Blog nr. 1 - FIRST WRITERS´ WORKSHOP AT FAGERSTRAND,  August 2023

Workshop nr 1: Siri´s cabin at Fagerstrand, August 2023

Participants, the writers: Ole Christian Solbakken, Susanne Skogstad, Siri Senje

The idea for this workshop was a soft start and free roaming about in our raw material as well as its context.

(see Workshop 1 powerpoint for schedule). We had an agenda, but we allowed ourselves to keep veering away from it. This is the way of writers, people of many words, and the way of the imagination as it approaches the new arena on which it will engage and unfold.

We had decided not to start working on anything concrete like a storyline or synopsis  too early. We were to allow for a period of creative chaos. But we are dramatists. We cannot resist seeing things in scenes, and scenes tend to spring from each other and quickly begin to link together and become stories.

Note to self: As we roam about, we - the dramatists - are not, as one would imagine, hearing things in words/dialogue, rather, we are seeing things in visual/physical settings and situational contexts. In these, action takes place, usually action revealing something beneath, an inner, emotional timbre, a symbolic charge, a metaphor. Something - a something that cannot be expressed in words alone -  is evoked through the words describing a scene. This is the nature of our multilayered craft. The dramatist´s tools are images, situations, actions, pauses, vibes, tone, style, subtextual content, and more. Words, in the form of dialogue, of course, also come into play, but they often come late, or last.

Ole Christian now envisions the scene in which Henrik (we are on first name terms now), after the success of Brand in 1866 and the advent of his new, steady income, goes to a professional barber in Rome, for the first time in a long time. Changes his style. Cleans up. A new elegance. Joining the bourgeoisie? No longer the bohemian.  We all love this scene in the Roman barbershop.

Day 1: Context  - and our main character

Discussion themes, context: 

• The biographical drama, our research context

• Historian Rosenstone´s concept of “true vs. false invention”  in cinematic versions of history

• Oppenheimer: What we call "the Einstein moment" at the beginning and end og the movie. A moment that did not take place "in real life", but a moment of true invention! Why? Can we articulate that? (The Einstein m oment is a reference to the way Einstein is used as a framing character in the movie Oppenheimer)

Discussion themes, raw material:

What is “the original impulse”, the electrical current, the core DNA (all terms we use in our screenwriting program at Westerdals, teaching students to record and reflect upon their writing processes) in this material for us?

Suggestions:

The idea of “having a sense of one´s own genius”. The early poem he wrote about becoming "an immortal man" and the line written down from the walk with sister Hedvig in 1850 (he was 22 years old):

"Jeg vil nå opp til det høyeste i storhet og klarhet. Og så vil jeg dø." (I want to reach the highest point of greatness and clarity. Then I want to die.")

The insistence on not giving up, even 15 years after his debut as a dramatist, when he has still not had a true breakthrough.

The idea of having a "calling". A task to complete. Almost a kind of divine duty.

Crazy "genius man" never gives up, even in the face of overwhelming and never ending obstacles, simply because he senses he does indeed have genius.

Is it possible to have a “merverdskompleks” – "superiority complex" – in spite of intense insecurity, in spite of all trials and setbacks? A vague sense  of intellectual superiority combined with introversion and lack of social competence.

His friend and rival Bjørnson applauded Henrik Ibsen´s ability to THINK.  "Ibsen is the best as THINKER", he wrote to Clemens Petersen. 

The question of why Ibsen chose the theatre  - of all literary genres/platforms - as his arena comes up

• The novel was hardly established yet. First novel in Norwegian 1854 (Camilla Wergeland Collett).

• His did write verse, but gave it up ca 1870, after the single published collection.

Renowned biographer Michael Meyer: "A mere coincidence that he ended in the theatre." (the name of the coincidence, according to Meyer, was Ole Bull)!

Ibsen expert academic Narve Fulsås: "The theatre provided the right circumstances for public expression at the time." (they also write that Ibsen left the theatre and became a writer of books, first and foremost. Books = income). The only public arena?

Hmmm. What were his actual choices? 

Siri notes to this discourse, in which biographer and Ibsen experts insist that Ibsen chose the theatre "by accident" or due to external circumstances only: 

THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE . It is a great example fo the subjectivity and creativity of purportedly neutral and objective historians ans biographers. It is also an example of how biographers  also (by necessity) interpret and filter historical information.

Henrik Ibsen began writing drama in Grimstad at the age of 20. I venture that this was not a coincidence. Grimstad had no stage, no context in which he could have hoped to have his dramatic text realized. Artistic talent and expression are rarely that random. We also know that Henrik had a small puppet theatre in the barn when he was a boy, made the dolls, and put on performances for a paying audience. It is also well known that he was visually oriented, he had ambitions as a painter and took lessons as late as 1859, after his marriage, in Christiania. 

Yes - it is known that he made his living mostly from book sales of his dramas, but the theatres at the time were unreliable when it came to paying for rights, and copyright laws were not developed. 

And: Long after he left his practical theatre career, Ibsen stayed deeply involved in productions of this plays. He wrote to directors about casting, and gave advice concerning acting style ("keep it natural" was his mantra). 

Conclusion: Henrik Ibsen was a man of the theatre, all his life (says Siri, a woman of the theatre). 

Siri: During all my 35 years experience of working with writers, I have observed that the "dramatic talent" is a specific one, not possessed by every good writer. It has to do with a sense of visual storytelling and also with a feeling for the essence of drama, which is CHANGE through action (forandring gjennom personers aktive handling)

Next: Our discussion about “who is my Ibsen”

Siri: The psychologist. How he probes the depths of our souls and hearts.

Susanne: The thinker, a dramatist of ideas, value conflicts. Expert in making ideas manifest themselves in stories.

Ole Christian: The social critic, attacking the bourgeoisie, conventions, establishment, and the Church.

A political writer? No, he absolutely refused to be. Don´t make me a spokesperson for women´s liberation. "I am a painter of portraits."

No party, no side in politics. Suzannah says he does not vote.

“Freedom of thought and speech are the only things I can take to the streets for.”

Also, the craftsman:

The expert dramaturg/technician: Doll´s house, Hedda Gabler, the amazing clockwork structures of the psychological-realistic plays

Scene idea. Ibsen in Egypt: 

Ole Christian is inspired by the story of Henrik Ibsen being the King´s representative at the opening of the Suez canal. How he walks away from the others, alone in the desert, always a man apart. A strong image. We check and this happened in 1869. It is a few years after the period we cover, after his success, which brought him such privileges as this. Can we imagine it as a “rammehistorie” – a framing story? Could it be our “Einstein moment”? Or an equivalent of the young, lonely man aboard the ship in the first Ibsen series?

Day 1, Second session

We now devote our time to CHARACTER. The plan is to discuss all the important ones, but we have not covered enough ground in our research yet, so we concentrate on our main character, our man Henrik. 

We brush past Laurie Hutzlers character types, for the fun of it, for inspiration:

 Laurie´  7 character types:

POWER OF

Conscience

Truth

Ambition

Love

Imagination

Reason

Will

Excitement

We conclude that Henrik Johan Ibsen comes closest to a “power of truth” character, but that there are also strong elements of “power of ambition.” There is evidence in poems and plays of an insistent search for an "existential truth". His concern with being "true to oneself", his sharp attacks on all forms of individual and societal hypocrisy, his relentless soulsearching after his characters´(and his own) true motives for their actions, his portraits of our illusions and self-deceptions, his invention of the concept of the "life-lie". His plays are full of lies that eventually bring his characters into intense dilemmas and trouble. Some of them meet terrible destinies because of their lies.

Now, we take off into the world of personality tests. We take it upon ourselves to answer the endless "Sixteen main personality types" questionnaire on our Henrik´s behalf.  It takes one full hour to complete, and we are exhausted by it.  The exercise of putting ourselves in his shoes and answering the multiple test questions as HIM, is quite fascinating. Ole tells us at this point that the Oppenheimer script is written in first person. It is an experiment he will also try out in his own feature film screeplay.

After an hour´s  ard work, we have our reward:

Ibsen´s personality type is: TURBULENT ARCHITECT – one of the rarest personality types!

This result, and the description of the type, is so interesting and to the point that we begin to believe in personality tests then and there. Thus, I include here a short intro to Ibsen as  the personality type  "Turbulent Architect". I have emphasized what I see as typical Ibsen characteristics in the text.

An Architect (INTJ) is a person with the Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging personality traits. These thoughtful tacticians love perfecting the details of life, applying creativity and rationality to everything they do. Their inner world is often a private, complex one.

“Thought constitutes the greatness of man. Man is a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.”

It can be lonely at the top. As one of the rarest personality types – and one of the most capable – Architects (INTJs) know this all too well. Rational and quick-witted, Architects pride themselves on their ability to think for themselves, not to mention their uncanny knack for seeing right through phoniness and hypocrisy. But because their minds are never at rest, Architects may struggle to find people who can keep up with their nonstop analysis of everything around them.

A Pioneering Spirit

Architects question everything. Many personality types trust the status quo, relying on conventional wisdom and other people’s expertise to guide their lives. But ever-skeptical Architects prefer to make their own discoveries. In their quest to find better ways of doing things, they aren’t afraid to break the rules or risk disapproval – in fact, they rather enjoy it.

But as anyone with this personality type would tell you, a new idea isn’t worth anything unless it actually works. Architects want to be successful, not just inventive. They bring a single-minded drive to their work, applying the full force of their insight, logic, and willpower. And heaven help anyone who tries to slow them down by enforcing pointless rules or offering poorly thought-out criticism.

Architects, independent to the core, want to shake off other people’s expectations and pursue their own ideas.

This personality type comes with a strong independent streak. Architects don’t mind acting alone, perhaps because they don’t like waiting around for others to catch up with them. They also generally prefer making decisions without asking for anyone else’s input. At times, this lone-wolf behavior can come across as insensitive, as it fails to take into consideration other people’s thoughts, desires, and plans. It would be a mistake, however, to view Architects as uncaring. Whatever the stereotypes about their stoic intellect, these personalities feel deeply. When things go wrong or when they hurt others, Architects are personally affected and spend much time and energy trying to figure out why things happened the way that they did. They may not always value emotion as a decision-making tool, but they are authentically human.

