Peer Gynt
Oxford Playhouse,
08-11.05.02

Henrik Ibsen first wrote Peer Gynt in 1867 as a long poem, intended to be read rather then performed. The origin of the play as we know it today came in 1874 when he invited Grieg to write some music to accompany a stage production of the work - and so the Peer Gynt Suite was born.

Performed on this occasion with the original Grieg score, by a student cast - and obviously so, mainly due mainly to the lack of polish which tends to accompany the mechanics of amateur productions. However, the rendition was an enthusiastic and creative one, with excellent choreography. Especially noteworthy was the main man, Matthew Ashcroft as Peer Gynt, who was dynamic with a beautiful voice quality particularly when being the younger Peer.
Ibsen's play is a kind of odyssey for Peer as he tries to find his true self and thus justify his existence. The many scenes encompassed within the play's five Acts reflect the stages of Peer's life, starting as a young man living in the world of Norway's traditional folk and fairy tales and in his mind embodying every hero apart from himself. This is fine while he is young, but translated into adulthood it cannot lead to self-justification and instead is a negative quality. After he has an encounter with the trolls who serve as a metaphor for everything low and unfulfilled about man, Peer begins his adult life on the wrong track: what he should do is to follow the maxim: 'To thine own self be true', but he is confused by its similarity to the trolls' saying: 'To thine own self be all-sufficient' and it is the latter that he follows. Henceforth, we see him as false prophet, king of fools, and grasping self-preserver. What he needs to realise, and what he is finally taught by an onion, is that a man's soul is placed there by none other than himself - unless he does this he is nothing but a series of layers of experiences.

I tend to find Ibsen plays in general to be overly long and lacking subtlety, and Peer Gynt was no exception. He hits his points home with a sledge-hammer - there is never any danger that one should miss the main thrust of the play, and his method of doing this always strikes me as being like a student desperately trying to demonstrate in his essay that he can stick to the title. If man's motto was: 'To thine own theme be true,' Ibsen would be a saint. The frequent and time-consuming scene changes endangered the audience's attention and the message, although often repeated, remained unclear: the blurring of fairy-stories, metaphor and reality at several points just resulted in obscurity and confusion. However, Matthew Ashcroft's skill made sure that, despite all this, the poignant moments are deeply moving, and the play provokes thoughts which stay with one for a good while. Worth seeing if you have the patience, for there are many beautiful moments and an interesting, if confused, theme.

Alison Ireland, 9.5.02