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Rh theatrical production in Denmark and Germany, with the stipulation that, on his return, he should undertake the duties of "scene instructor"—that is to say, stage-manager or producer. In this function he seems to have been—as, indeed, he always was—extremely conscientious. A book exists in the Bergen Public Library containing (it is said) careful designs by him for every scene in the plays he produced, and full notes as to entrances, exits, groupings, costumes, accessories, &c. But he was not an animating or inspiring producer. He had none of the histrionic vividness of his successor in the post, Björnstjerne Björnson, who, like all great producers, could not only tell the actors what to do, but show them how to do it. Perhaps it was a sense of his lack of impulse that induced the management to give him a colleague, one Herman Låding, with whom his relations were none of the happiest. Ibsen is even said, on one occasion, to have challenged Låding to a duel.

One of the duties of the "theatre-poet" was to have a new play ready for each recurrence of the "Foundation Day" of the theatre, January 2. On that date, in 1853, Ibsen produced a romantic comedy, St. John's Night. This is the only one of his plays that has never been printed. From the accounts of those who have seen the manuscript, it would appear to be a strange jumble of fantastic fairy-lore with modern comedy or melodrama. Perhaps it is not quite fanciful to regard it as a sort of half-way house between A Midsummer Night's Dream and Peer Gynt. In one of its scenes there appears to be an unmistakable foreshadowing of the episode in the Troll-King's palace (Peer Gynt, Act II., Sc. 6). The play had no success, and was performed only twice. For the next Foundation Day, January 2, 1854, Ibsen