PEER GYNT

In the organizer's words:

PEER GYNT
A dramatic poem by Henrik Ibsen

translated from the Norwegian by Angelika Gundlach

"Peer, you lie": already with the first sentence Henrik Ibsen names the central theme of his dramatic poem - the blurred border between being and appearance. For Peer, whose youth is marked by the poverty of the peasant milieu, reinvents himself again and again with the help of narration, lies and the art of fabrication - as a cosmopolitan, colonial ruler and even emperor.

He leaves home behind, roams through a nature that is anything but idyllic, lands in the realm of the trolls, whose legendary magic seems to Peer to be just another form of rural small-mindedness, and embarks on journeys far and wide: for decades and always restlessly, he searches in adventure on the open sea, in the desert, in the world for his "Gyntian self," which resembles "an army of desires, lust, longing and desire, an ocean of fantasy. In his attempt to "be himself," Peer keeps changing identities - from intoxicated gold-digger to unscrupulous human trafficker and finally to cynical prophet. In the process, he never succeeds in finding his "real" self.

"Peer Gynt", that "Faust of the North", is a satirical, wild, self-indulgent, enigmatic, boundary-breaking masterpiece. In it, Ibsen tells the odyssey of an ego-addict whose hubris persists into old age and even in the face of death, despite all his transformations. The play is directed by Sebastian Baumgarten, one of the most distinguished directors of his generation, whose visually powerful production of "Dantons Tod" can still be seen in the repertory.

"Egoism, narcissism and lies are revealed in as the source force of a capitalist social system. Why he meets no resistance on his colonialist forays through the world and experiences no corrective whatsoever is what we will examine." Sebastian Baumgarten

Artistic Director

Production Sebastian Baumgarten
Stage Lena Newton
Costumes Eleonore Carrière
Composition Marc Sinan
Collaboration Music Ilija Đorđević, Karsten Lipp
Lighting Gerrit Jurda
Video Philipp Haupt
Dramaturgy Constanze Kargl

Price information:

from 8 € for students