Theatre
Eyvind of the Hills
Fjalla-Eyvindur
Jóhann Sigurjónsson · 1911
Synopsis
In eighteenth-century Iceland, Halla, a widow, runs her late husband's farm and has taken on as steward a man who calls himself Kári, whom the bailiff Björn, her brother-in-law, regards with suspicion. Arnes, a wandering labourer reputed to be a thief, hints that Kári has an enemy, and Björn tells Halla that a stranger has recognised in him Eyvind, an escaped thief. Pressed by her, Kári confesses: convicted of theft, he fled and lived as an outlaw in the mountains. Halla forgives him and faces the choice of leaving everything to follow him.
Context
The play draws on Fjalla-Eyvindur, an outlaw born around 1714 who, after 1760, fled with his wife Halla to the highlands and lived there for some twenty years. Published in Danish in 1911 under the title Bjærg-Ejvind og hans Hustru, then in Icelandic in 1912, it carries Copenhagen by storm, causes a sensation in Scandinavia and Germany, and will be performed in England and the United States. Georg Brandes hails in it a poetic talent of the first rank. The author rewrote its last scenes for Mme Dybvad, who played Halla in Copenhagen, and Victor Sjöström adapted it for the cinema in Swedish Lapland, for a release in 1918.
Who it is for
A drama in four acts, which can be read in French in the 2002 translation, made from the Icelandic text.
Prizes and reception
Critics of his day placed its author alongside Ibsen, Bjørnson and Strindberg.