A Thirst for Knowledge 

Architects can be both the boldest of dreamers and the bitterest of pessimists. They believe that, through willpower and intelligence, they can achieve even the most challenging goals. But these personalities may be cynical about human nature more generally, assuming that most people are lazy, unimaginative, or simply doomed to mediocrity.

People with the Architect personality type derive much of their self-esteem from their knowledge and mental acuity. In school, they may have been called “bookworms” or “nerds.” But rather than taking these labels as insults, many Architects embrace them. They recognize their own ability to teach themselves about – and master – any topic that interests them, whether that’s coding or capoeira or classical music.

Architects don’t just learn new things for show – they genuinely enjoy expanding the limits of their knowledge.

Architects can be single-minded, with little patience for frivolity, distractions, or idle gossip. That said, they’re far from dull or humorless. Many Architects are known for their irreverent wit, and beneath their serious exteriors, they often have a sharp, delightfully sarcastic sense of humor.

Social Frustrations 

Architects aren’t known for being warm and fuzzy. They tend to prioritize rationality and success over politeness and pleasantries – in other words, they’d rather be right than popular. This may explain why so many fictional villains are modeled on this personality type. Because Architects value truth and depth, many common social practices – from small talk to white lies – may seem pointless or downright stupid to them. As a result, they may inadvertently come across as rude or even offensive when they’re only trying to be honest.

At times, Architects may wonder whether dealing with other people is even worth the frustration.

Wow. Our feeling is that all of this fits almost too well the character that we envision Henrik Ibsen to have been.

A sense of smugness, pleased with our experiment. We can take a break and enjoy the outdoors now.

We also discuss, a little, the colorful character of Susannah´s young stepmother Magdalene Thoresen. Susannah lost her biological mother, Sara Daae Thoresen,  when she was four years old.  It is thought that she died in childbirth with her fifth child. She left her husband, the minister Hans Conrad Thoresen, a widower (for the second time). Not long after, he married Magdalene, their Danish governess, who was 18 years younger than him. Magdalene was already a single mother to little Axel, conceievd out of wedlock and put in foster care. Magdalene, it seems, agreed to the marriage with Susannah´s middle-aged father of five, as it was a safe heaven and probably her only chance at a life as a woman of the educated, upper middle classes to which she aspired.

Susannah´s relationship with her strong, young stepmother appears to have been ambivalent, but she surely learned something from Magdalene, who was an ambitious writer, about the ways of modern womanhood and a new freedom.

We also touch upon Susannah´s  childhood friend, later to become one of the couple´s closest friends in Rome, art historian Lorentz Dietrichson. He and his artist wife Mathilde, a painter, play a part in the Ibsens´  lives for a long time.

Also, the Ibsens´ son Sigurd´s first private tutor (Rome, 1866) was a young German, Schneekloth, wrote dramatic and derogatory descriptions of the Ibsen family in his private diary, later published when his journal was published after his death. We plan to read Dietrichson´s memoirs (5 volumes...) and Siri orders Schneekloth´s diaries from Denmark on the spot.

Evening, Day 1:

Ole Christian has proposed that we read the relevant series of plays, written in "our" period og Ibsen´s  life, aloud together. We now begin our own series of "Writing the Writer table reads", starting with Love´s Comedy -  Ibsen´s satirical verse play from 1862 (then 34 years of age and three years married), which is a high-spirited, comedic and philosophical play. The action takes place in a beautiful garden in Christiania (now Oslo) over two light, Nordic summer nights. 

It is challenging to read verse in old style "Danish-Norwegian", but we rather enjoy our time with Falck and Svanhild, the latter modeled on Suzannah. The reading takes three hours and two evenings. We now highlight  the value conflict between an artist´s calling and the everyday world of human interaction, family life, daily necessities, material demands and trivialities. How could true, pure love and ordinary, everyday married life possibly unite? Or poetry and family life? Or the clarity and idealism of "the heights", to which Falck aspires, and the duties and responsibilities of life in "the valley"? 

That is a major theme for Henrik Ibsen in the period we are writing about.

Screenwriters at work, imagining.

Blog nr. 2. COPENHAGEN, SCRIPT MEETING, November 2023

NORWEGIAN ORIGINAL TEXT:

Fantastisk fin og rørande rapport fra møtet med Iben!

Interessant debatt om rollen som protagonist vs main character. Som nevt i Little Miss Sunshine, og i f.eks The Graduate, fungerar jo hovudkarakterane som ein katalysator for endring hos andre, men forblir til dels statiske i sitt verdssyn sjølv. 

Ideen om Susanne som ein emosjonell inngang lyd betre og betre. Vi snakka jo sist om korleis Ibsens mål, draumar og driv er heilt, heilt eksepsjonelle. Korleis skal man få publikum til å forstå og identifisere seg med Herr Ibsen, dette uoppfylte geniet som skulle bli verdsberømt? Er vi ikkje, satt opp mot eit slikt menneske, skarve tilskodarar alle saman? Er det Susannes blikk på Henrik som er vårt felles blikk? 

Det finst mykje identifikasjon og emosjonelle innganger til Henrik med heile hans turbulente personlighet og hans vanskar i eiget familie- og sosiale liv. Men på eit plan føler eg at valget om å gå meir inn i Susannas perspektiv også er eit valg mellom å, til ein viss grad, opprettholde sfinxen Henrik Ibsen, eller ikkje. For eg kjenner også på, sjølv om eg kan kjenne igjen mykje av Ibsens driv, draumar og ideverden, at det finst eit hit men ikkje lenger, i min evne til å plassere meg inn i Henriks innerste som eg ikkje har klart å bryte gjennom enno. 

Alt godt,

S

But back to Trastevere. As we walk through the famous, picturesque, cobbled stone streets after dinner, I am hard pressed to be able to imagine Henrik Ibsen and Lorentz Dietrichson´s peaceful, idyllic night in their osteria by the flowing river of Tiber. We are queueing in the narrow streets, and ninety percent of our fellow queuers are under twenty-two and mildly intoxicated. What was once a workers´ living area and a favorite area for artists´ seeking an atmosphere of informality and freedom, as well as inexpensive food and drink, has become a hub for tourists seeking “authenticity” and a young, hipster crowd seeking all night partying possibilities. We have our dinner and update of the theatre world and our lives in front of the lovely basilica, while I silently thank another friend who told me to not even think of lodging  in Trastevere.

I swear to come back in the early morning to be able to get a sense of the Ibsens´ Trastevere of 160 years ago. After all, the narrow cobbled stone streets and a number of the old buildings are the same. The Tiber river has been dammed and cleaned up, of course, rock walls framing its banks. The romance of enjoying your foglietta under vineleaves  in the  river breeze is forever gone, except from my imagination.

One important goal of my trip had been to visit the small towns Genzano and Ariccia in the Albano mountains South of Rome. In the first, Ibsen spent the summer of 1864 with Lorentz Dietrichson and his family (before Susannahs arrival in Italy that autumn) also enjoying the company of Walter Runebeerg and the widow Lina Bruun with her grown-up children Thea and Peter. The summer in Genzano was not fruitful for Ibsen where writing was concerned; possibly living with Runeberg  in a room behind a local osteria was an obstacle.

Because of the heat and the contagious diseases that accompanied it, summers were spent outside of Rome if one could afford it. The next summer, 1865, after Susannah and Sigurd had arrived, the Ibsen family chose a neighboring town, Ariccia, without the company  of artists and drinking buddies. Here, Brand was almost completed during their three months stay. My hope is that these small towns have maintained more of their original atmosphere than the Roman neighborhoods. The villages of the Calle Albano were frequently among stops on the “Grand Tour” of Italy expected to be undertaken as an educational ritual by young men of the European bourgeoisie, especially the British, from the 18th century on. Thus, the area was well known and much talked about amongst travellers.

Neither Ariccia nor Genzano has a railroad station. I spend much time on TrenItalias webpages trying to figure out where the nearest station is and whether the distance to the two villages is walkable. Henrik, Sigurd and Susannah walked the paths in these mountains extensively (though not together) during the summer of 1865 and 1866. They found their way on foot between the towns. All three Ibsen family members were wanderers (like me); daily walks were a natural part of their everyday life. When Susannah reflects in a letter upon summers spent “in the country” she comments that the Italians have a completely different way of country summer living than the Scandinavians. The latter, being nature lovers and sunshine worshippers, engage in a great deal of walking and outdoor life. The native Italians stay put and spend a lot of daytime hours inside, avoiding  the sun. Their evenings are spent socializing and enjoying big meals with their families.

I conclude  that the nearest station is Albano Lazio. The distance to Ariccia from there seems to be only two kilometers. The railway line might have existed in 1865, since both Dietrichson and Ibsen report making short trips for errands in Rome during their stays in the Calle Albano villages. There is another station about 7 kilometers from Genzano; but decide the walk will take too much of my available daylight hours on this excursion. My style of travel, avoiding both airplanes and cars, is as close to the 1860-ies customs as I can get. The distance between Ariccia and Genzano appears to be a walkable four kilometers.

I leave Roma Termini in the early morning, catching an 08.00 train to Albano Lazio. The ride is beautiful. The first advantage of train travel, of course, is the visual pleasure of the shifting landscape outside the windows. I am lost in imaginings about the Scandinavian artists and their frequent visits to the campagna around Rome, outside the city walls, for walks and picnics. It is what we Northerners would call a “et blidt landskap” - a friendly, smiling landscape - soft with meadows and leafy trees, fertile, walkable and without hills or rocks. As the train, which is almost empty, plods on, we reach forests, still leafy and green in November. After forty-five minutes we are ascending into the Albano mountains. The Calle Albano area of Italy has been inhabited since ancient times, and there are multiple signs of Roman presence, such as the engineer´s wonder of the ancient, Appian way. 

