“General” Front & Back - the Royal Exchange Theatre

David Threlfall in lbsen’s
Produced by Exchange Education
Written and researched by Kim Greengrass
© Kim Greengrass 1999
REGISTERED CHARITY NO: 255424
translated by Michael Meyer
RSC photographs by Malcolm Davies, reproduced by kind permission of the
Shakespeare Centre Library. Rehearsal and Wardrobe photos by Joel Fildes.
Peer Gynt image designed by 999.
With thanks to: Steve Brown, Mark Bruce, Josette Bushell-Mingo, Simon Higlett,
Michael Meyer, Sylvia Morris at the Shakespeare Centre Library, Braham Murray,
David Threlfall and the Peer Gynt stage management team.
Books consulted in the preparation of this pack include:
Errol Durbach, ed., Ibsen and the Theatre (London, 1980)
James McFarlane, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, (Cambridge, 1994)
Michael Meyer, Henrik Ibsen in 3 volumes (London, 1967-71)
Michael Meyer, Not Prince Hamlet (London, 1989)
Raymond Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht (London, 1968)

“I simply want to make the
play work like music does, so
powerfully and emotionally that
people know what it means
because it affects their hearts.”
Braham Murray, director (1999)
“Like the best of prophets, Ibsen lets
his audience make its imaginative
mind up for itself. At the core of the
kenning there is no absolute
meaning. Opaqueness is all. The
sagas cool their narratives by
deliberate refusal to elaborate.
Things happen. Declare them. Here
in the biggest sense of the
description is a lonely imagination,
tempered by pity, unflinching before
terror, peeling an onion without
crying.”
Frank McGuinness (1990)
Perspectives on
“What other play do you know
which is conceived on such a
vast scale, which tries to
confront every major mystery
of our lives: death, love, sex, reincarnation,
our animal side,
our spiritual side? It is the most
ambitious play ever written . . . I
can’t think of any play that
attempts quite so much.”
Braham Murray, director (1999)
“The world which
Peer Gynt inhabits is
one of daunting
fluidity, a fairy-tale
world of effortless
transformations
and of
disconcerting
transpositions…
Working and
dreaming
interpenetrate,
fact and fantasy
fuse, and all
distinctions are
blurred. The line
between
appearance and
actuality, between
fiction and fact,
disappears in one
great universe of
the imagination.
Fears are reborn
as only nightmares
can shape them;
desires are
achieved as only
dream can fulfil
them.”
James McFarlane
(1989)
“Peer Gynt is cast in the traditional
form of the quest. But the quest of
Peer is, in a real sense, itself a
fantasy; in the illusion of selfsufficiency
he is moving steadily
away from that which he wishes to
find; in seeking he is hiding; his
straight road is the ‘round about’ of
the Bøyg.”
Raymond Williams (1968)
Henrik Ibsen in a letter to Ludwig Passarge (1880)
“Why Peer Gynt? Why the great epic plays? Life is epic. I would say Peer Gynt
is a play for the soul; it is a play for your spirit; it is a play which allows you
to look at yourself. A good play allows you to reflect on yourself and the
world and maybe change it, maybe make it better. Peer Gynt does that.”
Josette Bushell-Mingo, actress (1999)
“I admit it, I love [Peer Gynt]. Liar, blaggard, louse, drunk, violent,
then shockingly, pitifully tender, mad as a tree, good, occasionally,
to his mother, cracked about women, afraid of men, sorely needing
his absent father, crazed with ambition, sick from failure, this
creature I wouldn’t let into my house, but I welcomed him
charging into my head for the pain, the terrible pain of Peer Gynt
must be endured as well.”
Frank McGuinness in an introduction to his own translation of Peer Gynt (1990)
“[Ibsen] meant Peer Gynt to be fast-moving, funny and above all fantastical,
and if people asked him why he included this or that scene he answered
‘Because I felt like it’.”
Kenneth McLeish (1990)
“The universality of Ibsen
makes his plays come home to
all nations; and Peer Gynt is as
good a Frenchman as he is a
Norwegian, just as Dr Stock -
mann [from An Enemy of the
People] is as intelligible in
Bermondsey or Bournemouth
as he is in his native town…
Peer is everybody’s hero. He
has the same effect on the
imagination that Hamlet, Faust
and Mozart’s Don Juan have”
George Bernard Shaw (1896)
Actor John Bennett in conversation with Director Braham Murray

