Ja, til Island! The Icelandic Reception of Hærmændene paa Helgeland

• Published in: Modern Drama
• Main Author: Kaplan, Merrill
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 2006
• Subjects: Literature and Literary Theory; Helgeland; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/md.49.3.235; https://moderndrama.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/md.49.3.235

The final lines of Hærmændene paa Helgeland point to Iceland, whither the survivors of Ibsen’s 1858 Viking drama fare on longships. ‘‘Aye’’ says Ørnulf to Gunnar, ‘‘to Iceland.’’ What befalls them there, we are not told. However, the play does have an Icelandic fifth act, after a fashion. More than thirty years later, the play lands in Reykjavı´k as Vı´kingarnir a´ Ha´logalandi, an Icelandic translation by Indriði Einarsson. The performance of this work in 1892, also directed by Indriði,1 was the first production of any Ibsen play in Iceland and one of the very first performances of drama on the Icelandic stage (it occasioned the printing of Iceland’s first playbill). This was a historic moment, and the Icelandic press gave it attention as such.