Peer Gynt
Portland Stage Company
Through Sun., Feb. 22
“Cross of Christ, how you can lie!”
This succinct summation of Peer Gynt’s character comes from the mouth of his own mother. The grandson of a rich man but son of a drunken wastrel father, Peer has little gold to his name — but what a golden tongue! His mother asks where he’s been wasting time. He responds with a truly enthralling tale of riding a reindeer through the air. “Some take to whiskey,” his mother laments with affection, “and some to lies.”
Peer Gynt was the last play Henrik Ibsen wrote in verse before focusing on the realistic prose dramas (Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House) that made him a theatrical immortal. It’s full of the fantastical: fairies, trolls, enigmatic creatures in the shadows, demons in the woods. In fact, the show is such a phantasmagoria that Ibsen once confessed, “I don’t think the play’s for acting.” Actors keep attempting it anyway. And lucky for us, the new production of Peer Gynt from Portland Stage Company (aided by Figures of Speech Theatre) is the best and most adventurous drama mounted by PSC in many an equinox.
Embodied by the buoyant and boyish Noah Brody, Peer is like a Norwegian Peter Pan, a lad who refuses to grow up. His mother Aase (Moira Driscoll) begs him to court Ingrid (Victoria Soyer), who fancies Peer and would deliver a fat dowry if wed. Alas, the headstrong and impulsive Peer instead manages to offend Ingrid and get himself banned from the village. He flees Norway to begin his life of adventure and avoidance.
Peer encounters a Troll King (the merrily snorting Mark Honan) and tries to marry his daughter. He changes into a gilded slave-trader, a would-be prophet of the desert, a great scholar, an adventurer — in fact, he transforms himself so many times that he has no essential self at all. Decades go by and only Solveig (Sally Wood), the fine and true lass he abandoned in his youth, still cares for him. Can he be saved after living such a wasted life?
The point of Peer Gynt, a show full of enchantments, is that one should not be too in love with enchantments. (That sneaky Mr. Ibsen was always moralizing.) Director/set designer Anita Stewart has done a marvelous job adapting the script’s imagery and dream-logic for the stage. In this task she is aided immeasurably by the puppet masters from Figures of Speech.
There are little puppets, like the wee replica of Peter that Solveig cradles in her arms; there are saucy puppets, like the veiled belly dancers with thrusting hips; there are massive skulls mounted cunningly on the actor’s backs. And then there is a demon wraith with metallic claws and a massive cloak, truly a frightening specter. The puppets designed by John and Carol Farrell range from the whimsical to the creepy. They are worth the price of admission in and of themselves.
Stewart and her tech crew turn Peer Gynt into a powerful, sensual spectacle. The lighting, costumes and sound design are so vivid that the overall effect is hallucinatory, almost cinematic. The viewer may not always quite understand what’s going on, but that’s intentional. This show is a trip.
The actors seem to be enjoying the ride. Brody succeeds in making Peer both deplorable and likeable — he’s not evil, he just doesn’t care enough about being good. Wood takes Solveig, a girl whose love is so pure and underserved that she’s clearly a walking savior-symbol, and invests her with flesh-and-blood feeling. (There’s a magic trick for you!)
The rest of the nimble actors are pressed into multiple roles. Driscoll plays Peer’s adoring and addled mother, then the cloven-footed soul-seeker. Soyer gets to be abandoned by Peer as Ingrid before hoodwinking him as a crafty seductress in the desert. Honan chastises Peer both as Solveig’s disapproving father and as the snouty Troll King. There’s not a lazy performance to be found anywhere in this ensemble.
Ibsen doubted his five-hour script could be staged; Stewart and company have cut it in half and proved him wrong. (A little more cutting in the second act would have been nice, but let’s not quibble.) This is a winter for scrimping. And yes, plays are expensive. But you won’t regret lightening your wallet for Peer Gynt. It will kindle a light in your mind.
— Jason Wilkins
Peer Gynt continues through Sun., Feb. 22, at Portland Stage Company, 25A Forest Ave., Portland. Wed.-Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat. at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sun. at 2 p.m. Special performances Tues., Feb. 17, at 7:30 p.m., and Thurs., Feb. 19, at 2 p.m. Tix: $32-$36 ($29-$33 seniors, $16-$18 students). 774-0465. portlandstage.com.
