Ibsen Scenes for Two Actors: Nora and Helmer, Hedda and Brack, and More

Your teacher says “find an Ibsen scene for the two of you,” and your partner is already texting: “Doll’s House? The last scene?” You both know that one. You don’t know how long it is, whether there’s a better scene in the same play, or which of the four translations on the library shelf you’re meant to use.

Ibsen is a gift for scene study. His plays are built out of two people in a room, one of them wanting something the other won’t give, in plain prose with no verse to learn. The trouble is that most lists name the play and stop. They don’t tell you where the scene starts, where it ends, or that the famous one runs about 17 minutes.

The short version: below are eight two-person scenes from A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, and Ghosts, each with the cue it starts on, the line it ends on, what each character wants, and about how long it runs, plus a shorter cut where the full scene is too long for class. Every line quoted here was checked word for word against the Project Gutenberg text of the translation named (dashes and quotation marks are styled for the web). For single speeches rather than scenes, see our guide to Ibsen monologues for auditions.

Start with a free translation and a stopwatch

Ibsen’s plays are long out of copyright, but every English version is a translation, and recent ones are still protected. The older ones are free. Project Gutenberg lists R. Farquharson Sharp’s A Doll’s House, Edmund Gosse and William Archer’s Hedda Gabler, and Archer’s Ghosts as public domain in the USA. Those are the versions quoted here.

The same translations are in our play library, from Standard Ebooks. Its Hedda Gabler page says the edition is thought to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States, and lists the Gutenberg transcription as its source. You and your partner should work from the same text. Spelling and punctuation drift a little between editions, and a dropped comma can throw a cue.

A note on the times. We counted the spoken words in each scene, stage directions out, and divided by 140 words a minute, the same pace our acting scripts to practice page uses. Ibsen’s people pause, so a staged run will be longer. If you’re entering a competition, check the clock: the International Thespian Excellence Awards acting rules define a duet as a performance for two players that does not exceed five minutes. Almost every scene below runs longer than that. The cuts suggested here are sized for a class slot, mostly 6 to 8 minutes; for a five-minute duet, cut further, or start with the two shortest, Hedda and Lövborg and the Act 4 Hedda and Brack.

A Doll’s House: three scenes, three ways to play Nora

Nora carries the play, and she is a different woman with each person she talks to. With Krogstad she is frightened, with Rank she flirts, and with Helmer, at the end, she is calm. Pick the scene for the Nora you want to show. The play premiered at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen in December 1879, and the Wikipedia entry on the play notes that virtually all productions today use the original ending, the one where she leaves.

Nora and Krogstad: the date on the bond (Act 1)

Nora is alone with the children when Krogstad, a clerk at the bank her husband is about to run, lets himself in through the door someone left open. It starts on his first apology for the intrusion and ends on his threat that if he loses his post a second time, she will lose hers with him. Then he goes, and she is left with I did it for love’s sake.

What each wants: Krogstad wants Nora to save his job, and he has the forged signature to make her. Nora wants him out of the house before anyone sees, and doesn’t yet understand what she did. The whole scene runs about 13 minutes, and Krogstad has the bigger share. For class, start at his line about a very bad memory and run to the end: about 7 minutes. The turn is the date. He tells her that her father signed the bond three days after his death, and her bluffing stops.

Play it as two people who both think they’re in the right. His best line is a flat fact, The law cares nothing about motives. Hers is the answer that it must be a very foolish law. Neither of them is wrong about the other.

Nora and Rank: the silk stockings (Act 2)

The family friend Doctor Rank calls while Nora is desperate for help. It starts on her Good day, Doctor Rank. I knew your ring. and ends as the maid interrupts, after Nora has told him that being with Torvald is a little like being with her father. In between, Rank tells her It is all up with me. He is dying, of an illness he blames on his father’s youthful pleasures.

What each wants: Nora wants a favor, help to stop the disaster Krogstad has set in motion, and she flirts on the way to asking, showing him the Silk stockings. she will wear tomorrow. Rank wants her to know he loves her before he dies. He says he is The only one who would gladly give his life for your sake. She answers Let me pass. and never asks.

The full scene is about 11 minutes, split almost exactly in half. For a shorter cut, start at Nora’s She has only come to sew my dress, just before the stockings, which gives you about 6 minutes. The comedy and the danger are in the same lines here, so keep it light for as long as you can. Her We were getting on so nicely. should sound like a real complaint.

