PEER GYNT - January 2011 production
Directed by Vasile Nedelcu
Music by Gregers Brinch
Great Norwegian poet and playwright that he was (Ibsen is the most performed playwright in the world, after Shakespeare) Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt under alien Italien skies in 1867, and published it in November of that year. It was his last work to use verse as a medium of dramatic expression but it carries the marks of his later, prose plays in the kind of spare, dramatically eloquent dialogue which has become characteristic of twentieth century drama. But at the same time, the poetry is, as James McFarlane has written, a "luxuriant fantasy", brilliantly appropriate to the imaginative swings between Scandinavian oral folk traditions, the Moroccan coast, the Sahara Desert, and the absurd. Peer Gynt's literary antecedents include Faust and Hans Christian Andersen, but the play draws on Ibsen's own childhood and character: he wrote that he derived many features of Peer Gynt from "self-dissection". The character that emerges is self-centred and irresponsible but we cannot condemn him, and indeed he is a mirror for us. In this new production of the play, music and songs are woven throughout the drama and specially written by composer Gregers Brinch, who also takes the role of Peer - which must be unique in the history of this play. Ibsen himself had originally insisted that his epic poem had not been written for performance, but in time he began to ponder the possibilities of a theatre production - and Edvard Grieg was commissioned to write the music, which is known and loved the world over although at the time, Grieg took little pleasure in the work and complained that he couldn't bear to listen to it! The poem itself, condemned by the heavyweight critics of the day, sings with beauty and profound insight on every page and when once you read it, you begin to realise the collossal influence of Ibsen on every writer of note that followed him. One of the greatest joys of starting with this play has been the reading and discovery of Peer Gynt (Atelier Community Theatre are using the Christopher Fry/Johan Fillinger translation).
First performance of this production was on Friday 28 January 2011 at Chequer Mead Community Arts Centre, East Grinstead.
Director Vasile Nedelcu
Music Director & Composer Gregers Brinch
Set & Costume Design Angie Brett, with Christine Baber and Sally Reeves
Lighting Design: Mike Watson. Cast includes: Annette Armstrong, David Brett, Gregers Brinch, Deborah Ellis, Heather Goodwin, Ionela Hanganu, Duncan Mackintosh, Martin Slater, Flora Smith, Gez Smith, Corin Stuart, Emily Smith, Alison Sandford MacKenzie. Belly Dancers: Lynne Paris, Emily Smith, Flora Smith. Production Manager: Diego Barraza. Stage Manager: Louise Yallop. Make-Up: Ursula Stone.
Musicians: Anna Cooper, Andrea Cater, Sue Harvey, Jakob Schortz.
