Theater Review - From the
front row
Peer Gynt
Guthrie Theater: Seen
Feb.15th
Runs through March 2nd
by Raymond Luczak
Editor’s note: Access
Press is pleased to welcome author and playwright Raymond Luczak
as our new theater reviewer. Mr. Luczak www.raymondluczak.com will
be reviewing an ASL-interpreted play each month under the heading “From
the front row.” Reviews will be posted first to access press.org,
and printed the following month. Coming next: Peer Gynt (reviewed
Feb 17th)
Of the many plays in Henrik Ibsen's canon, Peer Gynt is
an odd creature. Ibsen had originally written it as a novel in 1867,
exploring various Norwegian fairy tales as a way to poke fun at the
then-novel idea of returning to nature and simplicity. He never thought
of it as a performable work, but when the book became a huge success,
he eventually adapted it for the stage in 1876. The problem was that
Ibsen didn't trim a whole lot from the book in his adaptation. Ever
since then many directors and producers have wrestled with the play's
very long running time of over five hours, and there have been numerous
translations and adaptations over the years.
Robert Bly, the unofficial
poet laureate of Minnesota, has created a three-hour translation
and adaptation, a lot of which is in rhymed verse, that makes the
title character quite joyful and yet far more selfish on his journey
to find his "true self." The play begins with
a quick jolt of exposition: We are at Peer Gynt's surprise 50th birthday
party, and we are asked to practice our "surprise!" for the moment
when Peer arrives. The party soon segues into a flashback that explores
how Peer began his journey away from his homeland, escaping because
he had run off with someone else's bride, a crime punishable by death.
He constantly reinvents himself to suit the occasion, and along the
way he appears to have developed no sense of responsibility whatsoever.
In that sense, he is a true antihero who, on paper, sounds rather
repulsive and unworthy of our time in the theater. But with his insouciant
bearing and light feet, Mark Rylance manages to infuse Peer Gynt
with a likeable, satyr-like glee. The fluidity of his performance,
and Tim Carroll's nimble direction, manage to leaven a story that
at times still feels a bit lugubrious.
There are some standout moments: When Peer and Solveig, played by
the lovely Miriam Silverman, dance together for the first time, everyone
around them slowly freezes as these two lock arms and eyes; the lighting
design by Stan Pressner is most keenly felt here, framed by the barn
evoked by Laura Hopkins's set and costume design. In a play that's
essentially a one-man show with many supporting characters, Solveig
as a major character has very few lines; but she proves herself to
be an active listener. She isn't just listening; she is truly listening
with her subtle facial reactions. And she acquits herself beautifully
when she sings with her tender voice. The other standout performance
is Isabell Monk O'Connor, who plays Peer's mother. After a number
of years, Peer returns home and reveals just how much of a Peter
Pan he is in the most poignant scene in the entire play, in which
his mother dies.
So what's so "modernist" about Peer Gynt,
and why should we care? While I'm not intimately familiar with
the works of all the major late-nineteenth-century playwrights,
as a character, Peer Gynt must be the first modernist slacker.
He doesn't really have evil aspirations, he just wants everything
handed to him on a silver platter without having to earn it. If
Peer were online right now, he'd be considered a get-rich-quick "game player." While
of course Ibsen could have had no knowledge of modern technology,
if nothing else, he was remarkably prescient about the human condition.
If there is anything
in this play that is relevant to the disability community, the
way Peer's unconventional behavior affects his social standing
parallels our feelings as outsiders. We simply do not accommodate
what the larger able-bodied society expects of us. But the story
of finding one's true self-whatever that may turn out to be-is a
never-ending tale for many of us in the disability community. It
is so difficult to feel true to oneself while enduring the many societal
pressures to conform. We know deep down that it is usually next to
impossible to be accepted in the same way that able-bodied people
accept each other. Still, the huge difference between Peer Gynt and
ourselves is that he had a choice to change his behavior
every step of the way. He just didn't care.
The Guthrie Theater has long prided itself on providing top-notch
ASL interpretation, and this production was no exception. The company
provided a lovely ASL-interpreted show program that included photographs
of the performers, descriptions of their name signs, and which of
the two interpreters would be signing for which character, as well
as brief bios about the interpreters. A concise two-paragraph summary
is also included to help Deaf audience members follow this sprawling
story of one man's journey and the multitude of characters he meets
along the way, which can be particularly confusing if there are only
two interpreters handling the entire cast.
Cathy Mosher ably interpreted
all the characters except Peer Gynt, which Carrie Wilbert handled
with a lot of gusto, not always matching the tempo of Mark Rylance's
work onstage. It is my belief that ASL interpreters shouldn't "overact" or
monopolize attention away from the actors, but instead they should
provide just enough information to enable Deaf audience members
to absorb both the information from the interpreter and the action
onstage, rather than pay full attention only to the interpreters.
That said, both Mosher and Wilbert's ASL translations were very
fine. A peculiar but telling detail about the difficulty of theatrical
interpreting came to my attention: Because the floor in front of
the stage had no carpeting, the interpreters stood on a pair of
soft mats to help ease the strain of standing in one place.
In spite of Bly's wonderful writing, Peer Gynt would
have benefited from even more streamlining in a way that would
still honor Ibsen's original vision, in the same way that many
productions of Shakespeare's plays use condensed versions of his
work for greater clarity onstage. Still, Mark Rylance is the main
reason to see this production; he is Peer Gynt himself. ![]()
Gutherie Theater is located
at: 818 South Second Street, Minneapolis
