"BERGMAN AND THE THEATRE" "My Aunt Claire was a very kind lady." "She wore a wonderful perfume." "She asked me:. "Dear little lngmar, "what do you want to be? "" "I told her, firmly:." ""I'm going to be a director"" "To which she gently replied:" ""You mean an engineer" thinking I'd made a mistake." "She didn't know what a director was." "I began with the puppet theatre." "At the time there were sheets of printed pieces for making a puppet theatre." "You cut out the pieces, glued them onto plywood and sawed them out; then you assembled your puppet theatre." "It's what Alexander has done here in "Fanny and Alexander"." "Then I wrote my own plays." "And eventually I made my own decor." "Then my sister got into the act." "Then my friend Rolf joined in." "And then Liliane, my sister's best friend." "We were the ones who then put on puppet shows." "I have no real memory of having dominated the shows but I think I determined which plays we'd perform." "The audience was..." "It always included aunts and uncles, relatives of all kinds." "There'd be an audience of five or six people who sat there patiently watching these shows." "And we actually continued with this until I took my A-levels." "Then Rolf and I went our separate ways." "It was the death of that theatre." "But it was the actual beginning." "Between 1 938 and 2002 Bergman directed 1 25 theatre productions" "It all began with a visit to the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm." "He sat in the Upper Circle..." "And I've never really left that place." "It still happens, when the theatre is empty and silent." "I walk in and sit down and take in the atmosphere of the stage the silence of the stage." "And I saw Alf Sjöberg's first production here." "It was a children's play - incredibly lavish and extremely beautiful." "It was af Geijerstam's "Big Clas and Little Clas"." "I went home and came down with a fever." "I had a fever for several days because I'd been to a real theatre for the very first time." "For me, the Royal Dramatic Theatre is the beginning and the end and almost everything in between." "The strange thing is that the work for which I've received the most recognition internationally is my films and my filmmaking." "But what I consider most important is my work at this theatre, mainly my time spent here in this building." "What year did you two first meet?" "We met in 1939." "No, 1938." "He was in the Sixth Form at Norra Latin and I was getting all kinds of little directing jobs." "I got to direct some children's plays for the people's parks and..." "Yes..." "I worked at the Student Theatre, too." "What was he like?" "How did he look?" "lngmar?" "He was a slender, handsome, expressive person at times with a beret on his head, at times making sweeping gestures..." "I was terribly thin." "I could never afford to eat." "And he exuded a certain knowledge about things that I hadn't yet done." "What do you mean?" "Women and..." "It was impressive." "I had started working in the theatre section of a neighbourhood centre." "It was a youth project in Old Town." "We started with a play entitled "To Foreign Ports" which I was quite excited about." "It was the first production I staged myself." "I had no idea what..." "I hadn't received training of any kind." ""Lucky-Per's Journey" was my second production there." "It was a big production." "And you performed it in a church." "In the chapel of a charitable organisation." "The funny thing was, there was a rostrum to the left of the podium." "When we staged "To Foreign Ports" they wouldn't allow me to remove it." "So I made it a bar." "This upset many people, but we got to have our way." "At 26, Ingmar Bergman became Europe's youngest theatre director for the Helsingborg Statsteater" "He brought Erland Josephson with him" "A wonderful, venerable theatre..." "But it had been invaded by big brown fleas." "The old ensemble hadn't been bitten by fleas but we were young, so new blood..." "I remember once, as I sat at my desk there was a flea on my director's script gazing up at me." "Then it disappeared, and I'd been bitten." "We were all flea-bitten." "And we performed a very provocative repertoire." "I think that's fair to say..." "Leck Fischer's "This Child is Mine" and..." "Rune Moberg." ""Lowering the Morals" and the like." "That was rather good." "Then we did New Years cabaret's." ""Kriss-Krass-filibom"..." ""Without a Thread"." "That was fun." "You danced in that." "That's impossible!" "." "You did a Turkish dance with Ellen my wife at the time." "What made Helsingburg so special was that we had