John Gabriel Borkman (by Henrik Ibsen; produced by the American Repertory Theater) is the second-to-last of Ibsen's plays and second-best Ibsen. Yet much of it is powerful in a somewhat old-fashioned way, and John Gabriel Borkman himself, even though not encountered till he is more of a ruin than a man, is a commanding figure.
Borkman (Victor Jory) had had a vast, almost visionary, lust for power; and to get it, he gave up love. Yet he failed, for all that—he overreached himself, went to prison, embittered his success-worshiping wife, emerged a pariah who for eight years shut himself up, futilely nursing...
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