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PEER GYNT

PEER GYNT Then I saw it?

AASE What?

PEER GYNT A glimpse of antler.

AASE O?

PEER GYNT Like fucking trees, Mum, they were that big.
I dropped and crept upon my belly
Across the ice to a rock, protection,
While I got the bastard’s measure.
Mum, you never saw such a great big fucking buck!

AASE You’d be surprised.

PEER GYNT Crack!

AASE What was that?

PEER GYNT I fired.

AASE No!

PEER GYNT He crashed down to the forest floor,
And I jumped up
And hurled myself up on his back,
And grabbed his left ear in my hand and
Was set to stick my knife where his spine meets his skull,
When the bastard bellowed like a wounded monster from the deep,
And pulled itself up to its feet so suddenly
My knife fell from my hand and my legs,
Which I’d hooked round his antlers to steady me,
Stuck fast.
And then off the bastard flew along the Gjendin Ridge,
With me wrapped like a fucking scarf around his head.

PRODUCTION HISTORY

First Produced at Dundee Rep by the Dundee Rep Ensemble and the NAtional Theatre of Scotland on September 27th 2007. Directed by Dominic Hill

PRESS

Peer Gynt

Dundee Rep

Mark Fisher
Saturday September 29, 2007
The Guardian

Restless invention ... Keith Fleming and Ann Louise Ross.

"The buffet starts in three minutes, so will you please turn off your fucking mobile phones," yells a wedding guest in the foyer, after tumbling out of a stretch limo in front of the theatre and joining in a punky round of Cry Me a River at the bar. She sets the tone for a rude and raucous retelling of Ibsen's existentialist quest that twins the vulgarity of director Dominic Hill's Ubu the King in 2005 with a boisterous theatrical imagination. The result is thrilling. We're in a Norway represented by a chocolate-box landscape on an advertising hoarding, where a climb in the mountains takes place on a great metal staircase across the back wall, and Peer Gynt's country hideaway is a battered old caravan. In Colin Teevan's brilliant new translation, Ibsen's folk story becomes a scabrous "old whore of a tale" in which the young Gynt's fantasies take on a raw, earthy vitality. "You've never seen such a big, fucking buck," he lies to his mother, while his enemies take to calling him "Peer Cunt". It's not subtle, but it is funny.

At the centre of this scatological maelstrom is Keith Fleming's stunning performance as Gynt. Unkempt, rough-shaven and shameless, he is a beer-sodden, drooling reprobate driven by a reckless self-belief and a ferocious energy. Scarcely off the stage before Gerry Mulgrew takes over as his mellower, mature self, he never misses a beat, pushing the production forwards with faultless support from the large cast.

Hill's production is restlessly inventive, powered by Paddy Cunneen's dirty rock'n'roll score and bubbling over with sight gags and sound effects without losing sight of the earnestness and eventual poignancy of Gynt's failed journey to self-knowledge. A co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland, this is Hill's last for the ensemble before he moves to Edinburgh's Traverse. What a way to go.

· Until October 13. Box office: 01382 223530.

The Daily Telegraph

Mark Brown reviews Peer Gynt in Dundee and and Rupture in Edinburgh

The showbiz adage "leave them wanting more" would seem to apply to directors as well as actors. Dominic Hill's production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt is his parting shot at Dundee Rep before he takes the reins at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. It is nothing short of a triumph.

In this co-production between the Rep and the National Theatre of Scotland, Ibsen's sprawling tale of hubris and testosterone — in which the titular anti-hero develops from drunken fornicator (Keith Fleming) to international criminal (Gerry Mulgrew) — is adapted liberally by Colin Teevan. The play is updated (Peer becomes a people trafficker and a war profiteer) and has been given the raucousness of Alfred Jarry (the creator of the scatological King Ubu).

Fleming and Mulgrew are brilliantly cast – the former making for a perfect, high-energy reprobate, while the latter is darkly comic as the arrogant big-shot on the edge of an existential crisis.

