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by Henrik Ibsen, directed by Leah Cherniak

Theatre Columbus, Factory Studio Theatre, Toronto

March 13-31, 2002

"Peer Gynt in the Studio"

Henrik Ibsen never intended his 1867 verse drama "Peer Gynt" to be staged.  It has more than 50 characters, it covers a time span from the youth of the title character to his old age and it has settings, real and imagined, from Norway and the Kingdom of the Trolls to North Africa, the wide sea and back again.  But ever since 1875 when Ibsen was asked to adapt it to the stage, where it was accompanied by Edvard Grieg's famous incidental music, the play has proved itself one of the masterpieces of world drama and a challenge that theatre companies seem to relish.

Theatre Columbus fully rises to the challenge in "Gynty", their "reinvention" of "Peer Gynt" in Frank McGuinness's wonderfully earthy translation.  Their minimalist staging with only five actors reaps major rewards in placing our focus on Ibsen's words and their ability to conjure up fantastic landscapes of the mind.  The actors are so successful they make the concept director Leah Cherniak has devised seem unnecessary.

Cherniak has decided to recast the play as a 1940s style radio drama.  Designer Tamara Marie Kucheran has transformed the stage of the Factory Studio Theatre to an old-fashioned recording studio complete with sound effects area, (unconnected) standing microphones and a clock running in parallel with real time, naturalistic except that sections of the back wall are missing.  The actors playing Peer and his mother Åse begin the play scripts in hand sharing a mike.  Interruptions to the taping of the drama--an argument over a sound effect, the illness of an actor--cause retakes and reinforce the naturalism of the initial concept. 

Gradually, however, the actors move from mike to mike no longer careful about the extraneous noise they make, no longer using scripts and amplifying their speech with physical gestures that make no sense for a non-visual medium.  By the end the clock has stopped, the recording studio set has been cleared of props and the back wall can be passed through without aid of a door.  In Cherniak's version everything from when Peer bangs his head on a rock in Act 2 onwards is imagined.  Within that imagined action, everything from when a shipwreck casts the aged Peer overboard in Act 5 to the end occurs not only in Peer's mind in the last minutes of his life but seemingly also in the mind of the dying radio actor playing the role.     

Thus Cherniak has set up an elaborate conceit only to break it down.  The radio drama idea is meant as a kind of "Verfremdungseffekt" to make us see the actors acting and focus on the words they say.  Gradually tearing down this layer is meant to mirror our growing engagement with the story.  The only problem is that the ending with an uncostumed Peer Gynt on a stage cleared of props proves that radio drama concept was an unnecessary encumbrance from the beginning.  Five actors with musician/sound effect man on a bare stage would have made the point much more simply and directly of conjuring worlds from words.  Actors also do not need mikes to show a transition from acting as acting to acting as identification.   As it is it's quite a relief when the actors finally clear away the mikes they have made only a pretence of using. 

Dispensing with the radio drama concept would, in fact, place greater emphasis on the actors, for they are this production's greatest strength.  One of Cherniak's best ideas is to have Peer played by three actors.  Marcel Jeanin gives the young Peer energy and bravado, but misses some of his complexity.  David Jansen presents the middle-aged Peer as a cynical opportunist who is not as sly as he thinks he is.  And Oliver Dennis is excellent as the aged Peer, who wants to hold onto the illusion of his identity as long as possible.  Peer believes in being true to himself alone, but as he sees in the famous onion metaphor of Act 5, the self consists of many layers but has no core.  "Peer Gynt" is usually presented as a tour de force for a single actor, as it was for Jim Mezon in the 1989 Shaw Festival production, but Cherniak's triple-casting makes the play into an ensemble piece of story-telling and reinforces the play's central theme of the unknowability of the self.

The theme is further underscored by having each actor play numerous roles, not to mention assorted villagers, trolls, monkeys, madmen and sailors.  In addition to Peer, Dennis is hilarious as the milquetoast Mads Moen, whose bride Peer steals away and later the mysterious Boyg, who is so frightening because he truly is only himself.  Jansen plays the oafish Aslak, one of Peer's enemies, and the rubberfaced Troll King, hospitable as long as he is not crossed.  Jeanin excels as the foppish French businessman Monsieur Ballon and as the ominous Buttonmoulder, who melts down the souls of those who don't rate as saints or sinners. 

Of the cast Martha Ross is the best at playing an actor playing.  She gives a fine performance as Peer's mother Åse, humorous in her mixture of anger and affection, tragic as she seeks comfort in illusion on her deathbed.  Emma Campbell plays all the young women in Peer's life, from Ingrid, the Valley girlish bride Peer steals to the virtuous Solveig, his true love, from the very funny, lisping Troll King's daughter to the sensuous but devious Anitra. 

If the production were really meant to be naturalistic, there would be no lighting cues except for on and off.  As the performance drifts away from naturalism, Andrea Lundy's inventive lighting is instrumental in establishing the wide range of moods and settings.  Kirk Elliott's live music and sound effects are always apt and often witty.

In her director's note, Cherniak says Theatre Columbus "wanted to centre on the listening to and speaking of the text".  If you can manage to ignore the unhelpful radio drama concept, you will appreciate how Cherniak's careful direction has guided the actors to make Ibsen's text so vibrant and vital.  No mustiness or cobwebs here--just Ibsen's words living now.  Cherniak and the cast should think about recording the play for radio for real.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Emma Campbell and Marcel Jeannin. ©2002 Theatre Columbus.