The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hadda Padda, by Godmunder Kamban

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Title: Hadda Padda

Author: Godmunder Kamban

Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4736]
January 4, 2010 [EBook #4736]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HADDA PADDA

By Godmunder Kamban

FOREWORD

The value of this play lies in the fact that, beneath the surface, it
vibrates with the quivering, intensely pulsating forces of life. The
speeches breathe. The leading characters not only have perspicuity, but
each has its own representative melodic theme. There is as music
under the text, a constant accompaniment of exquisite passion, rising,
sinking, and now rising once more, in a struggle with vacillating
sensual pleasure and base inclination to supersede others. Around the
simple action there is an atmosphere of poetry. The play opens with the
superstition of olden times, in the old nurse's tale about the life-egg,
suggested to her by a crystal ball, with which the sisters are playing.
Modern superstition is woven into the beautiful scene, where Hadda
Padda, with heroically mastered despair, meets the herborist who talks
of her plants in a calm poetic manner, reminiscent of the way Ophelia
speaks of the flowers she has picked and collected.

The drama stands or falls with Hadda Padda, that is to say, it STANDS.
She holds it with a firm hand, as the Saint in the old paintings bears
the church. In her, the Iceland of ancient and modern times meets. She
has more warmth, more kindness of heart, more womanly affection,
than any antique figure from a Saga. She gives herself completely,
resignedly. She is tender and she is mild, without being meek. In her
inmost self, however, she is proud. When first this pride is touched,
then hurt, and finally the very woman in her is mortally wounded, it
is at once perceptible that she descends from the strong, wild women of
olden times. The wildness has become resolution, the pride has become
poise, the strength has remained unchanged. She plays with life and
death like the her