The Royal
Exchange
actors have to
be extremely
adaptable in
this production
as sixteen
performers are
between them
playing over fifty
different roles.
The first
production of
Peer Gynt was
then the most
expensive
theatrical show
ever attempted
in Norway.
With over thirty
different locations
in the script, Peer Gynt
is something of a
design challenge!
The Royal Exchange
production
transports the
north African desert
scenes to California,
while the Moroccan
grove where
Peer mixes with
other successful
businessmen has
been changed into
a Thai massage
parlour.
In spite of Ibsen’s concerns that Peer
Gynt was too Norwegian to appeal to
an international audience, he has
been accepted world-wide, with one
Japanese critic declaring him
“typically Japanese”!
Director Braham Murray has
made many cuts to the text
for this production. If Ibsen’s
original were played in its
entirety then the whole
show would last over six
hours and (with a couple of
fifteen minute intervals) the
audience would be sitting in
the theatre until 2.00 am!
Ibsen Fact File
Peer has his
roots in a real
Norwegian,
Gudbrand
Glesne, whose
exploits
earned him
mythic status,
and he lived
on into the
nineteenth
century in
local folk
tales.
Peer Gynt is not really a
play! Never imagining
that the theatre could
cope with such a
complex piece, Ibsen
described it as a
“dramatic poem”,
intending it to be read
rather than staged.
Peer Gynt is not the only literary
work to have become a
theatrical classic. Other works
originally written with no
thoughts of performance
include Turgenev’s A Month in the
Country, Alfred de Musset’s
comedies and, critics believe,
Büchner’s Woyzeck.
Ibsen worked furiously on Peer Gynt,
even getting up in the middle of the
night to write down verses which
had occurred to him in bed! He
began to write in January 1867 and
the whole work was completed and
published in under a year.
Edvard Grieg’s famous music
was composed for the first
Norwegian production of Peer
Gynt. Grieg disliked Ibsen’s play
while Ibsen disliked Grieg’s
music, but together they had
what translator Michael Meyer
calls “a successful, if mutually
incomprehensible partnership”.
Exchange Education - Peer Gynt Resource Pack
Written by Kim Greengrass ©1999

Movement Director, Mark Bruce,
has been working with actors and
dancers to help to create the
strange, mythic characters which
populate the play.
What are you aiming to achieve with your
movement work?
“The world of Peer Gynt with its slightly surreal
feeling is something that Braham [Murray, the
director] and I are both interested in. For this
production the movement is stylised but it is not
dance. It involves physicalising the emotional state
of Peer and of the creatures such as trolls.”
How do you begin work on the play?
“The idea of the animal within the human has been
the starting point for my work. We’re looking at
primal instincts. What I want to do is to create
creatures which are not imitations of animals: the
trolls are invented animals, they are mutations and I
want them to be really hideous. They are worse
than animals because they have greed and lust and
all those human characteristics too.
“The birds are also partly human. In their
movement, they use their wings but they also use
gestures which are quite human, symbolising
different states of mind. They are watchers and, like
Solveig, they are symbols of Peer’s soul.”
Does working with a mix of actors and
trained dancers present any particular
problems?
“It hasn’t been difficult so far. My dancers can be
more specific with the movement work and take it
to another level. It is really interesting to bring
professional dancers together with really good
actors. Everyone has got to learn fast, including
myself!”
What is the biggest challenge?
“I am trying to link scenes through movement. For instance, there are suggestions
of the trolls in the wedding scene. The biggest challenge is getting the stylisation
right in particular scenes, so that it is not dance but it is not quite real.
“Certain scenes are quite hard: the scene where Peer meets the saeter girls is a
very difficult one. For me, Peer’s encounter with the saeter girls is his next step to
becoming a troll so I have to get that into the scene and also make it very obvious
what the scene is about. It is hard but we are getting there.”
How do you approach rehearsals?
“Generally I don’t prepare material before I go into the studio. I have a lot of ideas
but often I will just look at one person, see them do something and we’ll start
from there. I am clear about what I am trying to achieve but I want it to grow
beyond what I have in my head.”
Clockwise from top left: Braham Murray, John Ringham, David Threlfall, John Bennett.

