DIALOGUES
"A LIAR, SEDUCER, & BOMBASTIC SELF-DECEIVER"
BRIAN KULICK
Above: Henrik Klausen (Peer Gynt) and Sofie Parelius (Aase) at the Christiania Theater, 1876. Photo courtesy of Oslo Museum, TM.T04709. Right: Joe Curnutte (Peter) and Deborah Hedwall (Mother). Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
This essay was commissioned by Classic Stage Company for its 2016 production of Peer Gynt, adapted and directed by John Doyle. It is republished here with the permission of the author.
B
efore there was the Ibsen of A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler, there was the Ibsen of Brand and Peer Gynt. It is his late realist cycle of plays, beginning with A Doll's House and ending with When We Dead Awaken, that nowadays eclipses this early and often theatrically bolder work. It is easy to forget how truly rich and varied this extraordinary Norwegian Dramatist's canon actually is, a theatrical universe that includes comedies, verse tragedies, Roman Emperors, Trolls and even a smattering of ancient Vikings. Ibsen's formative years (1850 to 1864) were spent first at the Det Norse Theater (Bergen) and later at the Christiania Theatre where he became its Creative Director. During this intense period he was involved in the mounting of hundreds of plays. This work was primarily as a director and producer, but interspersed between the standards of the 19th 14
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Century repertory, Ibsen tried his own hand at playwriting. The fruits of these early efforts were met with little interest from the viewing public and Ibsen ultimately found himself disenchanted with Norway and its theatre scene. In 1864, he took his wife and newborn child to Italy where he would spend the next 27 years in a self-imposed exile. It is in exile that Ibsen would pen his greatest works, beginning with two epic verse plays: Brand (1865) and Peer Gynt (1867). Brand was Ibsen's first great critical and financial success. This five-act verse tragedy focuses on a maverick preacher, aptly named Brand (Norwegian for "Fire"). He is disgusted with the compromised manner in which modern Christians live their lives. His is an "all or nothing" philosophy that can be found in the Old Testament and which demands an unbending life in service to G-d's edicts rather than the more comfortable compromises of the 19th Century Bourgeois society. This ultimately leads Brand and his followers to leave the church they have built and head deep into the mountains to create a "Church without
