Chapter 23 - Early Globalization

Summary

This chapter portrays Ibsen as a world dramatist with commercial productions touring five continents between 1889 and 1916. These productions travelled on the well-established commercial theatre touring circuits of the late nineteenth century that used the shipping, rail and road networks of trade routes that linked European nations with their colonial settlements and diasporas. This early distribution of Ibsen's plays is visualized in the chapter using data from IbsenStage (https://ibsenstage.hf.uio.no), the online database that holds 23,604 production records of Ibsen’s plays. At the heart of this chapter are the stories of the star actors who played Ibsen’s characters on their international touring circuits to show off their virtuoso skills.