Performing Ibsen today
The Story of Peer Gynt
Following a performance of The Story of Peer Gynt at the Coronet, Norwegian actor and director Kåre Conradi joined us for a post-show conversation about Ibsen, storytelling, and his long relationship with one of theatre’s most enigmatic characters. Below you can watch the full Q&A, followed by an article written by Conradi exploring the ideas behind the performance and his personal connection to Ibsen’s writing.
I remember a small auditorium in Dingwall. Perhaps one of the most magical spaces I have ever performed in. It was also one of the first. This was before drama school began and before my adult journey as an actor truly started.
It was the Aberdeen International Youth Festival in the summer of 1991, and we were on a mini tour with a Norwegian youth theatre. I played Peer Gynt alongside a cast of dear friends.
At the end of the play, Peer tells the sun that it has wasted its rays on an empty house where the owner was never at home. Then he says he wants to climb once more to the highest peak and watch the sun rise again. I was 19, and I felt those words sparkle – in my heart and in that auditorium. To have the privilege of speaking a text that truly understands what life is about felt like a superpower back then. It still does.
My one-man production began with that youth theatre.
It has evolved throughout my life.
Whenever I return to Peer Gynt – whether in full-scale productions as Peer, as the Mountain King, as the Passenger, or simply as myself inside a lighthouse by the coast, in a classroom, or in an auditorium in Mumbai – each performance adds another layer of life to this monologue. A layer is added when life makes you tingle with joy, and another, as we say in Norway, when you feel as though you’ve been struck in the face with a wet dishcloth… or something far worse.
You cannot escape the truths in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt as life moves on, because Ibsen understands, perhaps better than anyone, what life is, or what it might have been.
The journey toward a full English version of this monologue also began with the youth theatre, but it deepened when I founded The Norwegian Ibsen Company. Robert Williamson of the British Shakespeare Company invited me to the Edinburgh Fringe, suggesting that I should “get the word out that a long-awaited company has emerged.” On the first night, I performed for one audience member, a young actor from London, if I remember correctly. Then the audiences grew.
I remain deeply grateful to Robert for his support, and to our producer André and all the remarkable artists and team members who continue, every day, to expand the joy and reach of The Norwegian Ibsen Company.
To illuminate and speak the truth about humanity in our time is not only vital, it is urgent.
And it still feels, and always will feel, like a superpower.
Kåre Conradi