so much fun." "But we didn't realize it." "No, not at the time." "Every time we tell about it it gets funnier and more absurd." "What was he like as a director?" "lngmar as a director?" "I don't really know what I should say." "You were very enterprising, I must say." "But I don't recall your being so terribly disagreeable." "You were famous for your outbursts." "You'd have pedagogical outbursts and put us right." "In After the Rehearsal, Erland Josephson plays a director" " not unlike lngmar Bergman" "How do you know what's riight?" "You've neveri been an actori." "I feel it." "Have you no feari ofbeing wriong?" "When I was young and should've been afriaid, I didn't riealize I should be." "Many diriectoris'paths arie lined with slain actoris." "Have you everi counted youri victims?" "In life - riatheri, in the rieal worild" "I may have hurit many people, just as I've been hurit by otheri people." "Not in the theatrie?" "No, not in the theatrie." "I'll tell you something that is the absolute triuth:" "I love actoris." "I love them as objects." "I love theiri worik." "I love theiri couriage ori contempt fori death, ifyou like." "I underistand theiri escapism as well as theiri darik, briutal friankness." "I love it when they triy to manipulate me." "After an interlude at the Gothenburg Stadsteater" "Bergman was hired by the Malmö Stadsteater 1 952-1 958" "In those 6 years he directed 1 0 films 22 theatre productions and 24 radio plays" ""Keep your mouth shut!"" "That's Max." "It's in the canteen." "It's probably it appears to be our production of Strindberg's "Erik xiv"." "And that's Bibi." "You could get an extraordinary chateaubriand there." "There's the director." "The director in person, yes." "Although rather briefly, I'd say." "And here comes Naima Wifstrand." "I had no job, but many families and children to provide for." "I was in a miserable situation." "Then suddenly Lars Levi Laestadius appeared." "He was director of the Malmö Stadsteater." "He invited me out for dinner and we both got rather tipsy." "He asked me if I wanted to become director of the Malmö Stadsteater." "If you look at the whole thing cynically I suppose you could say that for theatre work, it was the best time in my life in my professional life." "Because I was given a totally free hand." "The thing was that I made films in the summertime." "And I gave actors from the Malmö Stadsteater parts in those films." "And that's why eventually after a few years - perhaps it wasn't equal to the Dramatic Theatre but we had one of Sweden's finest ensembles." "It was extremely..." "It was a wonderful period." "According to a list of your works, you did 5-6 theatre productions and maybe two feature films the same year." "How was that possible?" "I worked incessantly." "It was very pleasurable." "It was amusing to look at the actors and think:" "He should have a part, and she should have a part..." "I often wrote the script with particular actors in mind." "Herie arie picturies friom 'Uri-Faust", Berigman's big success in London." "Herie arie Max von Sydow and Gunnel Lindblom at an embassy priess rieception." "Toivo Pawlo was also therie with his wife, the set designeri, and the diriectori Ingmari Berigman." "It was a grieat success!" "Herie we see the impriessive sign adveritising the play." "In 1 959 Bergman was hired as director of Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theatre" "Since 1 963 he has kept the same workroom" "It was wonderful to be able to withdraw to this room." "So you've had this room for 40 years?" "And you've always returned here?" "Yes." "But now I've told them I've moved out and that they can move in." "But they say: "You're just saying that." "You'll be back"" "They haven't moved my things out yet." "Congriatulations, Ingmari Berigman." "Will you have enough time fori the Royal Driamatic Theatrie when you become its diriectori, ori will you continue making fillms?" "No, it will be the Royal Driamatic Theatrie that I'll have time fori." "In 1 963 I became the director here." "It felt really wonderful when - what was it called?" "The Minister of Ecclesiastical lssues, Ragnar Edenman, called me." "I was editing a film in Filmstaden." "He called me and said:" ""Do you want to be the director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre? "" "It sent my head spinning." "I was married at the time." "I went home and talked it over with my wife." "And she said very wisely:" ""Then it's the end of our marriage"" "What did she mean by that?" "She was right." "As director here I began every day at 7.45 and remained here