of weather within the stage directions. We also got to watch performances which were completed by previous years. One of these was the seagull. This piece was interesting in parts but was also confused and I felt it slightly lacked focus. However, this was interesting to be able to see performances which have been made.  

WEDNESDAY: Today we attended an e-portfolio session on how to use the software to upload our logs on. Considering we’re here right now it can be assured that it went well. This was useful and maybe different things were shown to us, for example, how to link videos and website links.  

After the session we continued to work on the scenes which we had started last week. When focusing on the scene it is clear that Oswald is obviously very inspired by his father Mr. Alving. Getting this on its feet allowed us to see the character dynamics between both Mrs. Alving, Oswald and Pastor Manders.