The Director
For director Braham Murray the
key to Peer Gynt lies in uncovering
what he calls Peer’s ‘individuation
process’, the discovery of the real
self which lies deep inside him.
As Braham
explains: “From the age of seven
you begin to realise you are
someone separate and you have
to find out who you really are.
Initially you accept
everything your
parents bring you
up to believe. But
eventually you
begin to realise
that you are
someone quite
different: that you
have all kinds of
sides to yourself.
You have dark
sides, you have desires,
you have instincts. The
individuation process is trying
to understand as much of
yourself as you can, bringing it
into your consciousness, blessing
it and becoming as full a person
as you possibly can.
The world is made out of billions
of people going through that same
process.”
The Search for The Self
The Actor
David Threlfall (Peer Gynt)
believes that “the play deals in
trying to tune into yourself, to
what the real self is. It is easy to
make Peer this
swaggering braggart but then you
ask why is somebody like that?
What are they covering? Someone
may seem confident and successful
but what underlies that?”
David feels that the actor’s job is
to peel away the character’s layers
of armour, just as Peer Gynt
himself peels away the layers of an
onion. “He is a character who
finally realises that he has been an
egoist all his life - he just did not
acknowledge it. He has the
potential to be all sorts of things,
just as we all have, but we all bury
that potential in different ways. We
build up layers of armour as we
grow up. What we have to do as
actors is to undo that armour. My
job is to get that armour off.”
Ibsen
himself declared that he “derived
many features of Peer Gynt…
from self-dissection”. In order to
uncover Peer’s journey through
the play David has found that he
too must explore what lies within
himself.
He feels that “the character will
be a lot of my own imaginative
and creative juices - probably
more than anything I have done
here. I think there will be a lot of
me in it, in terms of the choices I
make in life. Having said that there
are a lot of choices in the play
which I would not make, but the
joy is to be able to imagine what it
would be like.”
The Actress
Josette Bushell-Mingo not only
plays Peer’s true love, Solveig, but
also three other
women whom Peer encounters
during the play - Ingrid the
captured bride, the mysterious
Greenclad One who produces
Peer’s baby, and Anitra the selfseeking
cult member.
The idea behind this doubling is to
demonstrate what director
Braham Murray believes is “a more
complex and interesting view of
women”. All four characters are
different facets of the same
women, it is just that Peer does
not understand this. At the end of
the play, Josette explains, “Peer
comes to recognise Solveig as a
person and he realises that he has
been running away from her. Peer
learns to accept all those women,
but all those women within
Solveig.”
Josette too
has found the
starting point
for all four
characters
within herself.
“I have
realised
though that
the four
characters
are within
me, more than any part. I start as
much as I can from myself. Solveig
has usually been played by white
actresses so, as a black actress, I
have to find my own images that I
can refer to and use as a
springboard.
“One of the things I am striving to
do is not make Solveig boring!
Solveig is not a wimp. When you
first meet her she is a bit naive,
but everything is there - it just
has not been tapped. She is funny,
she is strong, and she is special
but she does
not know it.”
Josette is
determined to
show that
Solveig “has not
sacrificed her
life for Peer.
She is on an
equal journey,
even though it
is an opposite
journey, it is to be the keeper of
his flame, but her flame is as
important. Her spiritual journey
and her self-awakening as a young
woman is important.”
Braham Murray and the cast in rehearsals three weeks before opening.

Ibsen was criticised by
contemporary feminists
for Solveig’s passivity.
The novelist Camilla
Collet, a pioneer of
women’s independence
in Norway, declared that
a more forceful female
would have shown Peer
the error of his ways
much earlier.
Do you agree?
How can we
account for the
play’s appeal
internationally?
A recent production of Peer Gynt by the
Royal Shakespeare Company cast the
same actress in the roles of Solveig and
of Peer’s mother, Åase. What effect do
you think this might have had?
Discussion Points
Why does
Solveig wait for
Peer to return?
Both Sigmund Freud and
James Joyce were great
admirers of Ibsen’s work.
Does Peer Gynt give us any
clues as to why they might
have held his plays in such
high regard?
Actor David Threlfall has
spoken about the ways in
which characters and scenes
mirror one another
throughout the play. Can you
think of any examples? How
does the production
emphasise these links?
Ibsen
declared
that, of all his
works, he
believed Peer
Gynt to be
“the least
likely to be
understood
outside
Scandinavia”.
Why might
he have
thought this?
Doubling of
some roles is
essential with
any production
of Peer Gynt. Do
you think that
the doubling in
this production
gives any new
perspectives on
the play?
Exchange Education - Peer Gynt Resource Pack.
Written by Kim Greengrass ©1999

