Mother Aase

Audun Gjermstad in Lillehammer Tilskuer/Gudbrandsdølen wrote the following, among other things, in his review, published November 2, 1978:

"Grown-ups who hear that Peer Gynt is to be performed as puppetry, may shake their heads and wonder what kind of childish nonsense this is. And what kind of childish nonsense was it? Well, for me it was a great experience, a new and different Peer Gynt, a new dimension. Limits are broken. Imagination and reality melt into one another. The performance was an exciting experience twice over, and there is real work behind it! Around me in the auditorium, some fifty lower secondary school pupils sat. The first comment was: This was cool!"

The role of Mother Aase was played by Christine Stoesen. 

Sceneweb refers to the other puppets registered from the production Peer Gynt. These are Peer Gynt, The green-clad woman, Three-headed trolls, The Old Man of the Dovre, The Button Moulder and the passenger.

SOURCES:

Mona Wiig's private archive

The Norwegian Touring Theatre's archive, plus a press release from the theatre

Review from Lillehammer Tilskuer/Gudbrandsdølen November 2, 1978

Donated by: The Norwegian Touring Theatre. Mona Wiig.

Transported 13.11.2019.

The head of Mother Aase was shaped from Styroforam and fortified with paper and glue. Two concave rounds marked the eyes, and other than this, her facial expression was marked with narrow black lines. The hair was made from thin cotton gauze, and surrounded by a white piece of fabric, reaching to her waist. Mother Aase wore a long, wide dress, with a white piece of fabric in front, reaching to her waist. The rest of the top of the dress was black, and from the waist and down, the colour was grey. The materials were cotton and burlap.

The puppet Mother Aase was constructed as a humanette, in which the puppeteer was inside of the puppet's costume, with the puppet's head on top of the puppeteer's head. The puppeteer could see and orient herself onstage through a thin piece of fabric. The puppeteer could also use her whole body in presenting the role.

All puppets, plus the stage design for the production, were made in the workshops of the Tandarica theatre in Bucharest, Romania.

In the playbill for Peer Gynt, director Margareta Niculescu wrote the following, among other things:

"Why use puppets? Because it is exotic and picturesque? The answer lies in the puppets' ability to express the tragic, in their richly grotesque opportunities, their irony, maliciousness, in their ability to create a theatrical synthesis. And because the puppets...... are poetry in themselves."

In a press release from The Norwegian Touring Theatre, dated October 16, 1978, the following, among other things, is written:

"The Peer Gynt now sent on tour by The Norwegian Touring Theatre, looks different than any Peer Gynt we have ever seen. The performers onstage are puppets, but this does not mean that The Norwegian Touring Theatre plans to make Ibsen's epic work into a production for children. (...) The puppets in Peer Gynt are also unusual, this time. Instead of moving them with the assistance of strings, rods or hand movements, the puppeteers have now wriggled into them, and the stage designer - Ella Conovici - (...) has used her complete knowledge of puppetry in creating the very special effects this technique invites."