Word: gynt
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...PEER GYNT...
Even so, a presentation of Peer Gynt is a rarity. Only 16 full-scale productions are listed for the U.S since 1906. The two-part, five-hour production now enlivening the stage of Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater becomes a 17th of considerable distinction. The scenic effects are accomplished with stunning finesse (heightened by Santo Loquasto's virtuoso set design of mirrored panels). Rumanian Director Liviu Ciulei (pronounced Leave-you Chew-lay), artistic director of the Guthrie, never scants the intellectual, philosophical and refreshingly comical ramifications of the play. This Peer Gynt only fitfully moves the heart, however, and that...
Last year this policy resulted in the performance of such gems as More Stately Mansions, probably the worst play Eugene O'Neill ever wrote, and Ibsen's four-hour monstrosity Peer Gynt, which lost half its audience at intermission. The Tutor, unfortunately, stands squarely in this venerable Loeb tradition, succeeding neither as allegory nor as entertainment...
Ibsen also wrote Peer Gynt to lampoon Norwegian egoism, self-sufficiency (presented as the trolls' motto) and political character, and you can see why almost anyone would be content to glean what meaning he could from the play. But Director Peter Frisch, who seems to want to drive home every nuance, cut the script sufficiently, and Peer Gynt, which runs over three-and-a-half hours, emerges much longer than the dramatic interest warrants...
There are so many admirable elements in Peer Gynt --William Rynders's evocative lighting. Frisch's choreography of group scenes, and several minor performances--that it's too bad the play wasn't produced on a more modest scale. Instead of over-reaching itself and trying to present Ibsen's entire conception, the production should have been, as the trolls might put it, more self-sufficient...