Theatre
Driftekaren
Not translated into English
Hans E. Kinck · 1908
Opening lines
Vraal
Kom da, blakken! — Er du nu sta igjen?
Come on, Dun! Are you being stubborn again?
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from nb.no
Synopsis
Vraal, a drover and trader who also has the gift of verse and speech, comes back down from the mountain towards the villages of the West. The story continues: he owes money there for a herd he has not sold, a vagabond, Gro, follows him so that he will acknowledge his son, and at the Klepp farm, at the widow Dordi's, he finds again the young Bol whom he had left. The pedlar Brita-Brigt, out of prison, contests her with him, and Vraal then becomes the leader of the village, armed with nothing but his words.
Context
The play appeared in 1908; it had been begun in the autumn of 1907, partly in Florence. It has been seen as the summit of his theatre, and its debt to Peer Gynt, to which it refers, has been stressed. The National Theatre staged it in 1939 in a production by Halfdan Christensen, and the Suttungteatret revived it in 1968 and 1983; the 1968 performance, according to the literary portal of Northern Norway, lasted nearly five hours. Eivind Groven drew his first symphony from it.
Who it is for
Five acts never translated into French or English, to be read in Norwegian, preferably after reading Ibsen.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's greatest play, it returned to the stage as late as the 1980s.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.