The interesting polemic which Bjornson’s production occasioned has already been discussed at some length.  This may be added, however:  A play which, according to the poet’s confession, influenced his life as this one did, has played an important part in Norwegian literature.  The influence may be intangible.  It is none the less real.

More popular than any of the plays which had thus far been presented in Norway was A Winter’s Tale, performed at Christiania Theater for the first time on May 4, 1866.  The version used had, however, but a faint resemblance to the original.  It was a Danish revision of Dingelstedt’s Ein Wintermaerchen.  I shall discuss this Holst-Dingelstedt text in another place.  At this point it is enough to say that Shakespeare is highly diluted.  It seems, nevertheless, to have been successful, for between the date of its premiere and March 21, 1893, when it was given for the last time, it received fifty-seven performances, easily breaking all records for Shakespearean plays at the old theater.  And at the new National Theater, where it has never been given, no Shakespearean play, with the exception of The Taming of the Shrew has approached its record.

Aftenbladet[13] in its preliminary review said:  “Although this is not one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, it is well worth putting on, especially in the form which Dingelstedt has given to it.  It was received with the greatest enthusiasm.”  But Aftenbladet’s promised critical review never appeared.

    [13.  May 5, 1866.]

More interesting and more important than most of the performances which we have thus far considered is that of Henry IV in 1867, while Bjornson was still director.  To his desire to give Johannes Brun an opportunity for the display of his genius in the greatest of comic roles we owe this version of the play.  Bjornson obviously could not give both parts, and he chose to combine cuttings from the two into a single play with Falstaff as the central figure.  The translation used was Lembcke’s and the text was only slightly norvagicized.

Bjornson’s original prompt book is not now available.  In 1910, however, H. Wiers Jensen, a playwright associated with the National Theater, shortened and slightly adapted the version for a revival of the play, which had not been seen in Kristiania since February 8, 1885.  We may assume that in all essentials the prompt book of 1910 reproduces that of 1867.

In this Kong Henrik IV the action opens with I Henry IV, II-4, and Act I consists of this scene freely cut and equally freely handled in the distribution of speeches.  The opening of the scene, for example, is cut away entirely and replaced by a brief account of the robbery put naively into the mouth of Poins.  The opening of Act II is entirely new.  Since all the historical scenes of Act I of the original have been omitted, it becomes necessary to give the audience some notion of the background.  This is done in a few lines in which the King tells of the revolt of the nobles and of his own difficult situation.  Then follows the king’s speech from Part I, Act III, Sc. 2: