Emperor and Galilean
Emperor and Galilean is a play written by Henrik Ibsen. Although it is one of the writer's lesser known plays, on several occasions Henrik Ibsen called Emperor and Galilean his major work. Emperor and Galilean is written in two complementary parts with five acts in each part and is Ibsen's longest play.
The play is about the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire. The play covers the years 351–363. It was his desire to bring the empire back to its ancient Roman values. Another crucial and more sympathetic feature of Emperor Julian, is his dislike of his own dynasty, who, in the play at least, were claiming descent and authority for being Galileans, making Jesus Christ their own, in terms of ethnicity.
Writing
The play was conceived by Ibsen in 1864. During his four years in Rome he actively collected historical material, before starting to write the play itself in 1871. It was completed and published in 1873.Production history
The play was premièred at the Theater der Stadt in Leipzig on 5 December 1896. The piece was premiered at the National Theatre in Kristiania on 30 March 1903.A slightly abridged English translation was made by Michael Meyer in the early 1960s and revised in the 1980s: it has not been performed on stage, though it was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 30 March 1990, with Robert Glenister playing Julian.
The first stage performance in English was of a newly created version by Ben Power, given at the National Theatre in London on 9 June 2011: Julian was played by Andrew Scott, with Ian McDiarmid as Maximus. This formed the basis for a two-part audio adaptation broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2023, with Freddie Fox as Julian and Siân Phillips as Maxima, a female version of Maximus.
Another stage adaptation by Neil Wechsler premiered at Torn Space Theater in Buffalo, New York on Thursday, March 1, 2012, directed by David Oliver, starring Adriano Gatto as Julian.
Themes
Ibsen called the play a "world drama in two parts", addressing the world order, the state of faith and what constitutes an ideal government, intertwining these three issues together with each other, with Julian's personality and with an artistic reconstruction of that historical era. It originates the idea of a "Third Reich", put into the mouth of the philosopher Maximus, as a moral and political ideal formed by a kind of synthesis between the realm of the flesh in paganism and the realm of the spirit in Christianity. The author wrote that the future had to be marked by such a synthesis, seeing that future as a community of noble, harmonious development and freedom, producing a society in which no person can oppress another and that future had to be reached by a revolution in the spirit and an internal rebirth.Synopsis
Part 1 – Caesar's Apostasy
Act 1
Julian, a cousin of Emperor Constantine II, lives at the court in Christian Constantinople, surrounded by constant surveillance. His mentor, a teacher of theology called Ekivoly, fears the impact the sophist Libanius might have on Julian and so distributes poems round the city, hostile to Julian and attributed to Libanius. Julian learns the truth about the poems from Agathon, son of a winegrower from Cappadocia. Constantius announces his will – his heir will be his cousin Gallus, Julian's half-brother – and his banishment of Libanius to Athens. Julian then asks for permission to study in Pergamum, which Constantius grants, though thinking it a strange wish. However, unbeknown to Constantius, Julian goes to Athens instead.The first act takes place in Christian Constantinople, ruled by the emperor Constantius II. There the play's main character, Constantius' young cousin prince Julian, is under constant surveillance; the city's inhabitants are very divided as to what is correct Christianity; the emperor's court is corrupt. For his part, Julian is a searching soul and wants answers to the central questions of life. He is visited by his childhood friend Agathon, who is an honest Christian. Julian, on the other hand, is in love with ancient Greece and asks himself why Christianity has destroyed the beauty of Greek thought. He follows his teacher Libanius to Athens. Agathon, on the other hand, tells Julian about a vision he has had – he believes that this referred to Julian and Julian agrees, in that it showed God designating him to "break with the lions".