… what’s the hurry ? …
This Classic Stage production of Peer Gynt, adapted by John Doyle, should be called Peer Gynt Shortened and Simplified.
Tag: Henrik Ibsen
Posterity is an unexpected, fascinating and brilliant play performed by great actors.
It’s 1901 and as the end of life draws near for great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, the City of Oslo (Kristiana at the time) seeking to commemorate him with a portrait bust, awards the commission to the sculptor, Gustav Vigeland. Thus begins a play of titanic struggle between and within – between the playwright and the sculptor, and within their souls.
Both have reasons to want the Ibsen portrait and to distrust it, to hate it. They’re both opinionated, individualistic, and self-centered, and with their own set of agendas. They enrage one another to a fury but respect each other’s intelligence, creating dazzling verbal wordplay.
The National Theatre has a great reputation for brilliant staging of old and new drama based on historical fact, to which witness the great success of The White Guard, Coram Boy, and Pitmen Painters, on the last of which I have written previously. This reputation remains intact with the present production, despite lesser success in my own view and the average of very varied reviews received (2 to 4 out of 5 stars).