Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt was a theatre production by Peer Gynt AS, performed outdoors by Lake Gålå, produced in 2014, and based on the play by Henrik Ibsen.
Erik Ulfsby directed it and Mads Ousdal acted in the title role.
The 2014 edition of Peer Gynt by Lake Gålå was the first not to be directed by Svein Sturla Hungnes. He had been the director for 25 years when retiring in 2013. Two heads of Norwegian theatres - Erik Ulfsby of The Norwegian Theatre and Arne Nøst of Rogaland Theatre – were central in the new artistic team, the former as its director, the latter as its stage designer.
The production was revived in 2015 and 2016.
Information
(Objekt ID 41183)| Object type | Production |
| Premiere | 2014 |
| Produced by | The Peer Gynt Festival |
| Based on | Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen |
| Audience | All |
| Language | Norwegian |
| Keywords | Outdoors theatre, Drama |
| Running period | 2014 — 2016 |
"Heading Peer Gynt at Lake Gålå is the experienced director Erik Ulfsby.
- We are looking forward to it, of course we are excited. Even though the most of it is new, we bring Ibsen's fabulous text with us, and we will use the grandeur of the nature as always. And we wish to draw the audience even further into this natural grandeur, says Ulfsby.
Peer Gynt is a classic, written for and about the mountains, forests and villagers of the valley of Gudbrandsdalen. Here the local Per lived, and the legends about him inspired Ibsen to write his Peer Gynt. We want to be true to Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt text and seek the core of Ibsen's idea.
Nature will play an even greater role in the performance. Stage designer Arne Nøst wishes a stage image in which Lake Gålå has been brought closer to the audience, and because of this the mound towards the water has been removed. Other exciting changes are also effected in the stage design, to strengthen the experience of nature and the proximity to the audience. Read more about the new exciting stage choices here (link in Norwegian only).
All costumes - all of 250 - will be new, designed by Christina Lovery. This secures artistic coherency. See the first images of the green-clad woman and the old man of the Dovre here. (text in Norwegian only)."
SOURCE:
Peer Gynt AS, http://www.peergynt.no/stemnet/peer_gynt_ved_galavatnet_2014/peer_gynt_ved_galavatnet_2014
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Henrik Ibsen | – Playwright |
| Erik Ulfsby | – Direction |
| Kjetil Bjerkestrand | – Musical direction |
| Njål Helge Mjøs | – Dramaturge |
| Arne Nøst | – Stage design |
| Christina Lovery | – Costume design |
| Marie Blokhus | – Actor (Den grønnkledde) |
| Belinda Braza | – Actor (Anitra) |
| Heidi Ruud Ellingsen | – Actor (Solveig) |
| Frank Kjosås | – Actor (Dovregubben) |
| Mads Ousdal | – Actor (Peer Gynt) |
| Birgitte Victoria Svendsen | – Actor (Mor Åse) |
| Svein Tindberg | – Actor (Knappestøperen) |
| Per Tofte | – Actor (Presten) |
| 2016 – Friluftsscena ved Gålåvatnet, The Peer Gynt Festival | New opening |
| 2015 – Friluftsscena ved Gålåvatnet, The Peer Gynt Festival | New opening |
| 2014 – Friluftsscena ved Gålåvatnet, The Peer Gynt Festival | Opening night |
Andreas Wiese, Drittsekken Peer (literally: Peer the Jerk), Dagbladet August 2 2014:
"For 25 years Peer Gynt has been performed at the most beautiful stage imaginable - outdoors in the sunset by Lake Gålå. Or alternatively, in rain, of course. Such provides opportunities for a wide range in the theatrical experience. But this year the range of experiences is also demonstrated artistically. This is a wholly new staging of the play, with new stage design, with new costumes, with new direction and with a new Peer Gynt: Mads Ousdal. The result is visually beautiful, but also darker and with more emphasis on the person. This is the Peer we are reluctant to confront in the mirror without telling ourselves taradiddles."
"But in the middle of this flamboyant, funny and visual game there is space for Ibsen's claw. His harsh observations of egomania are pointed out through people and trolls. Not without reason the Old Man of the Dovre - interpreted in a savoury way by Kjosås - with a wealth of Norwegian dialects. The navel-gazing ' to thyself be enough' is a phenomena far further than a cave in Rondeslottet, you know! The dialogue between Ousdal and Tindberg's button moulder has the same intimate, contemplative effect. The performance's perhaps strongest moment is when Peer draws his dead mother Åse towards the water and boosts her into the old rowboat. Mournful and wounded he rows away from his roots; roots that will finally catch up with him."
"Seldom has Ibsen's Peer Gynt been as understandable as in Mads Ousdal's interpretation. Not just because he covers a great range of physical and psychological expressions, not just because his Peer is strong as a lion, charming and an erotically attractive rascal, an egocentric jerk and alcoholic, a cynical dreamer with clear fascistoid features, and a troll, but because he in Erik Ulfsby's thought-through direction cleanses the text, Ibsen's own words, for traditional theatrical digressions. He shows us how a vulnerable young boy who is excluded from the community ends as a person without empathy."