ABSTRACT
NORWAY has a great and successful school of contemporary drama, which grew out of a national literary movement very similar to that now going on in Ireland. Everywhere critics and writers, who wish for something better than the ordinary play of commerce, turn to Norway for an example and an inspiration. Spain and Germany, indeed, though they have a taste for bad dramatists, which Norway has not, have good dramatists, whom they admire. Elsewhere one finds the literary drama alone, when some great work, old enough to be a national superstition, is revived, with scenery and costumes so elaborate that nobody need listen to the words unless he likes ; and in little and inexpensive theatres, which associations of men of letters hire from time to time that they may see upon the stage the plays of Henrik Ibsen, Maurice Maeterlink, Gerard Hauptmann, Jose Eche geray, or some less famous dramatist who has written, in the only way literature can be written, to express a dream which has taken possession of his mind. These associations, the Theatre Libre and the Independent Theatre especially, in the face of violent opposition, have trained actors who have become famous, and have had a powerful influence even upon those plays which are written to please as many people as possible, that they may make as much money as possible.