Naomi Wilkinson's set, (which strips the Rep stage back, making visually dramatic use of a huge set of stairs) and Paddy Cunneen's musical score (an extraordinary combination of elements, from a hilarious country and western number to JS Bach and the Pet Shop Boys) contribute beautifully to the general sense of controlled mayhem.

Whether it is in the bacchanalian excess of the wedding party or the fetid dystopia of the trolls' underground kingdom, Hill extracts superbly vivid, unrestrained performances from his 20-strong cast. He takes his leave of the Tayside theatre with a characteristically gutsy and imaginative production.

The List

Peer Gynt

Dundee Rep, until Sat 13 Oct

For as long as people question their identity, pondering who they are and what role they play in the world, Peer Gynt will occupy a prominent place in the culture. It would, indeed become still more notable were all productions of Ibsen’s classic of this quality. There is a sense that outgoing Dundee Rep artistic director Dominic Hill wanted to sign off with something special, and he does so triumphantly with Colin Teevan’s expletive-enriched version of this mighty existential picaresque narrative.

In it, the young Peer (Keith Fleming), here a fantasist of unusual articulacy, creates havoc throughout his village with his brawling and wenching, not least for his adoring mother (Ann Louise Ross) and his beloved Solveig (Helen Mackay). The inevitable departure of the outcast finds him veering from the vulgar nouveau riche Troll kingdom to a caravan in the forest before casting still further afield. An older, but by no means wiser Peer (Gerry Mulgrew), proceeds through adventures in arms sales, messianic religions and institutionalised madness, before the final, belated realisation that only love – in his case a neglected aspect of life – can centre identity.

Hill’s production features much colour and fury, with Teevan’s version pushing into pop cultural reference and wild extravagances of language to powerful effect; the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Go West’ is used to splendid comic effect. All the while the inevitability of Peer’s demise is tagged at each stage of life. The performances are splendid, with Mulgrew’s potty-mouthed egoist particularly compelling (his ‘away oaf tae fuck’ to the figure of death is a masterclass in comic hubris), though only just shading Fleming’s out of control younger Peer. There are also some strong turns in support, with Gail Watson’s slapperish Troll Princess and Irene MacDougall’s cool, apparatchik journalist particular treats. All the grim knockabout of this journey leads to a deeply emotional finale which might well make for the best night of theatre you’ll see this side of Christmas.

The Stage

Director Dominic Hill is leaving the city of discovery for pastures new and it was inevitable he would leave his mark.

Already famed and revered for his innovative slant on the classics, this Peer Gynt - although never as Mr Ibsen intended - is nevertheless breathtaking. This new version by Colin Teevan is an experience.

It all begins in the bar, where patrons arrive to find Ingrid’s pre-wedding reception in full swing. Then it’s through to the auditorium for the buffet where Peer’s flights of fantasy soar to new heights.

Profanities come by the bucketload (and that could be deemed as rhyming slang), a quad bike is the troll’s wedding carriage, an old caravan is Peer’s cottage in the hills, he goes gun-running in Africa, Ibsen’s shipwreck becomes an airline crash with the stranger appearing as an air hostess, the original country and western wedding band provide musical accompaniments - it was certainly different.

Keith Fleming is quite outstanding as Peer - showing great effort and agility as he displays passion and lunacy in equal measures. Gerry Mulgrew plays the older Peer with a little more bemusement in his descent into despair.

Robert Paterson deserves mention as the unsavoury leader of the trolls, even the audience cowering as the action spills into the auditorium.

And young Helen Mackay will not forget her pro debut in a hurry, being brought in to play Solveig at the 11th hour. Perhaps, her shyness and vulnerability was for real.

Designer Naomi Wilkinson has stripped the stage bare apart from a lengthy staircase bisecting the back wall with members of the 20-strong cast sitting at the side as and when required to supply various sound effects.

Even at three hours (including 20-minute break), it didn’t seem a second too long.