REVIEW: PEER GYNT

SALISBURY PLAYHOUSE

Henrik Ibsen’s thought-provoking play, first produced in Norway in 1876, is brilliantly updated and re-energised by Salisbury Playhouse’s hugely talented Stage 65 Youth Theatre.

From Ibsen’s original traditional and unusual poetic form, the translated language has been sharpened into edgy modern English vocabulary and phrasing, while retaining the master playwright’s moral message.

We still enjoy Ibsen’s folkloric fantasy and its unsentimental realism, while appreciating the surreal and biting relevance of today’s storytelling.

There’s dazzling creativity in this production, directed by Dave Orme, from the imaginative costumes, through the dramatic sets and lighting, to the compellingly effective use of the onstage live band.

Featuring violin, guitar, bass and percussion, plus some haunting vocals, the band reinforces the ethereal qualities of Ibsen’s original script while adding a prickly modern relevance.

Peer Gynt is a disturbed and volatile character, convincingly played by three different talented actors – by Charlie Thomas as a thrusting young man, by Ben Bartlet as a middle-aged celebrity businessman, and by Sam Haddock as a bewildered and defeated old man approaching his death.

Among a vivacious energetic young cast of 44 multi-talented performers, Jacob Ruddle displays huge stage presence as the scary King of Trolls.

Perhaps the most telling scene opens Act Two as celebrity businessman Gynt and his sycophantic Hooray Henrys and Henriettas, in their slick modern clothes (but no digital devices?),“Yah! Yah!” their shallow way through trivia.

Salisbury Playhouse’s Stage 65 Youth Theatre again excels!

Brendan McCusker