Jacques Lacan (1901 - 1981)
Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906)
Denmark
Based on Terje T Mikkelsen's studies predicated on the theories of French psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan (1901 - 1981), Ibsen Stage Company hosts a repertoire of extensive readings and workshops of When We Dead Awaken, John Gabriel Borkman, The Lady from the Sea, Little Eyolf and Rosmersholm.
The readings and workshops explore Lacan's argument that our world view is shaped by seeing ourselves as a unified image in mirrors creating a fundamental split between that ideal image and our fragmented inner reality, leading to desire, lack, and misrecognition of ourselves as separate from the world, all filtered through the structures of language.
The readings and workshops examine how the work and ideas of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831) has informed Henrik Ibsen's (1828 – 1906) notion of self and his expose of the human psyche in a modern world and provides a reappraisal of the incipient modernism of the playwright's dramatic works. On this premise, the study adopts a psychoanalytic approach in which Hegel's ideas are read through the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's theory of the split subject in order to unveil Hegel’s significant, yet often evaded and feared, influence on Ibsen’s inner dramas and knowledge of human psychology. This approach is exemplified through analysis of the dialogue, characters, character configurations, stage directions, symbolism and dramaturgical composition of Ibsen’s late works.
In his final thesis, the findings in Mikkelsen's studies are juxtaposed with the work of John Northam (1922 – 2004), Daniel Haakonsen (1917 – 89), Vigdis Ystad (1942 - 2019), Jørgen Dines Johansen (1943 – 2018), and Toril Moi (1953 - ), whose approach reflects the dominant tendency in post-war Ibsen research to exclude Hegel's influence on Ibsen’s later works.
In bringing Hegel's thinking and Lacan's ideas together, the studies, readings and workshops not only provide a work tool for theatre practicioners, but also show how Ibsen's dramas provide a sharp and often painful insight into the playwright's deep-seated human understanding of ourselves. The studies highlight how idealism and modernism are in harmony, not conflict; where the psychological corresponds to the philosophical; and where we do not have to locate Ibsen’s work in a specific context or period to appreciate the voice that still engage and speak to us every time we read his plays or watch them on stage.
University of Copenhagen