Nora and Helmer: the last scene (Act 3)

Helmer has raged at Nora over the loan, then forgiven her the moment Krogstad sent the bond back. She comes back in her everyday dress. It starts on her It is not so very late. followed by You and I have much to say to one another. It ends with Helmer alone: The most wonderful thing of all—? The door closes below.

What each wants: Nora wants to say, for the first time, what their marriage has been, and then to leave. Helmer wants things back the way they were, and tries every tactic he has: duty, religion, the children, love. The whole scene runs about 17 minutes, so most classes split it. The first part, up to her decision, runs about 5 and a half minutes. The second starts on I must stand quite alone and runs about 11 minutes to the end. Our acting scripts entry has the whole scene in one place.

Don’t let Helmer become a villain, or Nora’s leaving costs nothing. And don’t let Nora shout. The scene’s power is that she has stopped performing. Her last real answer is quiet: That our life together would be a real wedlock.

Hedda Gabler: Hedda and the men who want something from her

Hedda never has a big speech. Her part is short lines, questions, and silences, which makes her scenes better for class than her “monologues.” The play’s world premiere was at the Residenztheater in Munich on 31 January 1891, and the Wikipedia entry on Hedda Gabler describes Brack as an unscrupulous family friend who, by the end, has continuous power over her. You can play that whole arc in two scenes.

Hedda and Brack: the pistol and the train (Act 2)

The act opens with Hedda loading a pistol at the glass door and taking aim at Judge Brack as he comes in the back way. It starts on her So you are here again, Judge! and, two lines later, Now I’ll shoot you, Judge Brack! It ends on And on goes the train. just before Tesman walks in with an armful of books.

BRACK: Fortunately your wedding journey is over now.

HEDDA: Not by a long—long way. I have only arrived at a station on the line.

BRACK: Well, then the passengers jump out and move about a little, Mrs. Hedda.

HEDDA: I never jump out.

Source: Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler, translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer, Act 2, Project Gutenberg edition.

What each wants: Hedda wants someone to talk to who isn’t her husband, and admits how mortally bored I have been. Brack wants a place in the house as a trusted friend of the mistress first, which is to say a way in. He finishes the picture with The triangle is completed. She answers And on goes the train. Neither says what the triangle is for. The full scene is about 8 minutes. For about 6, start at Brack’s Come, let us have a cosy little chat, Mrs. Hedda. and skip the pistol business.

Hedda and Lövborg: the photograph album (Act 2)

Eilert Lövborg, once Hedda’s close friend and now the author of a new book, calls on the newly married Tesmans. With her husband in the next room, Hedda pretends to show him photographs of her honeymoon while he asks what she really felt for him. It starts on his Answer me one thing, Hedda and runs about 5 minutes, with a single short line for Mrs. Elvsted at the end. Our acting scripts entry has the exact ending.

What each wants: Lövborg wants the truth about their past. Hedda wants to keep control of it, so she answers in the voice of a hostess describing scenery. It’s the shortest scene here and a good one to start with. The comedy of the album and the heat under it have to be there at once, and every page she turns is a tactic.

Hedda and Brack: in his power (Act 4)

Lövborg is dead. Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted go off to reconstruct his manuscript, and Hedda is left with Brack. It starts on her Oh, what a sense of freedom it gives one, at the news of Lövborg’s “beautiful” death, and Brack takes it apart piece by piece: where he was shot, how, and with whose pistol. She asks what curse it is that makes everything I touch turn ludicrous and mean. It ends on Brack’s People generally get used to the inevitable.

What each wants: Brack wants Hedda, and now he has the pistol to get her. Hedda wants a way out that doesn’t cost her freedom or her name, and there isn’t one. Her line So I am in your power, Judge Brack. is the turn. The full stretch runs about 7 minutes, with a few short lines from Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted at the table that a reader can cover. For a two-hander with no one else, start where Hedda asks Brack again what he said about the pistol: about 3 and a half minutes. Play it knowing what Hedda does a few pages later.

Ghosts: two scenes from a house with no way out

Ibsen published Ghosts in Copenhagen in December 1881, and its first performance was in Chicago in 1882, in Danish, according to the Wikipedia entry on Ghosts. The same entry sets out the secret that drives it: Regina, the maid, is the illegitimate daughter of the late Captain Alving, and the carpenter Engstrand regards her as his own. Mrs. Alving’s long Act 1 scene with Pastor Manders is in our list of dramatic scenes for a man and a woman; here are two others.

