Ibsen's plays are a problem for me. They never appeal to me as much as I would like to, although they have a lot that should make me like them. Plays are obviously at their best when the director and actors breathe life into them and when the scenes are interpreted in different ways in different productions. Ibsen's plays, however, don't even make me interested to see them on stage.

Rosmersholm isn't really an exception in this regard, but I did like it more than the others I've read. It carries its White Horses, the ghosts from the pasts, throughout and there are grand themes from politics to marriage. It all seems to lack depth, though, and the dialogue isn't particularly impressing. Maybe if the play had focused on something more specific and expanded that into something greater? Act four was what really ruined the preceding scenes for me. It's silly, implausible, and sudden. The ending would probably work in a Zola novel, but Ibsen doesn't handle it well. It's almost like it belonged into a different play altogether.

Where Ibsen does succeed, however, is in characterising Johannes Rosmer. I didn't feel his anguish or any of the oppressing presence of the past, but it was interesting to follow Rosmer's struggles to decide whether he should continue his position as a traditional aristocrat believing in Christian values, or to follow the path of liberalism and therefore achieve possible happiness. Rebecca is another well-developed character, who ends up being the catalyst at both social and political levels. The slow build-up gradually reveals the truth behind the characters' masks and uncertainty is replaced with disillusionment and tragedy. I just wish the downright comical ending wouldn't exist.