I suddenly spot a lake on the train´s left side, deep down in the valley, and realize that we are approaching the famous village of Castel Gandolfo, the Pope´s summer residence for many years. Castel Gandolfo is also the location of an iconic  story in which Henrik and Lorentz Dietrichson  once arrived riding on stubborn and ill-behaved mules to admire the Pope´s ritualistic, annual arrival.  Castel Gandolfo houses his residence, Villa Barberini, which is quite the tourist attraction during the season. So is the beautiful lake Albano shining its deep blue eye from a volcanic crater.

My only fellow passengers get off here, presumably to admire the tourist attraction of the castle. A few minutes later I am in Albano Lazio, getting off the train as the only passenger in a deadly quiet little town. Optimistically, I begin to ask a few locals about the road route to Ariccia, only to have them stare at me like a crazy person. I capitulate and consult the battery-hungry Google Maps. As I begin my hike, which inevitably leads me along asphalted roads rather than the Ibsens´ reported wood paths through lovely, green landscapes, I wonder about how good the maps were back then and whether they sometimes got lost.

As a writer and cinematic biographer, I observe that I am somewhat obsessed with doing things in the order that my characters did them. Therefore, it irks me that the geographical and railroad circumstances force me to visit the village of Ariccia before that of Genzano di Roma, while Henrik Ibsen did the opposite. It is as if I want Genzano to leave its impressions on me before I let Ariccia do the same. However, all I can do is to change the order of the visits in this blog text, a consciously deceitful solution. So here is more proof that cinematic biographers are not to be trusted. We sculpt reality and edit truth in order to craft an engaging and unified tale. But this sculpting and  editing - even in our research - are also tools we employ to facilitate the subconscious practices of our imaginations. 

Genzano di Roma

The walk to Genzano is beautiful, although - unlike the Ibsens -  I have to share the road with cars. After 45 minutes of hiking along a narrow road bordered by immense pine trees I arrive in Genzano di Roma. It is a classic, golden  Italian small town, with antique origins, perched on the height above the volcanic crater that cradles Lago Nemi – the lake earlier named after the goddess Diana who reportedly adored roaming in the lush forests of the area. Strangely, the Roman emperor Caligula had two large, wooden ships built here in 1 century AD, later sunk in the deep lake. The ships, widely spoken of (and plundered) by local fishermen for years, were legendary and became “real” when recovered by Mussolini in the thirties.

Genzano still has its stunning lake view. During the time of the ancient Romans, the area around Genzano was loved  by wealthy Roman citizens for its clean air, uncontaminated water and cooler temperatures during the hot summer months.  Goethe and Byron both lived by the Nemi and noted the lovely reflection of the moon in the centre of the lake during summer. This phenomenon inspired the Roman name for the lake, Speculum Dianae – Mirror of Diana. 

But Genzano is no longer anything like the small village in which Henrik Ibsen, the Dietrichsons and the Bruuns spent their summer away from Rome in 1865. The town has multiplied several times in size and become swamped with traffic. It is clearly a tourist town, but the tourists have gone for the year, and a melancholy emptiness has settled. There are few people in the streets, but multiple cars. Since there is no information to be found on Ibsen´s address, other than the fact that his rented room was behind an osteria known for its good wine, I spend time walking about and photographing the central piazza with its obligatory fountain, which is sure to be older than 1865, and a few of the older buildings. My next goal is the Lago Nemi,  a favorite spot for Henrik Ibsen and Lorentz Dietrichson during their 1864 Genzano summer.

I am determined to experience the lake itself,  a cherished place for Lorentz and Henrik to walk in the afternoons, read in the grassy meadows or enjoy a foglietta of white wine in an osteria by the lakeside. This turns out to be more complicated than I had thought. When I ask people - such as the owner of the (quiet, almost empty) Restaurant Bernoni in which I have lunch - for the path to the lake they give me strange looks and shrug. Lakeside walks seem to have gone entirely our of style. I finally set out on my own,  only to find the downhill path closed with a barrier on which is hung prohibition and danger signs - vietato accesso - access forbidden. What exactly is the danger here, I wonder, how bad can it really be? Henrik and Lorentz walked down here almost every evening, young, strong and unconcerned about the climb up again along the steep path of the volcanic crater. I take a quick look around to check whether I have witnesses - none. Then I  begin walking down the forbidden path. 

My adventure does not last long. As it turns out, present-day Genzano citizens have been using the slopes of the volcanic crater of Diana´s mirror, not for walks, but as a garbage dump. The path is ill-maintained and sadly littered with plastics and other waste, making it next to impossible to imagine  the leisurely, pastoral summer walks of 1865. Between the path and the lake is a wild jungle of bushes and shrubs, impenetrable even for an intrepid, Norwegian hiker accustomed to thick forests since childhood. As I make my humble retreat, I ponder Ibsen´s idea of “waking the people and teaching them to think grandly”.  The central idea of so much of his work is the liberation of the human spirit and the necessary battle for individual freedom. Surely, at this sad sight he would have concluded that, in modern times,  the human family does not seem to have used our hard-won freedoms  for the best purposes. Our human freedom  to neglect, exploit and damage our natural surroundings are visible everywhere we go.

Back in the town, I google-map myself to another route down the crater, seductively named Via Diana. That approach turns out to be closed off as well. More determined than ever to reach the lake, I repeat my civil disobedience and begin a descent along the winding road, asphalted this time.  But alas, again, I have to give up my idea of resting and reading in Diana´s meadows, Henrik and Lorentz style. Again, the jungle between road and lake is impenetrable.  After a couple of kilometers (and concern about the way back uphill and twilight approaching), I resign myself to taking numerous photographs and make my way back. The high points of my Genzano adventure have been the views of the lake and the juicy, grilled beef with rosemary of the Bernoni, the only open lakeside restaurant. Its only guests are three local elderly gentlemen, who are eagerly catered to by the owner/waiter. They occupy one table each in the huge dining room, staring at a televised football game. They also stare at the lone lady in hiking gear and her backpack in an unashamedly curious, but friendly, manner. I sneak a photo of one of their tables when I discover that this is the only place I have visited where Italians still serve the local wine in fogliettas, like they did in Ibsen´s times.

Arricia - the village in which Brand was born

Ariccia was the Ibsens´ Calle Albano home for three months during the summer of of 1865. The summer of Brand. Painters and writers of the Grand Tour era travelling throughout Italy often visited Ariccia for its exceptional location, landscape views and architectural landmarks. 

I arrive in the small town on foot, having walked from the train station in Albano Lazio. On the way I pass ancient ruins that must have been visible also from the Ibsen´s walking tours. The impressive (and much painted/photographed) aqueduct is the stately entranceway to the little town.  It is reported from the summer of 1864 that Henrik Ibsen and Lorentz Dietrichson, on their evening walks from Genzano to Ariccia, sometimes met the Pope himself, who was taking his evening walk from nearby Castel Gandolfo, in the opposite direction. When the locals encountered him on the majestic bridge of Ariccia, they fell to their knees. The two Norwegians are said to have merely bowed. 

The small, mediaeval town of Ariccia is one of  Calle Albano´s main landmarks, redesigned in the 1700s by Bernini, the ever-present sculptor and architect. The Palazzo di Chigi,  the Chiesa Santa Maria Assunta and the Piazza Corte are all thought out by this man, a master of townscapes. The Ibsens came to Ariccia without the usual, merry group of Scandinavian artists and writers from the Roman Circolo Scandinavo. I expect this was a plan. No repeat of the carefree summer feast of Genzano 1864. Susannah has imposed restrictions. Henrik has a tight schedule to keep, and there will be no lively nights in the local osterias. 

I am pleased to note that Ariccia has remained much the small town it once was. There is a modern centre, but I stay in the old town, soaking in the atmosphere. The central square with its majestic design and monumental buildings now has a main road with constant car traffic running right through it - the Italian way. But the Piazza Corte, with Bernini´s Chigi Palace on one side and Church of the Assumption on the other, remains as it was in 1865. Or, possibly not, having gained 160 years in age. The run-down buildings are probably far from the impressive structures Henrik, Susannah and Sigurd could observe from their residence in the Locanda Martorelli every day. Here, on the church steps, is where Henrik Ibsen sat every quiet evening, resting after a day of writing, possibly pondering the stately lines of the Chigi Palace and admiring the beautiful, rounded dome of the Chiesa. When Bernini designed it, he had recently restored the Pantheon and was inspired by its magnificent dome.  

To the South, the square is framed by a row of buildings, among them the now dilapidated Locanda Martorelli, the pensione where poets and artists, including the Ibsens, stayed. Here,  most of Brand was conceived and written. The museum the building contains is normally open once a week, but is now closed for the season. The old pensione itself is a wizened version of its former self, windows rotting, a pharmacy occupying its first floor. Hanging around the square in the morning chill are a number of town folk, meaning town men. They have the look of people who have little better to do, possibly they are out of work, and live lives as materially destitute as the Ibsens´. During the Ariccia summer of 1865, Susannah wrote to her sister that their everyday life was "not just poor, but downright destitute".  

At this time,  the summer of 1865, Ibsen´s stipend had run out, the monthly transfers from Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson´s collected funds had stopped, and Ibsen had not completed a dramatic work since The Pretenders (Kongsemnerne) in 1863. A new work was conceived and underway. Tension was probably high. It was now or never.  The writer rose every day at five, had his morning tea, wrote for five hours while Sigurd and Susannah,  took their daily walks in the beautiful Albano mountains. The monumental dramatic work Brand, destined to change the family´s life forever, was written here, in the short time span of three months.  Susannah´s decision to keep Henrik away from the lively artist community of Rome had fruitful consequences. When they returned in september, Brand was almost finished.

I spend the morning wandering  Ariccias ancient narrow streets, sitting on stone walls and benches, soaking in the peaceful atmosphere, admiring the wide views of the lush, surrounding landscape. Surely, one can find writing flow in such a place. 

