Peter Gynt begins with a fantastical scene of the Scottish countryside in which a door and a stairway emerge from the sky, allowing the title character, played by James McArdle, to descend from the heavens. Unfortunately, the play goes downhill from there.
The show is an adaptation by David Hare from Henrik Ibsen’s work, Peer Gynt, originally a Norwegian piece from 1867, directed by Jonathan Kent, and it take a number of liberties in adjusting the plot in an attempt to modernize and appeal to an audience in 2019. The play follows the title character as he goes on a series of Odyssey-like adventures over the course of his long life and explores the value of individualism in a way that paints him as selfish yet often comedic. Though it starts out in state of magical realism that whisks the viewer away to a world that features pig-like trolls and talking prophets that rise from the dirt, as it progresses through acts two and three the choice of modernization takes the play through a series of changes that cheapen the work and fail to be as radical of a choice as was intended.
In terms of production value, this staging does a wonderful job of handling space economy, though the stage at the National Theatre of Great Britain is quite large to begin with, and cleverly manages to twist a long list of location changes into a set that primarily only changes (in terms of large features) through the use of curtains, projections, and a single roll-in wall. This is because the set, which is in the split-stage style with a raked, terf-covered hillside on the stage-right and a standard black flooring on the stage-left side, features a number of additional entrances and exits. The walls feature several hidden doorways that appear and disappear as the need serves throughout the play, and the raked flooring allows room underneath for characters to emerge from below. In this way, the set makes a number of magical-seeming changes fluidly throughout the show by merely introducing new projections or curtains and the occasional odd trailer or table, which manages to change it radically while still remaining in the world. The key players in making this happen are Richard Hudson (Set and Costume Designer) and Chris Fisher (Illusions).
In terms of the choices that come from both the direction and the writing of the adaptation itself, the play feels as though it is pretending to radically push the envelope while not really doing it. McArdle’s antihero goes through a series of moves that make him a powerful and wealthy figure in the United States, yet the choices made for him to engage in, meant to be highly controversial, seem cheapened by the fact that the current state of America has much bigger issues that are not played with or addressed at all. Throughout the play, a number of buzzwords are employed, such as bitcoin, google, and gender-fluidity, which serve in one-liner jokes meant for a quick laugh but do not feel as if they serve a real purpose or further the plot.
Simply, it feels safe, as if it is playing on the idea of being radical but doesn’t quite get there, perhaps appealing to a certain audience that doesn’t really want to think about the tragedies of the world. It feels like a spectacle, though visually stunning and cleverly designed, for spectacles sake.