Regina and Engstrand: the rain (Act 1)

The play opens in steady rain on Engstrand, dripping wet, trying to get his daughter to come and work in the “Sailors’ Home” he plans to open. It starts on Regina’s What do you want? Stop where you are. and his It’s the Lord’s own rain, my girl. It ends as Pastor Manders arrives and Engstrand heads down the kitchen stairs with a parting shot that begins He’s the man to tell you what a child owes its father.

What each wants: Engstrand wants Regina, and what she could earn, under his roof. Regina wants to get rid of him and stay where she is, close to young Mr. Alving. It runs about 10 minutes, and Engstrand has more than twice her words. It’s one of the few scenes in Ibsen that can play for laughs, as long as you both remember that he is suggesting she could make money from the sailors.

Mrs. Alving and Oswald: the sun (Act 3)

The orphanage has burned, Regina has gone, and it is nearly dawn. Oswald, at the window, asks Is she gone? It ends with the last lines of the play: he asks Mother, give me the sun. and she has to decide what to do. The Wikipedia entry puts it plainly: he has asked her to help him avoid the late stages of his illness with a fatal morphine overdose, and she agrees only if it becomes necessary.

What each wants: Oswald wants a promise, and he asks But now who will relieve me of the dread? long before he says what it is. Mrs. Alving wants to keep her son, alive and hers, and to believe it’s only a fancy. Her Here is my hand upon it. is the turn. The whole scene runs about 11 minutes. For about 8, start where Oswald asks his mother how late it is. Oswald has most of the words, but the scene belongs to whoever plays the last minute.

How to cut an Ibsen scene for class

Ibsen builds slowly. His scenes give you a long, polite stretch before anything happens, then a turn, then a fast run to the end. That makes them easy to cut if you keep the shape.

• Find the turn first: the line where one person stops playing a game. Krogstad’s date, Rank’s confession, Hedda’s “in your power,” Oswald’s morphine. Never cut the turn or the line just before it.
• Cut from the front, not the middle. A later start keeps the scene’s build intact; a hole in the middle breaks a chain of cues your partner depends on.
• Keep the exit or the interruption that ends it. Ibsen ends his scenes with someone at the door, and the knock is part of the scene.
• Count the split before you agree to a scene. Krogstad and Engstrand talk far more than the women they’re working on, so if your class grades both actors, give the shorter part the turn.
• Time the cut out loud, twice, with a stopwatch. Reading it in your head is always faster than playing it.

Our free script line counter shows who has how many lines in a pasted scene, and the cue script maker turns your part into lines with their cues.

Rehearse it before you meet your partner

Scene partners rarely have as many evenings free as the scene needs. The usual fix is to learn your lines alone, but Ibsen’s cues are short and they come fast (“Well?” “Well?”), so learning your lines without hearing the other part leaves you late on every one.

In Offbook, you can upload the whole play as a PDF and pick only the pages of your scene, as the video below shows. Choose your part, and realistic voices read the other one, then wait while you say your line before cueing the next. When you’re close, hide your own lines while your partner’s stay on screen.

That way the first rehearsal with your real partner is spent on the scene, not on finding the words. If you just want to warm up, our free run lines online tool rehearses classic scenes and waits for your line, with no account. Our guide on how to prepare a scene for acting class has the week-by-week plan.

Questions actors ask

Is the last scene of A Doll’s House good for acting class?

Yes, but it runs about 17 minutes in Sharp’s translation, so plan to split it. The first part, before Nora says she must stand alone, is about 5 and a half minutes and works on its own. For a less familiar Nora, try the Krogstad or Rank scenes instead.

Are there Hedda Gabler scenes for two people?

Several. Hedda and Brack open Act 2 and close in on her in Act 4, Hedda and Lövborg share the photograph album in Act 2, and Hedda and Mrs. Elvsted have a long scene in Act 1, listed with other scenes for two women.

Where can I find a free translation of Ibsen?

Project Gutenberg has Sharp’s A Doll’s House, Gosse and Archer’s Hedda Gabler, and Archer’s Ghosts, listed as public domain in the USA. The same texts are in our play library. Modern translations are under copyright, so buy or borrow the published script.

Can I rehearse an Ibsen scene without my partner?

Yes. Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and Offbook’s voices read your partner’s lines and wait for yours. You can also listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere, which helps with the cues.