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In a nutshell, the story of Brand is as follows: Brand, the main character of the play, is a priest with a God-given mission of fighting against the worldly values of society in the search of an ideal of advancement of humanity. The image of Brand is that of man-as-God. He is a man with an exceptional will power and unwillingness to compromise. Brand's command 'All or Nothing' means that life and belief are united and that people must be willing to give up their earthly attachments and even risk their lives if they wish to find eternal salvation. Brand is tested on his own faith but he remains firm in his belief, even when this means sacrificing his mother, son, and wife. He also puts totally unrealistic demands on others and lacks concern for people around him. Brand's God is merciless. This conception of divinity influences him in every respect, even to the extent that he may be seen as a destructive neurotic. Eventually he ends his life in an avalanche, buried under masses of snow.
   Henrik Ibsen wrote Brand in1866. Ibsen was critical of the Prussian militarism of the time and was alarmed by what he considered as future dangers for Europe. It is generally believed that Ibsen wrote Brand as a reaction to Norway's refusal to come to the aid of Denmark in the war, as a result of which Denmark lost the two duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The language of the play is influenced by this historical situation, and words like 'war', 'battle' and 'battlefield' are frequently used. There are also metaphors relating to war and battle. Clearly, Brand has declared war against people's worldly values - he wants to save the world. And war - like Brand and his God - does not know any compromise. Furthermore, war is destructive.
   Brand is commonly understood to have been influenced by Ibsen's stay in Italy where he went in 1864 to study ancient classical culture on a scholarship from the government. It has also been held that the play is influenced by the theological debate on concepts of divinity in the Old and the New Testament as well as by philosophers like Kierkegaard, Hegel and Nietzsche.
   With the content of the play and its historical and philosophical influences as mentioned above, how is Brand relevant today? And in particular, in a country like Bangladesh?
   I will argue that the importance of Brand has been undervalued and that an interpretation of the play as a moral drama rather than as a religious drama makes it a play of universal relevance, unbound by time and space. My understanding of the play is that it is an attack on fanaticism of all sorts, including religious fundamentalism. With the present situation in the world, I consider Brand to be more relevant than ever.
   A frightening feature characterising the political-religious sphere nowadays, is the rise of religious fundamentalism. Religious fundamentalism, whether directed towards another religion or towards another section within the same religion, knows no compromise or tolerance. Religious fundamentalists do typically resemble the character Brand in different ways. Like Brand, they believe in the existence of an absolute truth which makes compromise impossible and that their mission is assigned to them by God. Clearly, Brand's command 'All or Nothing' is echoed several places in the world today. A related common feature is that they tend to regard others as alienated, the main problem obviously being that they do not understand that themselves. The fanatics do thus consider themselves to be in the best position to know what is good for others, and they consider it not only a right - but also a duty - to safeguard what they see as the true interests of others.
   I would also like to mention another aspect of the intertwining of religion and politics. Religion is increasingly, especially after the fall of communism, also being used as a trade mark or commodity by politicians in different parts of the world to gain or maintain power, either overtly or indirectly by playing on strong feelings among common men through the rhetoric used. An example is that President Bush after 11 September declared a 'crusade' against terrorism, an expression that clearly plays on the anti-Islamic feelings prevalent among many in the West.
   Let me now turn to the interpretation of Brand as a moral drama, an interpretation that makes it possible to understand the universal relevance of the play. First, however, I would like to make a brief summary of the wide range of interpretations of the meaning of the play.
   Many critics have seen the play as a description of the tension between the concept of divinity in the Old and the New Testaments - between the merciless and punishing God of the Old Testament and the merciful and compassionate God of the New Testament, respectively. For these critics, the meaning of the play largely depends on the interpretation of the last scene of the play in which Brand is buried by an avalanche.
   Others have argued that Brand is not a religious drama but rather a moral drama within a religious framework, implying that religious issues do not have any autonomous status but are merely reflected in the absolute nature of the main character's will and personality. In these interpretations, which seem to be the most common, the focus is on the ethical or ethical-religious dimensions of the play.