The old town is a cluster of buildings on a steep mountainside. The stunning view of the surrounding fields, gardens and hills is visible from every nook and corner.  The air is fresh. Yes, the town has probably seen better days, but its peace and visual attractions are intact. As is the scent of the local specialty, porchetta,  emanating from small holes-in-the-wall equipped with ovens, where these sumptuous rolls of pork filled with herbs and roasted to delectable crispness are prepared. In 1865, Ibsen had humbled himself by writing home, to Bjørnson and others, for more money.  The coffers were empty and there was no income in sight. I imagine Susannah picking wild berries on her mountain walks. A supper ration for the family now consisted  - as mentioned - of bread, a little cheese, and half a foglietta of wine. During their summer of poverty,  they must have taken in that scent of roasted meat every day, probably without ever tasting it. I decide my writer´s empathy does not extend this far and that I will buy some porchetta on my way home this evening, given that the hole-in-the-wall next to Locanda is still open when I return from my walk to Genzano.

After exploring the Palace, I wish to enter the enormous Chigi Palace park, also known as Goddess Diana´s sacred forest. Henrik Ibsen was given the key to the gate and took frequent walks there. But alas, the park is closed, "for security reasons" - it is even more of a jungle now than it was 150 years ago. I resolve to come back here and to attempt to attain, in writing, a special permission to enter,  like my hero must have done. After all, Italy adores its artists and writers, as long as they respect and honor  its bureaucratic idiosyncracies.

Before leaving Ariccia for Genzano, I sit for a while on Ibsen´s  favored church steps. Imagining. I look pensive enough for one of the locals to offer to take my photo. She gives it an arty diagonal, and looks pleased with herself when she gives my mobile phone back.

I leave Ariccia for Genzano the only possible way, across the aquaduct on the other side. This is an ancient road, I imagine some of the all pine trees were here when the Ibsens took their walks here.  I intend to return to before darkness falls.

After my visit to Genzano, I return to Ariccia, my definitive favorite of the two Calle Albano towns. Soft twilight now lingers over the Piazza Corte, mildening the impression of the buildings´ decay and heightening the sense of Arriccia as a village where time has stood still and history whispers.  Light is switched on in multiple lanterns and traffic has abated. This is my time to complete my Calla Albano visit by doing what my writer hero so often did: enjoy a glass of the inexpensive, local white wine in the peaceful square. A place to indulge in a little twilight dreaming. 

It is getting dark. Time to return and hope for a train back to Rome from the neighboring town of Albano Lazio. The porchetta man is still at work. He is not alone; the delicious smell of grilled meat with herbs is everywhere in the village center. I enter the hole-in-the-wall shop, after respectfully waiting for the last person to complete her shopping. The tiny place takes only one customer at a time. 

The friendly shopkeeper wields a huge knife and cuts me 300 grams of thin porchetta slices. I then spot a grand wheel of Pecorino cheese, made from sheep´s milk, which I cannot resist. This delicacy is so expensive outside Italy today that it is mostly to be dreamed of, even for a more fortunate writer from the oil-rich North. 

And yes, it is beyond delicious, I find, when I test it on the (completely empty) train back. So delicious! The porchetta is to inspire a scene in Episode four, sketched out in my Roman B&B that evening. The hero of that scene is Sigurd Ibsen, six years old, who walks out of Locanda Martorelli every evening  to buy the Ibsens´ daily bread & cheese evening meal and happens to stop, dreamily, in front of one of the porchetta shops.

I return to Rome enriched with a treasure chest of impressions.

Blog nr. 6: WRITERS´ WINTER WORKSHOP,  Fagerstrand. December 2023

Preparing the ground

This year our Nordic winter starts unusually early.  We have temperatures below zero from October.  Snow falls - and, surprisingly, stays  on the ground - from November on.  I am hopeful and expectant, as it looks as if we are building up to a classic, romantic, white Christmas, an unusual phenomenon in Southern Norway during these the past 10-15 years of climate change. Wintertime inspires us to stay inside, and the physical act of writing is an indoor activity  - but it is all a bit of a shock for a wandering screenwriter returning from a balmy Italian autumn, with temperatures of +20 C and the new habit of having lunch and dinner outside every day. I reset my seasonal clock and prepare for cocooning, fireplace contemplation and, hopefully, inspired writing. We have a workshop scheduled in December to integrate Italian impressions with ongoing timeline work and to continue to shape our characters and story.

The day before I set off for the cabin to prepare ( = receive deliveries and warm up the icy house for our team), it snows endlessly. Thirty centimeters of virginal white carpeting cover the ground when I arrive. I wade through the snow with my heavy backpack, wondering how on earth groceries for three days can be delivered up those snow-buried stairs.  Clearly, there will be no writing that evening, as I have at least three hours of shoveling ahead of me.  After what feels like hours of straining and  sweating, our brave delivery guys arrive and do not complain about the limited parking space or the narrow, slippery path I have managed to clear. Later in our stay, we will have further challenges imposed on us by wintry mother nature.

Ole Christian and Susanne will arrive tomorrow morning. The agenda for the next two days is centred on our protagonist. Or, protagonists, as they now turn out to be.  Iben and I talked about a "double journey". My report from the travels and from meeting Iben are the first points on our agenda.  Last time we met, it was late summer, we had our talks outside, and we landed on "a marital drama".  Now we will continue our reflections in a cold world, surrounded by snow. 

I am certain that these environmental factors have an effect on our thinking and our writing. As well as the enigmatic  workings of our imaginations.  

First Day: Exploring the value conflict and our new main character.

How to find Susanne´s character? Millions of pages are written about her husband; multiple memoirs, dozens of biographies, thousands of articles and hundreds of scholarly books. On Susanne and her life, very little existed until Astrid Sæther´s book came in 2008. Her groundbreaking work includes extracts from letters never before published and even an account of Susanne´s possibly traumatic birth experience (less than two weeks after the birth, Susanne declared, at the age of 22, that she would never have another child).

Henrik and Susanne´s love story and relationship appear to have been irrelevant - even a distraction or an embarrassment - to many of the all-male biographers. Surely, Henrik Ibsen, a genius of a man - super-intelligent, uniquely talented and inscrutably introvert  - could not actually fall in love, or engage in the trivial pursuit of bonding with and caring for someone?  In reading the biographies, I am constantly surprised at how little the scholars make of the fact that Henrik and Susanne met and fell in love, that he wrote a wildly romantic (although poetically weak) poem to win her "blossoming, childlike soul", and that her appearance in his life caused a profound change in him. 

"Only after I  got married did my life take on a real weightiness." 

Susanne was, by all accounts, his life´s only truly intimate relation. Henrik Ibsen had few close friends. He complained bitterly in his later years about not being truly close even to his son, Sigurd – with whom Susanne had quite a symbiotic relation. Also, he is also known to have said (in his letters) he had problems being close and intimate with people in general. There is no doubt about the fact that Susanne´s presence for 48 years of Henrik Ibsens´s life sustained him, gave him an emotional anchor,  raised his son lovingly, built his character, sheltered him from a world that often overwhelmed him, and made his intensively productive writing life possible. Yet the biographers are suprisingly quiet about her.

The central value conflict

The tree of us are truly different in our approach to our craft. Our own Susanne, the team member and writer, thrives in the world of ideas. She keeps asking the team what the “central value conflict” of our story might be. Ole, on the other hand,  keeps imagining scenes and storylines. While I am itching to start writing, sensing that in the act of writing possibilities emerge spontaneously and creative choices happen. Clearly we have different approaches, which is enriching the project, I think. 

Maybe our central value conflict is this:

Is it possible to create “great art” and truly love at the same time? Not just adore or be fond of, but be an actively loving person for those who are close to you, be it a lover, children, parent or friend? In "When we dead awaken", recently read for the umpteenth time, Henrik holds what he calls "doomsday over himself". He brutally answers "no" to the above question and passes a crushing judgment on his main character, the sculptor Rubek: "You have not loved, therefore you have never truly lived ." Sixty-year-old Rubek has created works the whole world admires, yet he begs for another chance at this wonder we call life.  The last play - the "dramatic epilogue" called "When we dead awaken" is, perhaps, more than the psychological-realistic plays a "drama of ideas", in the spirit of co-writer Susanne. But the characters in the play never really come to life, they appear to be mere representations and they discuss the play´s themes in a spelled-out, one-to-one manner that I would probably give critical feedback on with my screenwriting students ("this dialogue comes out a bit on-the-nose"...).

But how to externalize such a conflict of values, how to bring it to life,  ​​in a simple screenplay for television?  Similar questions may have been what the 71 year old Ibsen was grappling with in 1899,  one year before his first serious stroke and seven years before his death.  

This is the bedrock we have to drill in the months to come.

Susanne´s character

To warm up, we decide to expose our Susanne character to the same procedure we did with our Henrik, the "16 Personalities" test. This fails miserably. Early on in the endless round of questions, we realize that we do not know our heroine well enough yet; this was entirely premature. Our Susanne ends up with the same character type as Henrik, The Architect, albeit without the "turbulent" characterization. We all sense intuitively that this character description does not capture the essence of Susanne/Susannah/Suzannah ( yes, she used all three spellings of her name). 

We do know: She was a very private person, she did not want to attend great public events with her husband, she had no desire to shine next to him or share the glory. She burnt a large number of letters and papers after her husband died. She was fiercely loyal to him, when he was under siege publicly (as he frequently was), used to say something like: "What do you care about those small minds, you, with your genius!"  In the biographies, she is sometimes described as what in Norwegian would be called "et rivjern" - meaning a kind of stern, strict "iron lady" who controls her husband and keeps him in place.  There are stories of her kicking out his friends from parties at home and coming to fetch him when he was out drinking. Her possible femininity is absent from all descriptions. The view that her looks were not an asset seems to penetrate most descriptions, although the few photographs we have show a handsome face.  True to their times, most writers who knew her permit themselves to comment mercilessly on her looks, as if looks were synonymous with a woman´s  very identity as well as her main "capital" on the marriage market (unless she was rich).  Also, possibly because there are so few descriptions of her, the cruel descriptions from the young, Danish critic Clemens Petersen (close friend to Bjørnson) has become dominant and is quoted in numerous biographies. Surprisingly, he seems to be considered an authoritative source of information about a woman he met only for a few hours in Copenhagen in 1864. At the time, Susanne was 28, she had a 4 year old boy with her, and she had been separated from her husband for six months, clearly a period of considerably stress. 

