Ibsen Apocalypse

Presenting a groundbreaking account of an audacious theatrical undertaking

Created by the Norwegian/German duo of Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller, the Ibsen-Saga (2006–present) is a six-hundred-year project to restage Henrik Ibsen’s entire oeuvre. Andrew Friedman presents a groundbreaking historical narrative of this project’s development and dramaturgy, through the theories and practices of modernism’s most influential and controversial artists, including Henrik Ibsen, Richard Wagner, F. T. Marinetti, Erwin Piscator, and Jackson Pollock. Vinge and Müller treat Ibsen’s plays as the urtexts of a mythical struggle between artistic vision and material limits, which they explore through analogous narratives ranging from Hamlet to World Cup soccer matches, all unified by a singular aesthetic that juxtaposes totalizing fiction and extreme reality. As Friedman shows, they mythologize Ibsen’s themes of artistic ambition to resurrect and test modernism’s fantasies of artistic autonomy, totality, creative license, and provocation.

By reading Vinge and Müller’s project through its modernist inspirations, Friedman demonstrates the material and ethical limits of modernist ideals in current theatrical practice, providing new perspectives on the legacy of these pioneering figures. Ibsen Apocalypse is a bold, cross-disciplinary reappraisal of the persistent power of modernity in contemporary performance.