Peer Gynt Preview: Mountain King Mania

With a few days to go before the curtain rises to present the adventures of the eponymous philander, Peer Gynt, I sat down with co-director Dylan Evans and musical director Will Want to get an insight into their “surreal, jazzy and fun” production of Ibsen’s unexpected classic.

The appeal of Peer Gynt, though “complicated”, derives from “questioning how much of the story is real and how much is not”. Dylan invites us to “expect elements of fantasy, surrealism and meta-theatre” bound together by “fantastic music and un-naturalistic movement”.

At the core of Peer Gynt is an exploration of the “meaning and purpose of our lives”, yet Dylan stresses that the production is “more than that”. With a play that sees “people galivanting with trolls on a mountainside” typical notions of understanding become secondary, rather, Dylan stresses that we must “embrace the bewilderment”.

Image credit: Emily Shen

With productions of Ibsen’s work commonplace in theatre what makes this performance unique is its music. Rather than cutting the music from the production, as is often done due to an extensive run time, this performance places the music at the center, but not in the traditional manner, rather as a jazz rendition (a first in Peer Gynt’s history).

When questioned why he chose a jazz interpretation of Peer Gynt, music director Will emphasized the authenticity of jazz and how aptly this pairs with the struggle for authenticity within the production. “One of the key philosophies of the play is ‘be thyself, nok’” which encapsulates the jazz musician’s struggle “for acceptance through insane harmonizations, face-melting solos, and knowledge of tunes — however, the sense of community that forms around jazz music is unlike most other forms of music in that everyone is encouraged to have a go”. The jazz rendition of Greig’s score is accompanied by some “fantastic original tunes by cast members Temitope Idowu and Charmaine Au-Yeung” hopes to create “a whole new sound for the show”.

Image credit: Emily Shen

The show, performing at the Corpus Playrooms hopes to bring a “more intimate experience to the expansive play” by incorporating only three actors rather than the original 45. Dylan hopes that this will “give different meanings to certain scenes” and enable a greater exploration “of the theatricality of the work”.

Far from Nora’s confined ‘Doll’s House’, Peer Gynt sees its titular character traveling the world in search of freedom and fortune.  Yet in this production, the “scenery takes a step back”, and physicality becomes central to evoke the feeling of travel and exploration rather than giving the audience a prescriptive route.

When asked about his favourite moment Will opted for the ‘Peer Gynt and the Herdgirls’ scene which is a “sprechstimme style trio with all the cast members, with some truly wacky facial expressions and physicality.” Yet he also thoroughly enjoyed “the virtuosic solo performance of the first scene of Act Two, with the scene leaving me in stitches every time I see it!” It would seem that this production, brimming with energy, has too many great moments to choose from.

Challenging, exciting and jazzy, if this production meets its ambitious goals it promises to be an exhilarating experience of realistic fantasy. Peer Gynt is performing from Tuesday 8^th March to Saturday 12^th March at 7:00 pm. Tickets can be purchased here.

Feature image credit: Emily Shen 

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