The Immediate Family
presents

PEER GYNT

Written by HENRIK IBSEN
Adapted by SCOTT RAKER
from the translation by WILLIAM & CHARLES ARCHER

Directed by HAAS REGEN

Featuring
BRITANNIE BOND, JESSICA CRANDALL, REBECCA HIROTA, DAVID JACOBS,
LIZZIE KING-HALL, KHRIS LEWIN, SCOTT RAKER, JUDE SANDY, & RUDI UTTER

Music Arranged & Performed by MACKENZIE SHIVERS
Accompanied by MICHAEL PROPSTER

Stage Manager: ERIN PERSON
Light Design: JOHN ECKERT
Choreography: REBECCA HIROTA
Movement/Fight Choreography: KHRIS LEWIN

Alchemical Theatre Laboratory
104 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
December 7 through December 20, 2014

A classic is always a classic, even when distilled from the original four hours down to 90 minutes. In both versions PEER GYNT tells the same tales and his life bears the same theme: identity.

Peer loved the fairy tales told to him in childhood, and takes them on as truth. He recounts the incredible stories as if they had happened to him, becoming a sad disappointment to his widowed mother and the butt of jokes throughout the village. He is a Peter Pan, a man-child of no use to anyone. Peer is attractive, energetic, kind, and absolutely useless.

We are with him in an all-white room with white chairs and few props. The cast wears predominantly white, the better to transport us to Norway. The actors take turns being Peer by donning a red velvet vest. He falls in love, meets trolls, insists he can fly and can conjure up the devil. He lives alone in the woods so he will have no human interference in his fantasies. It is only in old age, when he returns to his dying mother, that the light bulb goes on. There is no Peer Gynt. He is no one, nothing, until he embraces reality and joins in worldly life, connecting with people, not dreams.

The ensemble cast does a wonderful job of portraying multiple characters. MACKENZIE SHIVERS has created and performs an outstanding score based on the original music by Edvard Grieg. Her piano blends flawlessly with the action. Although the writer has taken liberties with the original, the feel is still there. Stand still, take a breath, and face truth of your own being. Only then do you actually exist.

- Karen D'Onofrio -