HADDA PADDA

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