   Depending on the interpretation of the meaning of the play, Brand has thus been seen as a protagonist or hero as well as an antagonist or villain. Other critics have focused on Brand as a product of social and psychological conditions, mainly his loveless childhood.
   Whereas most critics, irrespective of disagreement on the meaning of the play, have seen Brand as a tragedy, the Norwegian poet and writer Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, himself a great ironist, saw the play as a satire. According to him, the play is a travesty of men being exponents of extreme idealism.
    As typical for Ibsen's plays in general, Brand is also a composite play with several aspects and layers, and this means that there are good arguments for different interpretations. I belong to those who basically see Brand as a moral drama, that is, a drama about general moral questions. As mentioned earlier, I also consider the religious framework of the play to make it especially relevant in the present world political situation.
   Brand – as is typical for Ibsen's plays also in general – resembles the Greek tragedy in that it raises questions that we must ask ourselves and the world surrounding us over and over again if we want to be morally responsible and rational beings. The play deals with the problematic relationships between norms, intentions, and consequences of action. This is why I am of the opinion that Brand is of universal relevance. To me, the major message of the play is
   Firstly, that fanaticism – or extreme idealism – and human qualities cannot be combined, and
   Secondly, that fanaticism is bound to fail in the long run because it is contradictory to the essence of being a human being and to the essence of human relationships.
   It follows from this understanding that the mission of Brand finally fails because he is a tyrant stripped of human qualities and because his rigidity means that he does not understand the local community and the power structures of society and therefore is unable to adjust to fellow human beings as well as to society at large.
   One of the main ideas that Brand advocates is that life and ideas should be inseparable. For Brand this is much more than a matter of living in accordance with owns norms and believes. In his view, every action should be an act of praising God. In practice, however, this is not easily achievable. Most actions in daily life must be performed in their own right and require the attention of the persons carrying them out if they are going to perform well.
   The most obvious moral problem in Brand is the main character's lack of concern for others and his totally unrealistic demands on fellow human beings. Deeds have no place in Brand's way of thinking. It is only will power that counts. Possession of will power is of course an important aspect of being a human being and is necessary for human beings to make choices and to strive towards their goals in a rational way.
   The problem with Brand, however, is that the question of will becomes total and that he is obsessed with will power and wholeness as the only way to salvation ('All or Nothing,' Be wholly what you are, not half and half'). Through his extremely dominating behaviour, he denies other people a will power of their own and the freedom to make choices on the basis of their norms and values. Likewise, sacrifice is for Brand not an outcome of a human relationship, which is assumed to serve a specific purpose. It is something absolute -– the more sacrifice, the better. When the demand for wholeness becomes total, it also distorts the possibility for communication with and for engaging in a mutual relationship with other people. There is no room for listening to other people or for empathy - for being human.
   This is clearly seen in the scene where Brand forces Agnes to give away all the clothes that belonged to their deceased little son to the gypsy woman. He even expects her to wish for this sacrifice, and he refuses to allow her to mourn the death of the child. In this way, Brand denies her freedom and an autonomous will and therefore also dignity as a human being. The play is not explicit on the reason for the death of Agnes shortly afterwards and does obviously open up the possibility that Agnes committed suicide. In my Brand play-production, this solution is made explicit. This is to my knowledge the point through which my production stands most clearly out from other productions, which also emphasise the moral character of the play.
   Let me at the end, summarise the meaning of the play as I see it by commenting on the last scene: It is important to note that Brand was killed by nature - by an avalanche, not by human beings. To me this is a symbolic expression of the impossibility in the long run of going against nature, in this case human nature. Brand's death in the avalanche thus becomes a metaphor for the burial of extreme idealism and fanaticism. Individual relationships as well as society at large have to be built on human qualities, which mean individual freedom, concern for others and respect for their individuality.
   Lastly, I will argue that the title of the play supports this interpretation. 'Brand' (nowadays spelled 'brann') in Norwegian means fire. Fire is something destructive – it destroys wherever it is active. I do thus see the title of the play as a metaphor for the destructive nature of the main character's ideas and behaviour. Moreover, snow is like water - it can extinguish fire. Thus, when the main character is buried by the avalanche, the fire is simultaneously extinguished – a symbolical expression of the burial of the ideas and behaviour that Brand represents.