all day until the performances were over." "I didn't get home until about 1 1 pm." "With many new faces, the Driamatic Theatrie is stariting the new season." "It is Berigman's second season." "Therie'll be two priemieries a month, and prioductions fori school kids periforimed in theiri oriiginal languages." "In news clips from your years as director there, you seem radical." "You permitted an actors' board to choose your repertoire and you set up tours to take your productions all over the country." "Were you a radical theatre director?" "This goes together with the rest of my theology as a theatre director." "The important thing for me was actually..." "We have 724 seats here." "And the important thing for me was for people to come here." "Therie's still a good deal of culturial indolence an awful lot of indifferience to culturial manifestations in this countriy." "I would like fori the Royal Driamatic Theatrie to take up battle against this indolence and passivity." "In pictures of you at that time, you are wearing a coat and tie." "Was that tied in with your role as director?" "You looked different." "I think it also had to do with my whole with my whole new image." "I moved from Malmö, and then..." "Then I got married, and that was a whole new image with a house in Djursholm." "And very bourgeois." "I was happy with that - it was an image I chose." "I wanted to get away from my bohemian life." "Thus, the tie." "Bergman served as manager for 3 years - but continued directing for 40 years" "Berigman's new ideas fori the theatrie's Main Stage can now be studied by the public friom the "stalls"." "Anotheri innovation is that people can sit on the stage." "People werie alrieady lined up this morining fori the filrist riehearisal." "Youri "entriance ticket" is youri signaturie in the guest book." "Begin!" "Huririy, ori we'll miss it..." "Numberi one!" "No, soririy, that was too soon." "INGMAR BERGMAN SLUGS WELL-KNOWN critic" "We were rehearsing "Woyzeck" and had rehearsals open to the public." "And I see..." "Sitting up there on the step terrace, on the right, farthest out is a critic for Dagens Nyheteri whose name is Bengt Jahnsson." "For a long time he'd been watching me..." "He panned everything I did." "I went out and sat down at my director's table." "So, there was Bengt Jahnsson, sitting on the stage." "And I saw how he was looking around starting to make faces and take notes and so forth." "So I thought to myself, quite calmly:" "What if I - when this act is over - walk up and punch Bengt Jahnsson in the nose...?" "It is quite unlikely that he'll be able to review my work after that." "So it was completely..." "lt was premeditated violence." "I wasn't a bit angry." "It was quite simply tactical planning." "I planned it in order to be spared Bengt Jahnsson after that." "What did you do?" "I walked up, and then..." "It was our lunch break...and we met by one of the lighting mounts." "I grabbed him...gently but firmly here by his coat collar and said:" ""I'm gonna show you, you bastard!"" "I shoved him - I didn't want people to see so I shoved him against the lighting mount, and he sat down on the floor where there were a lot of music stands." "He was so scared he sat down." "Then I let go of him and walked away." "I was fined 5,000 kronor." "I have a black book in which I write down" " I have a bad memory" "I write down the names of people I don't like." "At the back of the book, upside down are those with whom I will never become reconciled." "Bengt Jahnsson's name is there." "I don't want to talk about the others." "Whateveri you do, neveri rieply to a criitic." "Neveri discuss a rieview a criitic has wriitten." "Neveri have any contact with a criitic." "Therie should be a "steriile space" between aritist and criitic." "In 1 957 Bergman directed his first TV theatre production" "At the time all TV theatre was broadcast live" "Is there a big difference between TV theatre and ordinary theatre?" "An enormous difference." "I would say that TV theatre is a medium all its own." "It resembles neither the theatre nor the cinema." "I was absolutely crazy about TV." "When television first came out, I was in Malmö." "At the time we could see..." "In Malmö we could see Danish TV." "TV hadn't come to Sweden yet." "The Venetian 1958 Hmm..." "It's betteri to serive and be happy than to serive and worik." "I know a secriet." "We came up to Stockholm from Malmö." "There was no pre-shooting." "Programmes were broadcast live, with blunders and all." "The only thing was that they had made a mistake." "When we got to the studio