Chicago Reader - Not Recommended
"...Director Jeremy Wechsler splits the title role between two actors, neither of whom has figured out what might drive a boastful, sensitive, erratic Norwegian farm boy to kidnap and rape a rival's bride, ingratiate himself with the repugnant Troll King, sell slaves, or even peel an onion. The pair bounce unscathed through epic events that should stick to Peer's soul."
Windy City Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...Bryson Engelen and Richard Engling—playing, respectively, the young and old Gynt—deliver marathon performances, augmented by a 16-member chorus doubling and tripling in a roster of auxiliary roles considerably diminished from the original numbers needed to realize the Wagnerian spectacle mandatory to 19th-century drama. Despite the obvious care expended upon this ambitious project, however, a distinctly academic aura cannot help but pervade material of greater value for its historical and social reflections than for its entertainment potential."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"... Robert Bly’s translation (written for a 2008 production at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis) is attuned to contemporary resonances and maintains a galloping momentum, except in scenes written in rhyming couplets that have a numbing, singsong quality. Bly has cut much of the five-act original to fit it into a reasonable playing time, and the results can feel choppy and too tame, as if the translator felt obliged to rein in Ibsen’s far-out flights of fancy. Accordingly, Wechsler’s production is at its best in the play’s grounded, relatively realistic comic scenes, such as those set at a country wedding or those between Peer and his mother. Whenever we enter the realm of the mythological or surreal, on the other hand, the show suffers from a distinct lack of magic."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"... So I think Wechsler delivers a near-misshere. I think he had a good idea but had trouble plumbing its depths and really capitalizing on it. That said, there is no lack ofgreat moments: the traveling motif that begins the post-intermission is fantastically clever; the puppetry ofthetroll child born out of wedlock is unnerving, and the human puppetthetrolls make dance desperately upsetting – and excellently done. There are touchingmomentsbetween both Peer and his mother and Peer and Solveig, both as a young couple and a pair whose time is coming to a close. Some of the verse is heavy-handed, each couplet seemingly delivered individually without much flow; but I’m not sure how much of that is the director’s fault and how much thescript’s. Still,it’san oddity of a piece, and for Ibsen-enthusiasts, Polarity’s Peer Gynt is certainly worth seeing."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Somewhat Recommended
"... At nearly three hours (the original was eight hours!) this cautionary folk epic sprawls much more cinematically and exuberantly than Ibsen’s later, darker works. Treating it like an exuberant but ethical cartoon, director Jeremy Wechsler gives it a folk-American setting with rafters arching over the action. This down home indulgence all but sanctions the broad storytelling that sacrifices poetry for energy and betrays more American bumptiousness than Norwegian angst."
Chicago Theater Beat - Somewhat Recommended
"... The themes of Polarity’s production of Peer Gynt will resonate with a modern audience, thanks in part to the efforts of Occupy Wall Street. The play highlights the fact that the rich sacrifice their humanity to pursue wealth for the sake of wealth, a problem that was prevalent even in Ibsen’s day. But the cut-and-paste feel of the story combined with the lack of clear direction muddles the message. Instead, we are left hoping another theatre company will come along and occupy the DCA Storefront Theater with something more cohesive."