Henrik Ibsen, often called the father of modern prose drama, was born in Skien, Norway, on March 20, 1828. The second of six children, his early life was spent in difficult circumstances after his father became bankrupt when Ibsen was eight. At the age of 15, Ibsen left school to work as a pharmacist’s assistant in the nearby town of Grimstad.
   Norway had just recently gained its independence from Denmark, and Ibsen was inspired by a feeling of patriotism mixed with a revolutionary spirit. In 1848, Ibsen wrote his first play, Catiline, about a revolutionary in ancient Rome. In 1850, Ibsen moved to what is now Oslo to attend the University of Christiania. Here he met among others Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson who, along with Ibsen, is counted among the four great Norwegian writers of the 19th century.
   Unable to pass the entrance exam necessary for admission to the university, Ibsen gave up the idea of studying and devoted his time to the theatre. The Burial Mound was produced in 1850. The next year, he became a playwright in residence with the Norwegian Theatre in Bergen, writing four plays there based on Norwegian folklore and history, notably Lady Inger of Ostrat (1855), dealing with the liberation of medieval Norway. In 1857 Ibsen was invited to become artistic director of the newly established Norwegian Christiania Theatre, one of the express goals of which was to produce plays in Norwegian rather than Danish. Ibsen’s five-year stay was unproductive for him artistically.
   In 1858, Ibsen married Suzannah Thoreson, who formed the model, some believe, of Ibsen’s play Love’s Comedy (1862), the only play that Ibsen wrote during his stint at NCT. One of the several plays that Ibsen would write about the relations between men and women in love and marriage, the play is highly critical of unequal relations in marriage. Ibsen’s critics attacked him for failing to respect the institution of marriage. The failure of NCT, which in 1862 declared bankruptcy, was also ascribed to Ibsen.
   Disappointed with his government’s isolationist policies and subjected to criticism about his work as well as his private life – with many believing that Love’s Comedy was a portrait of his marriage – Ibsen left Norway in 1864. With a travelling grant and a stipend from the Norwegian government, Ibsen moved to Italy, where he would spend twenty years.
   It was in Italy that Ibsen wrote what would be his first successful play: Brand (1866), a symbolic tragedy about a priest, who follows his high principles. Brand refuses to compromise and at the end dies, in an avalanche – an ending that Ibsen would repeat in his late play, When We Dead Awaken (1899).
   Ibsen followed Brand with another verse play, Peer Gynt (1867), a satiric fantasy about Peer, a figure from Norwegian folklore. These two works helped establish Ibsen’s reputation as one of the premier Norwegian dramatists of his era. In 1868, Ibsen moved to Dresden where he would stay for seven years before returning to Rome.
   It was in Rome that Ibsen wrote what is perhaps his best known play: A Doll’s House (1879) based on the real-life story of Laura Kieler, who, like Nora in the play, borrowed money without her husband’s knowledge. A Doll’s House, in prose and in the realistic mode, is perhaps Ibsen’s greatest contribution to drama. Ibsen also used a ‘retrospective’ approach in the play: something has happened in the past, before the beginning of the play, and it is this past that will affect what happens on stage. This structure would influence many other playwrights, including Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. In A Doll’s House, Nora has forged her father’s signature in order to borrow money to take Torvald, her husband, to Italy. When Torvald learns what Nora has done, he condemns her and tells her that she is unfit to be a mother. However, when Nora’s friend manages to persuade the blackmailing moneylender not to disclose what Nora has done, Torvald ‘forgives’ his wife. At this moment Nora realizes that her husband is not the man she had thought him to be. She also realizes that she has an identity outside that of daughter and wife. Nora leaves home, closing the door behind her.
   The refusal of Nora to sacrifice her own identity in that of wife and mother outraged conservatives. Some theatres in Germany refused to perform the play with Nora leaving her husband and children at the end. Ibsen was forced to write an alternative ‘happy’ ending in which Nora sees the error of her ways and doesn’t leave. Nevertheless the play became popular in Europe. It was translated into many languages and performed worldwide.