to begin rehearsing on that Venetian street we see Ria Wägner." "She stood there cooking spareribs with a little Lapp fellow in a Lapp costume with a typical wool cap and the works." "The whole studio was full of smoke - and it was a live broadcast." "It was a show for homemakers which my excellent organisers hadn't taken into account." "They had to finish roasting their spareribs." "I was furious, because it didn't give us much time at all to rehearse." "And that evening our production went on the air." "I was obsessed by TV." "When we got a TV, I went home and stared at the test pattern." "I thought it was so amazing." "And it really was amazing." "Aren't you still obsessed by it?" "Yes, it amuses me very much." "Well, we were going to talk about "Scenes from a Marriage"." "Arie you back alrieady?" "I thought you werien't rieturining till tomoririow." "Hungriy?" "How sweet ofyou to come back earily." "The girils arie sleeping." "We went to bed earily, since therie was nothing on TV." "The first scene I wrote was extremely personal and cruel..." "It still tortures me when I think about it." "It was I was in Stockholm." "And I had fallen in love with a girl named Gun." "This is her." "I was in love with her." "But I had four kids and a wife in Gothenburg." "And then Gun was to go to Paris and then I..." "It's really horrible." "The day before..." "The day before I was to go to Paris I went down to Gothenburg." "I remember that Ellen was so happy that I had come home sooner than expected." "And then..." "I didn't even remove my coat." "I sat down on the bed and told her all about Gun and myself that we were going to Paris that I would be away for three months...and so forth." "Can't we be like Miriiam and David, exuding happiness and stability?" "What's wriong?" "Arie you unhappy?" "Did something happen?" "What is it?" "Tell me what it is." "I came herie to talk with you about something." "I've fallen in love, you see." "It's absurid and maybe totally wriong." "Which it priobably is." "I think it was a sort of..." "I wanted to get something off my chest." "It was the first part of it that I wrote." "It's the third scene." "From it, all the rest of the story radiates out in different directions." "There must've been enough explosive force in that third scene to suffice for all the others." "So it was a scene you'd been carrying around inside of you for over 20 years at that point?" "Yes, I suppose so." "And I still am." "I've more or less rid myself of everything having to do with a bad conscience." "It's just vanity." "But it still feels terrible to think that I could have been so incredibly cruel..." "But..." "I was." "I believe that over four million people saw that series." "Something in that area, yes." "The movie theatres could close those evenings." "The streets were empty." "I had to change phone numbers." "I became some sort of marriage counselor!" "Sometimes this profession..." "This frightful profession has its comical aspects." "It can be extraordinarily comical when it wants to be." "Back to the stage" "Then we have..." "You two should be overi herie." "You can be standing overi herie." "I'm just going to have a look..." "I remember when I was very small and hadn't yet started school." "My brother was four years my elder." "We shared a room - the nursery." "I recall, after having breakfast and my brother had left for school" "I'd walk into the nursery and walk over to the big cupboard that contained all our toys." "I'd throw open the doors and plan what I would play with that day." "The silly thing is that when I get to the studio or walk out onto the stage or into a rehearsal room I still get that same feeling." "It's very strange." "I can remember that feeling exactly." "So is this still a game for you?" "And also deadly earnest?" "I suppose it is." "I suppose it's..." "I truly believe that it is still a game." "You can do without most things when periforiming a play but therie arie thriee things you must have: a play, an audience and actoris." "The world, the actori, the audience, that's all you need to periforim the miriacle." "That's my conviction, my inneri conviction." "But I neveri follow it." "I am too bound to this depriaved, dusty and dirity instriument." "Yes, this place is definitely haunted." "Just think, as far back as 1 908 people have stood on this stage - famous persons  and unleashed their emotions." "If you stand on the stage when it's silent, you feel that there's an enormous charge." "They say, e.g., that the actress Harriet Bosse haunts this stage Strindberg's wife." "She was a