When reading family members´ and friends´ descriptions (L. Dietrichson, Mathilde, Bergljot Bjørnson Ibsen, Joen Bille) Petersen´s  portrait of an uncharming woman is corrected: Susanne is warm, nurturing, wise, loving, imaginative, a great hostess, a great storyteller, a sharp intellect and an extremely strong-willed character, something her husband was not. Do the biographers believe this alternative view to be rose-colored and biased? Petersen, on the other hand, only met Susanne once, and complains disgustedly that she  lacked femininity and (God forbid) licked her fingers during a meal.  In the same breath, some biographers comment that Peterson was homosexual, as if that disqualifies him or means he doesn´t like women at all.  This is clearly wrong, as Petersen was a close friend of Caroline - Bjørnson´s wife . The biographers also note that he later had to flee Denmark when his relations with "children" - apparently they were younger men, possibly students - were revealed. (Note to self: Biographers and historians are not objective sources, any more than screenwriters and  filmmakers.)

Then there is the even lesser known, young Susanne. The one who is described ( by stepmother Magdalene and best friend Caroline) to be dreamy, dramatic, emotional, spontaneous, passionately engaged in literature to the extent of losing her sense of reality. The one who is referred to in Henrik´s first poem as possessing  "a blossoming, childlike soul" and whose mind is "a rich, spiritual well". What happened to her? This was a Susanne described by her family members as "a great storyteller" and conversation partner.  Befriended by central, intellectual capacities of her time such as Camilla Collett and Ellen Keys. 

According to her husband, Susanne´s sense of justice was extremely  keen and strong. Her engagement in the ideal, in the higher things in life was intense, and she showed great disdain for what Henrik calls "all petty concerns".  That Susanne is one I have not yet seen clearly on my inner movie screen. Working on it.... On what historical novelist Hilary Mantell calls "resurrecting" the dead. In order to perform that act of resurrection, the writer of biographical fiction has to do all the necessary research, then envision the characters and their surroundings, then attemåt to enter into their worlds. To do this, what I now call "en empati-sti " - an empathy-path - has to be constructed and shaped.

I am wondering whether this, in my case, happens only through the actual writing process. Not through avid research, interesting thematic discussions, the sorting of endless raw material, the creation of story outlines, but rather, through my fingers dancing on the keyboard while the mind and heart are present, are there, with the characters, in their location, with eyes and ears alert, all senses open. To quote myself in an earlier article: a significant part of a dramatist’s work happens in the act of writing down what she sees and hears in the theatre – or movie theatre – of her mind. So, here is the case for writing as creation in-the-moment, the improvisational element that I believe to be  an integral part of almost all artistic creation. 

Real life winter drama

Writers must eat. Especially when we work hard. It is an explicit philosophy of our early workshops that we shall move away from our everyday lives, stay somewhere beautiful, and live well while we immerse ourselves in the depths of our writing project. This is especially important in the phase of early, creative chaos. I learned this from the amazing Ellen Win Wendel, head and builder of the script development program eQuinoxe Europe. The unique  eQuinoxe concept is to invite a group of screenwriters and a group of international script consultants for 8 days to a beautifuk, inspiring place far away, such as an alpine castle or an historical, Norwegian fjord hotel. I have had the thrilling experience of screenwriters´workshops in both of these sample eQuinoxe locations. In the eQuinoxe concept, once you and your project are accepted,  all expenses are covered. Also, the advisors, who are world class, do not get paid. What they get, and sign up for, is the lovely location, the excellent food & wine,  and - above all -  the unique creative exchange that takes place in the advisors´ collegium before and between their sessions with the writers. In thise sessions, they hand over the content and outcomes of the session they just had before the next advisor meets with the writer in question. In my third round at eQuinoxe I took part in the advisors´ collective and got a chance to experience just that; a unique, creative exchange on the complex art and craft of screenwriting.

As a believer in Ellen´s vision of how screenwriters at work should be treated, I  am crushed when I realize there is not enough fresh filet of cod in my refrigerator to make the  creamy "gratin" with fresh codfish I have planned for the evening meal of our first day.  So, after our first session, Susanne and I set off in her borrowed car to the grocery store a few kilometers away. On the way back, we decide on the more scenic route, a narrow road winding through virginal white landscapes between small farms and fields. After all, we are adventurous and imaginative types. There is a lot of snow and I joke happily about how the worst thing that can happen is "we get stuck in a snowdrift". 

Which, of course, we do. In fact, worse than that. In avoiding a meeting car on the narrow road, Susanne performs a minimal maneuver to the right. But the snow-covered road is extremely slippery. The few centimeters are enough to end our scenic winter  journey in a ditch. A really deep ditch, packed with heavy snow. Both right wheels are stuck, real deep. We have absolutely no chance of getting out on our own. 

It is getting dark. It is fifteen degrees below zero, Centigrade. Oh, yes, the fish filet we just bought will no doubt stay fresh. But the two of us cannot stay out here for very long in our city clothes.

What to do now? I sum up our three options: Call a car rescue company (involves a price of a couple of thousand N.Kr), wait for someone with rescuing skills and a four-wheel drive or tractor to come by (fat chance in the evening on a distant country road), or call my dear friend and neighbor, Jone, 74, a brilliant painter who possesses both the vehicle and the expert skills, but who is suffering from a chronic condition that keeps him inside and horizontal, with intense headaches, much of the time. A dramatic dilemma indeed.

We explore the first option, but decide to put it on hold - it also involves a long, cold wait on a night like this. The car is borrowed; it would be nice to avoid an escalation. Option two: The sweet part of this story is that, as we spend an hour waiting for a miracle, every single car that passes stops to talk or offer help. Wintertime road solidarity is a bit like solidarity at sea; you become a member of the great, human family and everyone stands by you to help. But I also know from experience that we are in a bad situation that, given the wrong kind of assistance, easily can get worse. So, the most eager offer from the small car of two young, Polish men with a fervent desire to rescue two vulnerable women in distress is almost accepted, but then not quite. Their car looks way  to light to do the job. On my inner movie screen, our two cars on top of each other in the ditch appear.  "Thank you, but I think we have another solution."  They look truly disappointed as they drive away, denied the chance to be winter road heroes. But I also worry about their over-confident attitude (hybris!) and their uncertain winter road skills. Oh, what a rogue and chauvinist Norwegian am I. But people from less snowy countries do tend to lack training and underestimate the demands of winter driving in Norway.  

Susanne and I are now  freezing and it is time for the emergency choice; the phone call to my loyal artist friend. "Let me get dressed. And find some "ballast". Give me half an hour."  Guilt-ridden, but relieved, we  jump happily up and down in the icy cold for another thirty minutes as darkness mercilessly descends.  On the dot, the blinding lights of a pick-up truck appear in the distance. It is equipped with a huge water tank in the back for ballast weight. In front is the most skillful driver I know. Our artist rescuer gracefully turns 360 degrees on the narrow, slippery road and positions himself expertly behind Susanne´s car.  "What a man, " she whispers, "he really knows his stuff!" But, as it turns out, his truck needs even more ballast weight. Our hero now folds down the high back hatch on the pick-up truck and orders the two frozen writers  to climb up and sit on it.  We silently obey - what else can we do? We are shivering with cold, legs now dangling in the air a meter above ground, freaking out, not daring to look at each other, two screenwriters reduced,  souls and bodies, to ballast weight. 

Rescue operation ensues. The pick-up´s engine groans painfully with the weight, vehicle teetering over toward the ditch alarmingly, hapless ballast bodies thrown about on high shelf,  clinging desperately to hatch and to each other. 

Featured in the movie theatre of my mind: Two blonde screenwriters in the ditch, crushed to pulp in the snow by three tons of pick-up truck. A bloody, but possibly dramatically interesting image; all that red on the virginal white.  A tragedy in the name of art. Or codfish. Possessing a lively imagination can be a bit of an occupational hazard.  But after a few more tries,  and just before my overheated imagination has completed the footage of the heartbreaking, double burial ceremony with all our friends and screenwriting students present,  the small car is thrown back on the road by the growling pick-up´s engine. Two frightened ballast women can jump down to safety.  My dear friend is soon on his way back to bed, and Susanne is back behind the wheel. 

Shaken by our small, real life drama, we humbly carry the humiliating stamp of useless intellectuals after our encounter with a man of physical skills and action. I am reminded of Henrik Ibsen´s lack of physical courage and skills when he failed as a mountain climber at the island of Ischia ( Danish author Vilhelm Bergsøe´s memoir) and rolled helplessly down a hill in a cloud of dust.  

Well, who cares, we have no ambitions as heroes, we only write those into our scripts.  Warmth, wine,  and food are within reach. We accept we must all play our designated roles in this life as we return to our safe haven where Ole Christian, starved for to-die-for  fresh fish, waits in front of the fire for his dinner.  Half an hour later the gratin  is on the table. I am sure it is close to the traditional recipe Susanne used to cook.

Winter workshop conclusion

Are we any closer to our main characters after two days of creative exchange and dialogue, interspersed with a reminder of our own physical vulnerability in the form of a small winter drama? Perhaps a little. But we are also overwhelmed by how much more there is to study, read, dive into, in order to know as much about our characters as possible.  In order to treat them fairly,  attempt an ethical "resurrection" (historical novelist Hilary Mantel calls fictional biography "resurrection"), blend the solid granite with the compelling and evasive rainbow (Virginia Woolf). 