   Two other plays in the realistic mode followed: Ghosts (1881) and An Enemy of the People (1882). In Ghosts, using the retrospective approach he had earlier used in A Doll’s House, Ibsen broached a subject that was not talked about: venereal disease. A son goes blind because of his father’s youthful adventures. With these realistic plays Ibsen began to gain international recognition.
   But, apart from realistic plays, Ibsen also wrote a number of psychological and symbolic plays such as The Wild Duck and Hedda Gabler. In Hedda Gabler Ibsen presented a psychological portrait of a fascinating and self-destructive woman. Though in his plays Ibsen returned to Norway, it seemed as if he needed the physical distance from Norway to write his plays. To the writer and playwright Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, a friend and rival of his, Ibsen wrote, ‘If I were to tell at this moment what has been the chief result of my stay abroad, I should say that it consisted in my having driven out of myself the aestheticism which had a great power over me - an isolated aestheticism with a claim to independent existence. Aestheticism of this kind seems to me now as great a curse to poetry as theology is to religion.’
   In 1891, at the age of 63, Ibsen returned to Norway. Apart from short visits, Ibsen had been away twenty-seven years. In Norway he continued to write: The Master Builder (1892), John Gabriel Borkman (1896), and When We Dead Awaken. The latter play, about an artist and the woman who inspired his art, seems to be autobiographical, with the artist expressing a sense of regret about devoting his life to his art at the expense of personal relationships.
   In 1901, this playwright who had written plays that inspired others to treat the theatre as the arena where ideas could be analyzed and debated, who would influence Bernard Shaw in England and later Arthur Miller in America – for different reasons – suffered a stroke that left him debilitated. On May 23, 1906 Henrik Ibsen passed away in Christiania.

‘A Norwegian by birth, but a world citizen by disposition’ is the way Henrik Ibsen described Peer Gynt, one of his best known characters. These words could have been used of the playwright himself.
   Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien, a small coastal town in Norway, on March 20 1828. He was a son of an affluent merchant who went bankrupt when Ibsen was eight. At fifteen he left home to become an apothecary’s apprentice.
   In 1850 he went to the capital Kristiania (now named Oslo) to study for the university. Later that year. he published his first drama Catiline and staged the one-act The Burial Mound. His success was, however, slow to come, even though in the following years he produced and staged several works. For the most part these were ‘historical’ and ‘national-romantic’ dramas like The Pretenders (1863)
   From 1864. he settled in Italy where he wrote Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867). These two ‘dramas of ideas’ became immediately popular with the public. This was a turning-point for Ibsen in Scandinavia and offered him the economic freedom to continue working and experimenting with the drama.
   When he started publishing ‘realistic, contemporary’ dramas like Pillars of Society (1877) and A Doll ‘s House (1879), he almost immediately received international acclaim as an innovator of the European theater.
   His new dramas were limited in time and space and had few characters. Through dialogue we get to know what has previously happened and what the plot is. These dramas are often concentrated around the conflict between the laws and the values of society and the individual.
   Ibsen’s way of revealing the world of the bourgeoisie, unable to make real its proclaimed ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity for all, was recognized as good theater. It reflected the feeling of unease in modern middle-class life in which the free and independent individual found himself or, as often in Ibsen, herself constrained by the politics and the social and economical conditions in society.
   In the comedy An Enemy of the People (1882) we meet the individual standing alone in conflict with a corrupted community.
   The Wild Duck (1884) initiated Ibsen’s last period as a playwright. From then on his dramas might be characterized as ‘psychological and symbolical’. The main conflicts are the same, but the characters are more complex and elements of symbolism are introduced in the plot like the ‘wild duck’ and the term ‘troll’ in The Master Builder (1892).
   Henrik Ibsen was to stay away from his native Norway for 27 years, and, when he returned home in 1891, he was a writer of world fame. He had changed modern drama and was played regularly all over the world, second only to Shakespeare.
   In his last work When We Dead Awaken (1899), an artist looks back on his life and work with bitterness. This was seen by many as a self-portrait, but Ibsen later denied this.
   After some years of ill health, Henrik Ibsen died in Kristiania on May 23, 1906.