Siri Senje

Henrik Ibsen´s madness – and mine

Kristiania University College, Norway

Aristotle has been considered the father of dramaturgy, while in fact he also spoke of the purpose and the generative processes of the drama. Concerning method, he specifically advises the writer of drama to place the scene before his eyes” for (…) those who feel emotion are most convincing through natural sympathy with the characters they represent; and one who is agitated storms, one who is angry rages, with the most lifelike reality. Hence poetry implies either a happy gift of nature or a strain of madness. In the one case a man can take the mold of any character; in the other, he is lifted out of his proper self.

Accordingly, the dramatist must, like her audience, actively identify and empathize with her characters and their struggles; she must see, hear, feel, while putting herself in her character´s shoes. Aristotle demonstrates an almost uncanny understanding of the workings of the writer´s imagination and of creative processes. He may be describing what we call “creative flow” and the improvisational element in dramatic writing. By improvisational, I here refer to acts of creation that occur “in the moment,” while the writer engages with pen or keyboard, an activity that is hardly prioritized in conventional script development.

Are there methods through which such madness or “aristotelian flow” can be encouraged? Can the writer or team of writers facilitate their own imaginative flight and the state of being “lifted out of the proper self”? In the practice-based research project Writing the Writer, three screenwriters are developing an original drama series based on the ten chaotic years between Henrik Ibsen´s engagement to Susannah Thoresen in 1856 and his life-changing breakthrough in 1866. After three months of living in imagined proximity to Henrik and Susannah, I will report on methods, progress and dilemmas in the project so far.

Siri Senje is a screenwriter, stage director and professor of screenwriting at Kristiania University College. She completed her doctorate at the Norwegian film school in 2013 with the project Imagining for the Screen. Senje has written for theatre, film and television and published several books. Her research has been published in the Journal of Screenwriting, Norsk Medietidsskrift (Norwegian media Journal), Kunnskap Kristiania and Rushprint. Senje has served as a gatekeeper at the Norwegian Film Institute and as a curator/dramaturge at Norwegian Center for New Playwriting (Dramatikkens Hus).The results of her most recent research project, The Feedback Phenomenon, was published in the Palgrave Handbook of Script development in 2022.