Theatre
The Balcony
Balkonen
Gunnar Heiberg · 1894
Opening lines
Abel
Farvel! (kysser hende, holder hendes hoved mellem begge sine hænder.) Farvel!
Goodbye! (kisses her, holds her head between both his hands.) Goodbye!
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
At daybreak, Julie and her lover Abel are standing at a balcony door. Julie despises her husband, Ressmann; when he comes home, she introduces Abel as a buyer who has come to view the house, and the husband, to prove the strength of the cracked balcony, jumps on it. Years later, Abel, wholly absorbed in his lectures on the progress of humanity, sees love as a dangerous force and draws away; Julie, who wants to love and be loved, turns to Antonio.
Context
The play appeared in 1894 and marked, according to an American encyclopedia entry, the maturity of its author: a stylised, symbolist portrait of erotic love as a force of nature, which broke with realism. Its characters have neither history nor psychology of their own. First staged in Norway at the Centralteatret in 1898, it was performed the same year in Berlin, where Rudolf Steiner saw in it “a piece of life” and not a satire. It appeared in English in 1922 under the title The Balcony.
Who it is for
A short play in three acts, with no French translation, whose rhetorical dialogue may puzzle readers today.
Prizes and reception
With La Tragédie de l'amour, the major contribution of its author to Norwegian theatre according to literary historians.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.