Theatre in Review: Peer Gynt and the Norwegian Hapa Band (Ma-Yi Theater Company/ART New York Theatre)

	Angel Desai, Matt Park. Photo: Hunter Canning.

For years, New York City operated as a Peer Gynt-free zone; now we've gotten Ibsen's epic work twice in one season. This may be happening, I suspect, because, at one point in this notoriously rambling work, the title character, an empty-headed, heartless, narcissistic young man, becomes a multimillionaire, recounting his career history in a scene than can be easily staged as a motivational speech that exposes his immorality, self-loathing, and craving of the spotlight. In other words, it's easy to make him look like Donald Trump. If so, this is another egregious example of things gone wrong under the new administration.

For there are several good reasons why Peer Gynt is so rarely produced: It is stupefyingly long, teeming with dozens of characters, loaded with seemingly unstageable supernatural events, and burdened with symbolism that fails to resonate outside of mid-19th-century Scandinavia. In addition to the easy shots at Trumpism, contemporary directors clearly see Peer Gynt as the ultimate slacker, a callow youth whose self-involvement can be unpacked and dissected at length. (Peer roams the world, seducing women, making fortunes, committing crimes, and meeting with an array of weird and exotic characters -- swallowing the world whole, so to speak, without acquiring a speck of self-knowledge. When the end comes, even the devil laughs at Peer's assertion that he is a great sinner.) There is some truth to this, but then you still have to deal with, among other things, the kingdom of the trolls; the weird, shapeless, invisible creature known as the Bøyg; and the Button Moulder, who doesn't so much kill people as melt them down into raw material. Would you make a musical out of this material? I thought not.

In defense of this production, conceived by the director, Jack Tamburri, the running time has been cut to a trim two and a half hours and many sequences have been given a much-needed jolt of energy from the music, by Paul Lieber and Matt Park. The term "hapa band," in case you were wondering, is an allusion to a popular Hawaiian duo; the term suggests that the musicians are half-Asian and half-Caucasian. This helps, sort of, to explain why Ma-Yi Theater Company, a troupe of Asian-American artists, is putting on a Norwegian drama with a mixed cast of Asian and Caucasian actors. The set, by Meredith Reis, is little more than an enormous, wide bandstand, backed by a rain curtain and featuring a playing area that has been covered with what look like primitive cave drawings of reindeer and hunters; two Scandinavian cupboards at stage left are the only real link with Peer's Norwegian origins. This is Peer Gynt refracted through a contemporary musical sensibility.

The score combines grunge, country-western, indie rock, and techno with some breezy, cutting lyrics by Michi Barall. Peer sings, "I'm gonna be the king of all men/I'm gonna live [in a] 166 million dollar reconstructed Japanese imperial palace in San Mateo/and not pay property tax." He also has a nicely moody lament that begins with the words "The moon and I do whatever we want," detailing a lifetime of accrued resentments. Solvay, Peer's more or less true love, gets an attractive ballad that illuminates her rather mystical nature. Peer's big motivational speech -- among other things, he has made his money in human trafficking -- blends music and the spoken word to just the right acrid effect.

The production also benefits from a typically strong Ma-Yi cast. In addition to his composing duties, Park takes on the exhausting role of Peer, effectively transforming him from a navel-gazing loser into a monster of capitalism, and, later, a man facing the end of his life in fear and trembling; if nothing else, this production should do very good things for his career. Also making strong impressions are Angel Desai as several of the women in Peer's life, few of whom have anything good to say about him; she is especially memorable as Anitra, a singer who woos and abandons Peer, running off with his motorcycle. Rocky Vega is a sweet presence as Solvay, arguably the one good person in the ugly, tangled web of Peer's life. The great Mia Katigbak is in fine fettle as Peer's querulous mother and in several other roles, including a German philosopher, holding forth on the meaning of it all, in an otherwise totally dispensable madhouse sequence.

And that is the problem: Having chopped away several hours' worth of material, Barall and her collaborators still haven't been able to extract a workable drama from the seemingly endless tangle of scenes and characters conceived by Ibsen, nor have they been able to make something compelling out of Peer's adventures and his ever-evolving personality. Barall's handling of the script never acquires any assurance of tone; sometimes she seems to be trying to translate Ibsen for 21st-century audiences; at other times, she appears to be sending up the original. In any case, at the performance I attended, the laughs were few and far between. But neither did the story of Peer's progress prove gripping or meaningful. Even in its abridged form, the narrative still suffers from sluggishness and a lack of dramatic interest. Why, exactly, is Peer, a shape-shifting mediocrity, supposed to capture one's imagination? This production provides no answer.

The production helps to establish the hapa band atmosphere, especially Oliver Wason's lighting, which puts a number of concert-lighting techniques to good use in a theatrical context. Chad Raines' sound design is much too loud, which, I'm afraid, the music probably demands. Still, the lyrics are always intelligible. The dialogue scenes are also reinforced, with the lines seemingly coming not from the actors but from the loudspeakers hanging from the ceiling. This is probably not a solvable problem in the ART space -- which, I hasten to add, is a marvelous new venue for all sorts of innovative theatre -- but is regrettable, nonetheless. The costumes, by Asta Hostetter, are full of amusing touches -- for example, the Teletubbies-themed undershorts worn by the young Peer.

Still, for all the talent expended, this is a long, long evening; at the end, I felt as if I had circled the globe with Peer and found myself as dissatisfied as he at the end of his life. I think it's time to let Peer wander off with the Button Moulder for a nice long rest. -- David Barbour