In addition to main characters Henrik and Susanne, there are at least a dozen supporting characters who are central to our story.  Susanne´s father Hans Conrad Thoresen and her exceptional stepmother Magdalene Kragh Thoresen. Her two sisters (and two elder brothers, plus her four, smaller half-siblings). Henrik´s friends,  among them Aasmund O. Vinje and Paul Botten-Hansen, both rebellious intellectuals who eventually became prominent citizens. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson,  successful writer (Nobel Prize 1903), Henrik Ibsen´s best friend and worst critic/rival. Bjørnstjerne´s  wife Caroline, who happened to be Susanne´s best childhood friend in Bergen. Henrik´s group of rebellious intellectuals in Christiania (Oslo) and his artist buddies in Rome. Little Sigurd, a child growing up among adults, with no childhood friends. These peoples have their own stories, biographies, letters, memoirs, mentions in the writings of others.  I envy the writers of The Crown who control their own, extensive team of professional researchers.  

After our return, I dive into the lives of Magdalene Thoresen (author, playwright and Susanne´s stepmother), Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Caroline Reimers Bjørnson, Lorentz Dietrichson (close family friend in Rome and Susanne´s childhood friend). I cannot find Jorunn Hareide´s voluminous biography on Magdalene in a book shop anywhere, so I order it from the library.  I order several of Ibsen scholar Erik Edvard Henningsens books through used books shops. I also find Joen Bille´s  (great grandchild of Ibsens & Bjørnsons) personal family memoir in the library. Earlier, I have read the memoirs of Bergljot Bjørnson (Bjørnstjerne´s daughter, Sigurd´s wife) John Paulsen, Vilhelm Bergsøe, Lorentz Dietrichson, and Martin Schneekloth (briefly the tutor of Sigurd Ibsen, age 7-8 in Rome). 

Reading Joen Bille is a great pleasure, even though I expect much of the material is anecdotal, as it does not always match historical facts that are safely ingrained in my brain by now. But he writes with such love and passion about these people of his own family, they come alive before me. I am especially thrilled when he covers modern day (he is still alive, a man of 80) and mentions my classmate from high school, Hedda Ibsen, and his visit to her family´s summer house in Blindleia, Southern Norway. Hedda is my school friend and Henrik and Susanne´s great-great grandchild. I recently attended her beautiful wedding. At that occassion, I read Henrik´s  first poem to Susanne - TO THE ONLY ONE - as part of the suprise performance her new husband put on in the Ibsen museum on the evening of the ceremony. Hedda has told me so much about that summer house; now  her family comes alive in my living room through her cousins book. 

Hareide´s biography  of stepmother Magdalene is also a great inspiration. Understanding more of Magdalene´s character means diving into Susanne´s inner world. Magdalene was a writer and Susanne´s stepmother from the age of 6; she must have been a unique role model. The two kept up a lively correspondence all their lives, although they were never really close.

Our writers´ team  work from within and from without, at the same time: After the workshop, we begin working out a written pitch document of our "new" drama series. It is no longer called Born an Artist . That title  was a quote from Ibsen´s  own "dramatic epilogue" When We Dead Awaken,  which can be seen as an epilogue to his oevre, but also his life. Our story is now officially renamed HENRIK & SUSANNE.  It is an important, symbolic act, this renaming.  (Google Sites refuses to change the name in the menu on this web page. I will put up a fight later.)

And thus the snowy landscape with its stillness and sternness has changed our outlook. 

POST WINTER WORKSHOP: Writing the first pitch 

After New Year´s, we begin working on a pitch. This is initially a request from a possible producer, Maipo, who are considering our project and want a document to discuss. As often before, I find that being forced to articulate a vision in a short format and attempting to "sell it in" is a tool in rediscovering the true DNA of a story.  I work through at least seven versions of the document, with Ole Christian and Susanne constantly contributing with comments. 

The core of the pitch - or, the original impulse -  is the intense encounter at the ball, the night when Henrik and Susanne fall in love. Two outsiders finding each other, finding a haven in the world. It is the start of a strong and turbulent love story. A love story later  to be - as I see it - murdered by several of Henrik Ibsen´s biographers. 

When we feel the text is starting to take off a little, we bring in our institute production teacher, Olav Øen. He is one of Norway´s most experienced producers, and our consultant in development. We ask him to give the pitch a read.

Olav keeps telling us he is "a simple soul" and has "a superficial angle" on this, but we know better. He is a man who has sought out, developed and realized a large number of successful, audiovisual tales for the big and the small screen. His comments counteract my tendency toward too many words, too much descriptive detail. He has a keen eye for what the ordinary audience member might find exciting and moving in a story. 

After our feedback session with Olav, the pitch is pared down to half of its original length.  Next, we send the text to our script consultant, Iben Gylling.  She contributes a number of final touches and the first pitch  for the drama series "Henrik & Susanne"  is on the table. It will, no doubt, be rewritten in a number of versions. 

Project presentation document

«Henrik & Susanne»

by

Siri Senje

Susanne Skogstad

Ole Christian Solbakken

Idea and background                               

He trashed the bourgeoisie, let Nora leave her children, and wrote about syphilis and incest while those words were still unmentionable in public. Henrik Ibsen was a fiery social critic who challenged his audience. His dramas still engage the whole world, and he is Norway's best-known artist internationally. In four years, the 200th birthday of the world-famous dramatist will be celebrated world-wide. The anniversary provides a perfect opportunity to tell the hitherto unknown story of Norway's most famous writer and, not least, of the extraordinary woman by his side.

Ibsen became a world celebrity in his own time, but the story of his younger years and turbulent road to recognition is unknown to most. In the “chaotic years" between his debut and breakthrough, the writer struggled with poverty, threats of the penitentiary, debts, alcohol abuse and theater bankruptcy. The sense of outsiderness and ostracism in Norway came to characterize his relationship with his home country so strongly that he and his family chose exile for almost three decades. It would take a full fifteen years from Ibsen's debut as a playwright to his breakthrough with Brand in 1866. But the reviled and mocked poet never gave up along the way. What forces and resources in him and in his life made this possible?

In "Henrik and Susanne", we will highlight the woman Henrik Ibsen chose to live his life with. His wife Susanne (renamed Suzannah after his wish) – the poet's mentor, weapon bearer, dialogue partner and great love – was a richly gifted person who appears as a mere bystander in most recognized Ibsen biographies. The drama series will challenge the existing Ibsen narrative and depict "the chaotic years" from the point of view of the Ibsens´ marriage. Our perspective on Henrik Ibsen's story will thus differ markedly from what is current in Ibsen literature and add a modern take at the widely accepted mythology of the artist.

In "Henrik and Susanne", we will also challenge the challenger. We will address the poet's nagging doubts and expose his demons. We will scrutinize his close relations and ask what the price for the realization of his genius was. We will seek a narrative language that breaks with the bio-drama's conventional hero narrative, not least through the choice of a "double journey" dramaturgy in which Susanne and Henrik are both protagonists. We will draw inspiration from a selected innovative drama series and aim to create an intimate portrait of the years before Henrik became "Ibsen".

Writers´ motivation

In his very last play, Ibsen mercilessly confronts himself and the artist myth when he lets his main character, a famous sculptor, proclaim that he has devoted his life to his art, but "never lived".

What is the true price for the realization of a great talent? Can choosing the artist´s way - or any other personal ambition - become a kind of calling that by necessity must push everything else in a human life aside? Is it possible to reach great artistic achievement and still realize one´s own ability to love? Does a particularly gifted person have a right to constantly put him- or herself first, with the lofty goal of managing and realizing his own abilities? How do we, ordinary humans, manage the balance between ambition and love in our lives?

"We choose to ask; our call is not to answer." Henrik Ibsen in Peer Gynt, 1867

Format:

Drama series, 4 x 60 minutes

                                                      PITCH

Bergen, Norway 1856

Two young people meet at a ball. They don't fly across the dance floor, but the conversation between them takes wings. Susanne Thoresen is 19, Henrik Ibsen 27. She is a minister´s daughter, so deeply involved in the world of literature that some claim she hardly inhabits our own. He is a writer and director at the town's theatre, with so little success that he is now under the board´s constant supervision. Susanne has a dreamy nature, a fierce temper and a strong sense of fairness. Henrik is cripplingly shy and therefore lonely, but lofty ambitions dwell behind his timorous facade.

The night after the ball, Henrik writes the romantic poem “To the only one”. Here he eulogizes their meeting at the ball but shuns the time´s usual phrases about female grace. Instead, he mocks the social conventions of the bourgeois ball, where seductive music and superficial flirting form a false veil of joy over "the woe of emptiness". Henrik feels alone in seeing through the hypocrisy, until he meets a young woman's gaze: "No, wait, a single one there is, amongst them all, just one!" Henrik Ibsen has found the woman who, if she attaches herself to him for life, can make poetry "soar from his chest".

The poem hits Susanne right in the heart. A few days after the ball, the couple are engaged.

In retrospect, everything suggests that this besotted young man was right: Susanne was the person who could match his intellect, stimulate his writer´s imagination and, not least, build the framework he depended on to be able to create. After fifteen years of hardship and struggle, Henrik Ibsen realized his dream of becoming what he had once called "an immortal man". Could it have happened without Susanne?

The drama series “Henrik and Susanne” tells the story of Henrik and Suzannah Ibsen. It is the story of a young woman who makes a life pact, who devotes herself – not just to a man – but to the unique literary talent she firmly believes him to possess. She is not a victim, nor does she make a sacrifice: For Susanne, this is a meaningful calling. His literary works are something they own together. But when, at the age of barely 20, she leaves everything she holds dear – her home, her siblings, her stepmother and her hometown – she does not yet know the price of this pact, nor of the turmoil to come. Together, she and her poet will face rejection, ridicule, public humiliation, alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger, multiple lawsuits, and bottomless debt. She will love a man who senses his own genius, but who is constantly torn between arrogance and the darkest of doubts. Ten chaotic years will pass for the two of them before the breakthrough finally comes.

“Henrik and Susanne” is the unknown story of Norway's most famous writer, and of the woman who loved both him and his genius.

Episode overview & character descriptions not yet translated.

Blog nr. 7: SPRING WRITERS´ WORKSHOP, Fagerstrand. April 2024

April in Norway.  Temperatures are around 15 degrees C.  Still no leaves on the trees,  a naked landscape greets us. Little patches of snow remain in a few places, but soon the first spring flowers will light up the roadside. A perfect season for reflective walks.