great actress, an exceptional actress." "She walks around here, in the Upper Circle, and I've seen her." "One night, when I was director, I stayed late in my room here." "Then I stood at the barrier and just looked down." "I enjoy gazing down at the marble foyer." "I felt the presence of someone." "Standing directly across from me was a living, quite tangible being." "It was a woman, elegantly dressed in a grey suit." "Then she walked over and disappeared behind a pillar." "So what I've..." "Several people have seen ghosts here." "Erland and I, who've been here a long time, say we will haunt this place." "There was a policeman outside, to make sure that I didn't sneak out." "Berigman's fariewell to Sweden is big news in the United States." "Herie the couple's attending a priess conferience fori the big TV networiks." "Berigman's letteri of fariewell has given Sweden negative publicity." "Then we spent quite a long time in Los Angeles looking for a place to live." "Then Barbra Streisand called and invited us to a pool party." "I thanked her, but said that we could not come." "Then I said to Ingrid..." "It was Midsummer Eve." "I said to Ingrid: "We're going home now"... .."to Sweden"... .."to Farö for the summer"" ""Then we'll go to Munich" And that's what we did." "Bergman was acquitted of all charges of tax evasion" "He remained at the Residenztheater in Munich for 7 years" "When I got to Munich I was a legend of sorts." "And I wanted to do..." "I stupidly suggested that we do "A Dream Play"." "There were forty-two parts." "The actors there were wonderful, but I didn't know them." "We sat there at the first read- through, i.e., at our first meeting." "It was hell." "I thought:" "How can I explain to these forty-two people what Strindberg means by:" ""Poor souls, I feel sorry for us" It doesn't exist in German." "They say: "Es ist schade um den Menschen"." "Which is quite different." "Although I speak German fluently it was difficult to direct in German because..." "But with actors you also have a non-verbal inner conversation and I eventually found an ensemble at the Residenztheater with whom I got along very well." "Tell me now, daughteris..." "Since now we will divest us both ofriule and interiest of teririitoriy which ofyou shall we doth love us most?" ""King Lear" was the first play I did here on my return." "It was very touching." "I never participate in the curtain call." "That's for the actors, in my opinion." "But I participated in that one." "And suddenly I got a bouquet from Jarl Kulle, who stood beside me." "And he said: "Welcome home!" I was incredibly moved." "Bergman returned to Sweden and the Dramatic Theatre in 1984 and directed the TV play he also wrote, After the Rehearsal his testament to the theatre" "That chairi was in "The Fatheri" and this sofa, in "Hedda Gableri"." "I used that desk in "Tarituffe" and those chairis in "A Drieam Play"." "Old friiends." "I grieet them like old friiends." "But I like my riehearisal scrieens best." "They riemind me of my childhood." "I had a big wooden box fillled with simple building blocks." "They riepriesented whateveri I wished them to." "Fori me it's best like that." "Chairi...table..." "Scrieen..." "Stage..." "Rehearisal lighting..." "Actoris in everiyday triappings..." "Movements..." "Voices..." "The faces." "Silence..." "Magic." "Everiything a riepriesentation - nothing rieal." "Could you tell us how you go about choosing your plays?" "There are..." "There are always a number of plays that I want to stage." "You always have a list of them?" "A "suitcase" full of plays." "Then comes the decisive factor." "It is when you feel that you have actors for the parts." "For example, I was extremely eager to do... .."A Doll's House" by Ibsen." "But I didn't think we had a Nora." "Then I did "A Dream Play" here." "At the time Pernilla August was rather new, fresh out of the theatre's training school." "I thought to myself:" "Great!" "Now we have a Nora." "And some years later we did "A Doll's House"." "And it was wonderful then to do "Ghosts" with her as well." "Ghosts..." "Ghosts!" "I've delightful news." "Thanks to my motherl, Alphonse is filnally friee." ""Marquis de Sade" was unique...in a way." "I had a wonderful ensemble one of those that, as I often say, has actors with no limitations." "When you look back is there one production you value higher than the others?" "The one that I cherish most dearly, one might say is Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale"." "And I've given a lot of thought to the reason for that." "The reason could quite