Greystone’s last play of the season is Peer Gynt, a fantasy epic by playwright Henrik Ibsen, best known for introducing the style of naturalism to theatre and for such works such as Hedda Gabler and A Doll’s House.
The story follows a Norwegian farm boy who dreams big and shirks responsibility. He remains selfish until life intervenes and sends Peer Gynt on a series of adventures around the world that help him discover who he is and what life is all about.
While written in 1867, this production of Peer Gynt is presented in a more contemporary format that employs 20 actors portraying about 50 different characters in different settings and times. The play starts in the 1980s and moves forward, covering the events of the next 50 years.
Director and drama instructor Jim Guedo last directed Greystone’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children.
“At its core (Peer Gynt) is about identity,” Guedo said. “People can change over time but what is their true soul? What is the soul of a human being? Can you change the quality of the soul or is it something that will always stay the same?”
Guedo is doing Peer Gynt as part of a class project and wanted something that would enlist a large cast. Guido was drawn to Peer Gynt due to it be being more fantastical and epic than Ibsen’s later work.
“I wanted something that was not quintessential Ibsen. It was originally written as a poem, so it was not originally meant to be produced on stage. He wrote it as a lark, something to occupy his time.”
Guedo is excited about directing Peer Gynt because of its epic scope and large cast. It is a play that is rarely produced in Canada.
“It’s my chance to do the shows I’ll never get to work on with students. And it exposes them to a playwright that they may never get a chance to work on.”
The play has a cinematic breadth, with the resulting prospect of doing many different scenes, characters and settings. The play is fast paced and moves all around the world unlike some plays that stay in the same setting. Guedo also mentioned how the play is atypical concerning how it deals with dream states, identity and the unconscious mind causing a scandal when it was first released because it defies realism.
“People will be very active in the play. We want it to be an engaging experience; the locales change in a second and hopefully the audience goes for the ride.”