The narrative DNA

Storylining. That is the main task for our spring workshop.  We need to take a step forward from our research and conceptualization work and begin to dip our toes into the deep, dark waters of story.  Yes, we are still discussing conceptual and narrative style issues; we are still studying and researching our multiple characters. Simultaneously, the work on the pitch has helped us concentrate and sharpen the thematic core and content, and we have the external framework for where our narrative begins and ends.  I consider that a positive side  effect of working in a genre that is, due to the costs and practicalities of audiovisual production, dependent on certain commercial demands.  In order to facilitate our upcoming "dance with the devil", we have managed to describe something that looks/feels like a narrative end product; the tale of Henrik and Susanne´s troubled love. Given that a script doesn´t exist yet, the pitch is  - like every other pitch - a hypothesis, such is the uncertain  status quo of the screenwriter´s deliveries in the world of audiovisual production.  We are also  intensely aware that the material is too extensive, still. Even with our cutting down from 15 to 10 years of historical time and zooming in thematically on the relationship between our two main characters, there is far too much material.  I am meeting with script consultant Iben in Copenhagen next week and I would like to have some concrete story outlines to discuss.  

It is not a classical question of "what is our story".  We are not working from pure scratch this time (are we ever?). The story material is there, in the lives our characters actually lived, in the historical material, in my collected factual timelines.  Rather, the question is what will be our narrative.  "A story is the series of events at issue, while narrative is the story mediated through how the teller presents it" (Porter Abbott, 2008).  We are Henrik and Susanne´s  mediators. We have appointed ourselves as their representatives.  Our position is potentially powerful, our responsibility great. That is why the requirement of identification and empathy ("innlevelse") has been at the core of our search.  While we struggled to find a way to "get close" to young Henrik Ibsen, we quickly found an empathic connection to Susanne, which became a "way in".

The ethical dilemmas in writing someone else´s life - someone we will never be able to meet for interviews -  are ever-present. I reject the notion that, in the name of artistic freedom of expression,  total narrative and inventive  freedom should be claimed.  To me, this is not just a question of establishing ethical boundaries and framework,  it is an artistic issue.  I simply cannot see the point in writing fiction based on real human beings and events if the essence/narrative DNA of the "mediated core narrative"  is pure invention.  Invention is, of course, necessary.  Metaphoric truth exists. We can trace the outlines of our characters lives, but not their emotional life  or the everyday details.  That gives the screenwriter a tremendous amount of imaginative and inventive freedom, I find. But what if invention is the very essence of that narrative core,  what if it is the driving force of the screenwriter´s plot, while it is well known that the actual, factual events did not unfold that way?  Why not write a completely original story, enjoying 100% creative freedom? Why not leave the historical characters   - and the audience´s genuine and legitimate desire to gain knowledge and understanding of them - alone? 

A case in point is the Norwegian drama series Harry & Charles from 2009,  a costly, high quality drama series produced by the NRK - the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. The two main characters were prince Carl of Denmark (Charles) and the British princess Maud (Harry) , who became the new King and Queen of Norway when that country tore away from the union with Sweden in 1905 and needed their own royal family to match their independence.  A truly fascinating story, with considerable drama embedded in the events that actually took place and the real characters who lived through them.  For example, an intense father- son drama might have been played out when young Carl became king of Norway while his aging father remained crown prince of Denmark,  still listlessly waiting to take over the throne at the age of 61. When he became king, a year after his son was granted that title,  he got a brief six years on the throne before he died at the age of 68.  Imagine, if British "spare" prince Harry had been offered the throne of, say, Iceland, while crown prince Charles was still waiting for his seemingly immortal mother to die. The situation would have been similar. And dramatically thrilling, methinks. 

However, the screenwriter of Harry & Charles,  Jonas Cornell, must have decided that there was not sufficient dramatic material in the real story, since he invented a 100% fictional love triangle between prince Carl, princess Maud, and the princess´ chamber maid.  This triangle, which became the core narrative of the drama series,  never actually existed. Sure, love triangles can be dramatically exciting, but this one was pure, (illegitimate?) invention. Further, it failed to become exciting, as it appeared every bit as constructed as it actually was. Also, the erotic chemistry between the two straying characters was absent. Add the fact that the production cast the stunning and charismatic Maria Bonnevie as princess Maud and the rather more down-to-earth Tulla Carstensen as the maid. An inorganic fabrication was the end result - a perfect example of what historian Robert Rosenstone would called "false invention" as opposed to the "true" kind. (More on the definition of those two concepts later).

The "arrangement of the incidents".

When we have defined the core,  in our series as a whole and in each episode,  it is time to weave the narrative from within. At the moment, looking at the four  factual timelines, one for each 60 minute episode, that task appears a bit overwhelming. How to define the  underlying, electric current  in each chain of events? When I wrote the first drama series about Henrik Ibsen years ago, I found the dramatic tension in his family relations. The series covered his childhood and youth until he, at age 21, left his home town and never saw his family again. When I realized how brutal and complete that break actually was, I seacrhed for my electric current, above all,  in the relationship between the son and his father.  His intense longing for his father´s acceptance and understanding, his need to break free when he never really received them.

We now start digging into the extensive timeline documents I have made, looking for the inner story (stories) hidden in the external chains of events. Our goal is to work out a structure for the first and second episodes during our two and a half days. We do this in a fashion typical for screenwriters: We divide the timelines into scenes with scene  titles and write them in bold letters on on sheets of paper. Only the most important scenes qualify for inclusion.  "Key scenes" ("nøkkelscener"), we call them. Each scene gets a brief title:

"Henrik works intensely on his play Lady Inger of Østraat"

"Susanne is  entranced at the opening night of  Lady Inger of Østraat".  

"Henrik and Susanne meet and discover each other at the ball."  

Chains of events.  Beats.  Externalized, visible action with a dramatic core.  Simple sentences describing these elements. Outlines are dry and terse. Only in the actual dramatic writing format do the subtext and thematic core material come to light. So we postpone the digging deep a little longer, letting things ferment and mature under our blatant sheets of paper with letters and titles on them. 

This process reminds me of my work in staging of a play,  in my former life as a stage directorat various Norwegian, residential theatres: We would first do the table reads, the talking and exchange, present the director´s interpretation. Then we went on to the physical blocking, the walking around the rehearsal room with scripts in hand, moving about on the surface of the material, testing it out. A bit like dipping your toes in the deep water before diving in for real, immersing yourself, starting to swim.  Always a scary thing, that act of diving in, committing yourself to immersion. Letting go  - let´s see what happens if...

Storylining Episode 1: The One and Only 

After working out the sheets, the beats, and the title-making, the physical-visual labor begins. We tape the sheets in sequence up on the wall, testing out the chronology and the effect the various events and actions have on each other.  We are a bit like movie editors now.  We stare at our key scene sheets, we rearrange them, we move them around. We discover new connections. We remove one, add another, as we contemplate chronology and interrelationships between events. We are in the movie theater of our minds, visualizing our narrative for the first time. We are having a screenwriters´ narrative feast. This is a work day that demonstrates the advantages of being a team, a creative collective.  I would not experience the same lively and spontaneous imagining if working in solitude as I am used to do.

In his Poetics,  Aritotle names  "the arrangement of the incidents" - also known as the plot - as the most fundamental element of drama.  Chronology is paramount to audiovisual storytelling, as we tell our tales on a timeline and we need the narrative tension to increase throughout. A drama series of four 60 minute episodes has the same amount of timeline to be filled as three feature films. No surprise we are a bit overwhelmed. Also, as an NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) executive said to me; writing about Henrik Ibsen, it´s like writing about the King.  We are dipping our toes into the real life material of this king and his queen,  dividing it up into meaningful bits, putting them in sequence, imbuing them with meaning as we go. For a full day we rearrange, move about, discuss, cut, add. Slowly, we are  creating a skeleton for Episode 1.  A skeleton we eventually can attach the flesh, bloods, muscles of our characters and their story to. 

At the end of the first day,  the first episode is gradually appearing before us.  The idea is that, after the workshop sessions, I will go home and write out a synopsis of the pilot - Episode 1 - based on our structuring work. That will give us  a starting point, "something to make changes to" as one of my stage director colleagues used to say (about the first attempted blocking sketch of a mise-èn-scene).  Our outline will no doubt be rearranged and changed, again and again.  Screenwriting work is often a matter of "layering" the story. I always tell my screenwriting students that, at the outset,  it is important to put together a bunch of ingredients into a large, solid lump of "dough". Only when you have that very concrete  dough in your hands can you start moulding, shaping, searching for its final form.

Episode 1, the pilot, now has a name. It is called "Den Eneste" - "The One and Only" .  That is the title of  the poem Henrik wrote to Susanne after their encounter at the ball. That is what we imagine as the moment when they actually fell in love, when their true bonding began.  The key, core scene sequence  of Episode 1 is that encounter.  I shiver a bit at the thought of writing it. Iben´s question, "what did Susanne see in him that she fell in love with"?  keeps ringing in my mind. What he saw in her, is described clearly in his poem. 

Playreading: Lady Inger

On the first evening, we do a reading together, as usual. This time we choose Fru Inger til Østraat - Lady Inger of Oestraat. This historical play, written in 1855/56 when Henrik was 27  years old, was his fifth dramatic work.  It is an important work for us, for several reasons: He wrote it in "our period"; it has been considered his "best play so far"; it is still being staged (a film was also made); he lied about its authorship (written by "a friend if mine"); insisted on being anonymous when it was discovered. According to a witness of the time, he was extremely adamant about this, intense fear written on his face. He was trying out a new genre, the historical play in an almost Shakespearian style, that might have been a part of it. Also, he had had little success as a playwright in Bergen so far, in spite of the theatre´s  investment i him (an expensive study trip abroad in his early Bergen days).  Lady Inger - a full three-and-a-half-hour historial tragedy - was not particularly well received by the critics. However,  Henrik´s wife-to-be, Susanne, liked it very much and placed it far above his next play, The Feast at Solhoug, which did become a success - his very first one. A hypothesis is that they started  bonding over this; the sense that her understanding of his ideas ran deeper than that of others. 

