Peer Gynt

Lisztstr.1

1030 Wien

 

Peer Gynt is a theater character who has long since become a myth - an egocentric dreamer, fantasist, liar, an anti-hero and a figure of identification in a world gone mad that has lost all measure. As a young man, Peer Gynt leaves his Norwegian homeland and goes on a journey across continents and through his own self, floating between dreams and reality and always searching for his identity and his role in life. He wanders through mountains and deserts, crosses seas and rivers, and meets mythical creatures from other worlds. He becomes rich in America, experiences himself as a spiritual person in Africa and finally has himself crowned emperor in a psychiatric hospital in Egypt. At the end of his life, having returned to his homeland, Peer Gynt has to realize that he has lived past real life, has become an average person like everyone else and only a long-forgotten love can save him from insignificance.

As an epic of an “I-realizer,” Henrik Ibsen wrote a key text about modern man in 1867 with the “dramatic poem” PEER GYNT. The restlessness and urgency with which Peer Gynt approaches and tries out life plans, accepts identities and leaves them behind, exploits creative potential and incurs guilt through greed and megalomania, confronts us with our fragile existence and enables us to come to terms with our own dreams and longings, fears and hopes.

With a small ensemble and Mavie Hörbiger in the title role, the Icelandic director Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson explores the central question of the text: Who am I? Am I a beggar or an emperor? Am I the beginning or the end?

    Director:
    Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson
    Stage design:
    Daniel Angermayr
    Costumes:
    Daniel Angermayr
    Music:
    Gabriel Cazes
    Light:
    Paul Eiseman
    Dramaturgy:
    Anika Steinhoff

    (Source: burgtheater.at)