simply be that it was an extremely felicitous work period." "And I had a wonderful ensemble with Pernilla and Börje in the leading parts and surrounded by fine actors." "Then didst thou utteri "I am youris fori everi. "" "'Tis Griace indeed." "I have spoke to the puripose twice." "The one fori everi earing'd a rioyal husband." "The otheri a friiend  well...fori some while." "August Strindberg - a constant companion" "Bergman has directed 30 productions of his plays for the theatre, TV and radio" "August Strindberg - why has he followed you?" "Try saying "Ogust" again." "OK, I'll say it correctly!" "Try it one more time." "Silence!" "Now you may begin." "August Strindberg, why has he followed you through the years?" "It..." "It started quite early." "I read his chamber plays." "Somehow I came across them." "I was maybe fourteen years old or thereabouts." "I was incredibly impressed by primarily "The Pelican"." "I've often wondered what the reason for that might have been." "I consumed a lot...read a lot." "But Strindberg in particular and primarily his chamber plays which I didn't understand very well - why did they impress me so much?" "But I believe that I was so filled with rage, to put it mildly." "I was so filled with aggression." "It wasn't that I understood what the plays were all about." "If you think about "Ghost Sonata"." "That's tough for a fourteen-year-old." "But I understood the tone I understood the aggression, I understood the rage." "Then I received 65 kronor from my enormously wealthy Aunt Anna von Sydow." "So I went to a used-book shop on Birger Jarlsgatan and bought Landquist's annotated edition all fifty-five volumes." "I believe that there are fifty-five volumes." "I put them on my bookshelf at home and lay down on my bed and looked at them." "Through the years since then, they the plays have had varying effects on me." "I have done "A Dream Play" four times, for example." "I shall eat cabbage, 'though it makes me sick." "TV Theatre 1 963 We'll make each otheri sick." "Youri pleasurie - my pain; and vice verisa." "We poori souls." "I feel soririy fori us." "So you've come to riealize that?" "Royal Dramatic Theatre 1 970" "We poori souls." "I feel soririy fori us." "So you've come to riealize that?" "Munich 1 976" "Es ist schade um den Menschen." "Das siehst du ein?" "Royal Dramatic Theatre 1 986" "We poori souls!" "I feel soririy fori us." "So you've come to riealize that?" "I even dreamed even dreamed one night..." "It was when I was doing my most recent "Dream Play"." "I dreamed one night that Strindberg called me." "He wanted to meet me and take a stroll on Karlavägen." "I live where Strindberg lived i.e., at 10 Karlaplan." "He lived at the same address." "I remember being extremely eager..." "I was scared stiff about meeting him." "I realized that we'd discuss my having played around with the last part of Fingal's Cave." "Most important for me was to remember that his name was "Ogust"." "It made him furious when people called him "Aaaugust"." "I love him as music." "His way of treating the Swedish language is unequalled." "Bergman has directed three operas" "The Rake's Progress, The Bacchantes and The Magic Flute" "The biridcatcheri am I indeed always meririy, heisa, hop-sa-sa" "I, the biridcatcheri, am well-known to old and young thrioughout the land" "Know how to lurie into a snarie and how to whistle to them therie" "Thus can I happy and meririy be fori all the biridies belong to me" "It annoys me that I haven't gotten to do "The Adventures of Hoffman" i.e., the opera." "It is..." "I'm very sorry I never got to do it." "In general I'm satisfied, but there are plays, e.g., "Rosmersholm"..." "I'm going to do it for the radio, which I'll enjoy doing." "You can get a lot out of it." "But good heavens, on the stage, you know..." "Ghosts 2002 Motheri, give me the sun." "It seems that "Ghosts" will be your final theatre production." "Why that play in particular?" "I've decided that I won't do any more." "I have done enough now." "In principle, I have now concluded my work with the cinema, the theatre and the TV." "I'm finished with it." "When I say that, people shake their heads give me a knowing look and say:" ""You've said that before" Which is true." "It was true concerning "Fanny and Alexander"." "That was my last film." "But when it comes to the theatre it's been much harder." "I am much more deeply attached to the theatre than to the cinema." "I have an enormous desire to continue with the theatre but I know that I shouldn't." "Translation:" "Susanna Stevens Sveriges Television AB 2004"