Lady Inger is a rich and wordy play, studded wth intense monologues in which the characters sometimes blatantly speak both the plot and their own subtext. At this point, Henrik Ibsen is still a student of playwriting, but the drama, the dilemmas, the emotional undercurrents and the characterizations in the play are strong.  Our reading is an intense experience. There is fire in the bloodstream of these characters and much tragedy in the story.  Lady Inger and her daughter Eline are strong Ibsen women with minds, wills and passions of their own; the first in a string of such unusual female characters to come from Ibsen´s. hand Imagine our small, shy, introvert young man i Bergen conceiving this plot,  describing these intense passions, imagining the strong, power-hungry mother´s tragedy and her daughter´s intense, erotic entanglements; all of it with power politics and the severe oppression of a nation as a framework.  

 Henrik Ibsen freely employed dramatic invention in his own historical play  (the real Lady Inger might have had an illegitimate child, but this is not in the history books) and used the historical events rather freely to underpin his dramatic themes.   Granted, the historical events had unfolded 400 years earlier and the characters were not well known,  thus, these liberties  did not  elicit much criticism at the time.  For our writing team, however, it is  a piece of what we might call "meta candy".

A plot summary in English offered by Goodreads (!) and amended by me: 

This historical prose drama in five acts, is set in Norway in 1528. The plot is very complex. Lady Inger, a widow and an influential noblewoman, is under encouragement to lead a Norwegian rebellion against the Danish overlords who exploit the country under Denmarks 400 year rule of Norway. A Swedish rebel by the name of Sten Sturesson, is expected at her castle. However, the stranger who arrives is not Sten but a Danish politician and nobleman, Nils Lykke. His goal is to curb the rebellion and capture and assassinate Sten. Lykke is known as a notorious Casanova type and has previously seduced Lady Inger's elder daughter Lucia. And guess what, as an upshot of this abrupt seduction, Lucia has killed herself. But would that daunt Lykke? Far from it. As soon as Lady Inger leaves the room, he seduces Lucia´s younger sister, Eline. A second stranger arrives, whom Lady Inger presumes to be Sten Sturesson. Lady Inger first hides him, then after being convinced he is somene else, has him murdered so that his half-brother Sten Stensson, her own  illicit son, can become King instead. Nevertheless, to everyone’s surprise, this stranger turns out to have been her son, Sten Stensson, whom she has longed for, but not seen since he was a child. Simultaneously, Eline discovers that her new lover was her sister's hated seducer. Eline takes her own life. Lady Inger despairs and dies by her son's coffin.  Lykke walks out, his mission consummated. Evil has prevailed. 

Day 2: Storylining  Episode 2, The Pact

While the first episode contains the inciting incident of the love encounter in Bergen and its immediate aftermath, such as the wedding, the second deals with the Ibsens´ early marriage years in the capital city Christiania (today´s Oslo).  We have named the episode The Pact, inspired by Astrid Sæther´s biography over Susanne/Suzannah.  Her hypothessis about the relationship is that it was based on a kind of pact, in which Susanne agreed to dedicate her life to what she saw as her husbands´s genius. 

In what has later been called Henrik´s proposal to Susanne, the poem To the One and Only,  he thematizes this. The poem is not one of his best, nor has it stood the test of time, but it is still a rich source when it comes to understanding the dynamic of their meeting, what he saw in Susanne,  and the vision he had for their life´s journey together.  A journey Susanne embarked on knowingly. 

In the poem he writes that if only he dared to name her his bride, to delve into her "rich, spiritual well", to plumb the depths of  her "blossoming, childlike soul",  he would be able to realize his abilities as a "poet" (or "dikter", the word he used for writer/author/dramatist):

For then would lovely poems
Have soared from my breast on high,

Then I´d have sailed as freely
As birds in a clouded sky.
And all of my scattered visions
would blend into one ere long;
So that life´s loveliest visions

would be  mirrored in my song.

To be cast in this significant role in the life of a man she considered a great "poet" ( or "dikter" - after all, he had written the brilliant  Lady Inger, with a strong female protagonist) must have felt like a great honor, even a calling, for Susanne, aged 19.  Her great love in life so far had been literature and drama. In the marriage culture of the time, she was not seen a girl with great prospects.  She had no dowry,  she was not a beauty, she had a somewhat odd personality, being an avid bookworm and a dreamer.  She did not dance or engage in the ball culture of the times. Our impression is that she fell deeply in love and went into the "pact" with Henrik, dedicating herself to him and his "genius",  knowingly and willingly.  She was not the classical artist´s  wife "victim" who sacrificed her own great talent and career dreams,  like so many others during that century and the next. We definitely  do not want to tell a tale of victimization andf sacrifice. However,  we do want to describe the numerous, unexpected hardships  that now lay ahead of the two lovers  and how they dealt with them. In Episode 2, the pact is challenged over and over, until it almost breaks in  Episode 3.

We have gone deeply into the writers´ ritual  of sheets and titles on walls when we realize that our grasp of this material is not as mature as in the first episode.  The Christiania period begins right after their wedding in June 1858.  The couple sets off for their new life in the capital where Henrik  has been appointed artistic director of a new, alternative theatre dedicated to Norwegian plays (the only major theatre in the Norwegian capital was run by Danes with Danish actors and language). The project was inspired by the nationalist cultural movement of the time, in which young Norwegian artists and intellectuals aspired to build a new nation through literature and a cultural revival, throwing off the cultural imperialism and domination  of 400 years of Danish rule up until 1814.

A major obstacle on our storylining way is the fact that the Christiania years were marked by an endless chain of setbacks and failures, with a few successes and happy events, such as their son´s  birth, scattered in between.  Our ambition is to include the first three of the six Christiania years in the episode.  But the sheer number  of material and incidents/scenes is overwhelming.  Painstakingly, we attempt to reduce, concentrate, find the essence. Paradoxically, we reach a consensus when Ole Christian proposes that the episode must include even more: What if the episode contains he entire theatre journey of  Henrik Ibsen the artistic director and Susannah the director´s wife - from the early hopefulness and success  to  the full catastrophe.  In other words, we end the episode in 1862, when the theatre goes bankrupt.  Yes, that version gives us even more of a challenge in squeezing four years of intensely lived life into 60 minutes. But it also gives the narrative a clear framework we could name "the theatre dream". 

Blog nr. 8:  COPENHAGEN SCRIPT MEETING nr. 2. April 2024.

We have only three hours together this time, a quick meeting in a café before I jump on a train. 

Poor Iben. I have drowned her in timelines, scenes and sketches of synopses for all four episodes  in advance of our meeting. Since I hate writing outlines (dry, boring, soulless, superficial, plot-driven), I have also written out some scenes and some treatment material. It happens every time I sit down, that is what "imagining for the screen" is about for me;  I envision,  improvise, detail, embroider.  "Short" episode outlines become 12-15 pages and contain up to 100 outlined scenes. Ole Christian keeps count, since our sketches of scenes are not numbered yet.  He reminds me kindly that a full one hour episode should have roughly 60 scenes, at most. 

Most of the material is rather undigested, as we are still in the phase of discovering, searching, wondering and wandering around in our creative chaos. Resisting decision, fretting about selecting, hesitating about cuts. Should we really not see Henrik, hung over and in bed, accept the assignment of writing a farewell poem to the dying King Oscar, paid for by the stanza, as he delivers them, one at the time (in the meantime, while he was squeezing out the verses, the king died)?  Should we not see Susanne have her amazing hair weighed at a Bergen market? Writing biographical drama means committing an ever-increasing number of "kill-your-darling" crimes.  Not my specialty, that.

But Iben sobers me up.  "This is way too much material", she says ( I know, I know). "I suggest you only work in outline format from now on."  She tells me, above all, to filter the material and to constantly keep Susanne´s perspective in focus.  I agree with her; Henrik´s perspective more or less gives itself.

She is also right about the amount of material, of course.  Because of his fame and the vast, biographical material available, most incidents on our timelines feature Henrik, not Susanne.  Iben now asks me whether we are going for the "double journey" or the drama of a woman  "married to a narcissist" that  we discussed so intensely last time.  

Blog nr. 9: Summer workshops 2024

Another major theme at this point is the possibility of a “meta” element in the series. No, we do not want a glossy, costly traditional historical series along the lines of The Crown (yes, we love The Crown, we are making something quite different). We imagine something more intimate, more reckless, more egdy and modern; a narrative language that gets us closer to the historical characters, iconic characters we may feel distant from and in awe of. We have longed discussed the inclusion of another fiction layer, a meta-aspect, someone talking directly to the audience. And thus, we introduce the concept of the “time witnesses”. 

The “time-witnesses” are real people who knew our protagonists in their time and wrote about them in retrospect, sharing memories of them long after they got famous. People such as Susannah´s stepmother Magdalene Thoresen, Henrik´s boss in Bergen, Peter Blytt, actresses in Bergen like Lucie Wolf, and their mutual friend Lorentz Dietrichson. I will try out letting these characters speak their own, authentic texts, straight to the camera. Talking heads. We hope they may add another layer to our story, a layer saying that biography is always subjective, that each person´s utterances about someone else´s life is just that, an individual expression. A version. Just as our series is our version. 

The idea actually came from a beautiful, Swedish documentary about Carl and Karin Larsson, the Swedish artist couple, and its use of a corps - or choir - of 4-5 commentators from the Swedish art scene. This is, of course, a common technique in documentary, but why not try it here – as long as original material from the Ibsens´ contemporaries exists. I begin to collect material for the time-witnesses and update the language in the quotes.  Will their presence add a dimension, or will it be a distraction from thr story and the characters?

When  mention this to dramaturg Iben, she is immediately skeptical, thinking this extra layer will break concentration and halt the audience´s identification process and empathizing. We have several discussions within the team, Ole Christian is the strongest voice for the meta effect. My attitude is that I will give it a serious try, once my summer writing retreat is underway, come July.

Episode 1: The One and Only