Designer Simon
Higlett believes
that the Royal
Exchange Theatre
is the perfect
venue for Peer Gynt,
and that the key to
creating the play’s
different locations
lies in
understanding the
architecture of the
building.
“People are always
saying to me that
working in the round
must be far more
difficult for a designer,
but I think it is much
more liberating. I firmly
believe that theatre
design is about designing
theatre and not about
designing scenery. There
is a massive difference.
“The Royal Exchange
Theatre has been
beautifully designed to
tell stories and you
don’t need any scenery.
The most important
thing is the actor and
that is where I start. I
break down each scene
and ask myself what is
the message we have to
convey? It becomes a
sort of Stanislavski
exercise - asking what is
Peer Gynt’s purpose in
each scene. I do a
breakdown like that
even before I think of
visual images.
“I was trained by the
man who designed this
theatre and this space is
the embodiment of
everything he believed
about theatre. The floor
is made of oak planks
because they are the
“There can’t be any other space in the world that can do a play
which is so much to do with the world in which we live, the
mysterious, imaginary world and the world of the gods. No other
theatre can do that as well as this theatre.”
colour of the earth.
Usually designers cover
the floor but in this
show we simply have the
bare boards, in accord
with the philosophy of
the building.
“Trying to find one
object or group of
objects which conveys
the essence of a scene is
very difficult. For
instance, in the Egypt
scene there is no way
you can have a full-size
Sphinx! I had the idea of
a ladder leaning against
something so big that
you never see the top of
the ladder. At first
Braham [Murray,
director] was not sure,
but in rehearsal it works
perfectly. It is amazing
how little you need to
tell a story.
Braham Murray, Director
“I’m not producing
traditional costumes on
a page which is quite
difficult for the actors to
cope with. For me it is
fantastic because I have
their bodies and I can
drape fabric round them.
For example I had no
idea what the character
of the Greenclad One
looks like physically, but I
found a piece of fabric in
a shop in London. It is a
beautiful, animal piece of
fabric and I know it will
be stunning but there is
no rhyme or reason of
why it should work. I am
working on instincts.”
With costume designs taking shape organically, designer Simon Higlett must work
closely with the production wardrobe team.

Wednesday 13th January 1999
8.30 am Arrive bleary-eyed as
we’ve spent three days
fitting up and doing
technical rehearsals for
Martin Yesterday [a new
play by Brad Fraser]. We
are using a new
computerised matrix, delay,
panning system on this
show for the first time.
It sounds very complicated
but it allows us to move
sound all round the
theatre. We were here
until 11.45pm last night,
programming the system.
Ian, my deputy, disappears
into the auditorium to
work on re-plotting the
effects for the Martin
Yesterday roller coaster
scene. I e-mail the
suppliers of our system
asking for a software
update. We are the first
theatre in the UK to use
the system so they take
a keen interest in our
ideas. I download
yesterday’s rehearsal notes
for Peer Gynt.
9.00 am Coffee in the Green
Room.
9.15 am Feeling wide awake I
check that everything’s
okay in the auditorium,
then back to our studio
for some Peer Gynt
recording.
10.15 am Interrupted by a phone call
about Animal Crackers
which opens in the West
End in March. It is
always difficult
transferring a Royal
Exchange show to a
proscenium arch theatre -
sound effects need rerecording
and the sound
rig must be re-designed.
At the Exchange we can
place sound above, below,
in front of or behind the
audience, and either inside
or outside the theatre
module, giving the
audience an experience
which they cannot get in
any other theatre. I am
using fewer speakers for
A Day in the Life of the Sound Department
Animal Crackers in
London, but have to
convince the producers
that all the equipment is
needed.
10.30 am Back to the Peer Gynt
storm sequence. Phone
rings again: an audience
member with a query
about music from our
December show, Hindle
Wakes.
Schematic of sound layout for Peer Gynt
11.15 am The storm sequence is
coming along well. I’m
using five different wind
recordings, which will be
panned all round the
auditorium. The sounds are
recorded into a sampler,
which enables me to loop
them, making them
continuous. I slow some
sounds down and add
reverb to others. I
change the pitch of a
From wedding dance music to the noise of a storm at sea, sound plays a crucial part in creating
the many, varied settings of the play. With less than a month before opening night, Steve Brown,
the theatre’s Head of Sound, works on his sound design for Peer Gynt while overseeing the
opening of a new play and dealing with a West End transfer.
whistling wind effect to
make it sound more
haunting. A few years ago
this would have taken a
full day, but with new
technology it only takes a
few hours.
11.30 am Phone goes again. The
London producers want a
list of music used in
Animal Crackers a.s.a.p.
Help!!
11.40 am Since we moved back into
the Royal Exchange
building after the bomb
we haven’t had the
chance to unpack all our
boxes. I know that in one
box there’s a computer
disk with all the Animal
Crackers information. But
which box?
12.30 pm Find the disk at last and
fax the information.
12.45 pm Grab a sandwich.
1.00 pm The Peer Gynt production
meeting, a weekly event
when all the production
departments, designer and
director get together and
discuss the show. Any
show is a huge team
effort and these meetings
are very important. I ask
where on stage the
television and video are
located in the massage
parlour scene so that I
can decide how to run
cables to them. I also find
out what musical
instruments are being used
in the wedding scene -
I’ll need to arrange
microphones. I fix a time
to play the director some
of the effects I have
recorded.
2.00 pm Eat sandwich and grab
another cup of coffee.
2.10 pm Receive the software
update via e-mail.
2.20 pm Back to Peer Gynt.
Hunting in our extensive
sound library for
recordings of ships’ sails,
rigging and creaks, I find
some excellent recordings
which I sample, edit and
add to my wind effects.
This sound sequence is
beginning to take shape. I
think about ways to
create the sound of a
ship hitting rocks and
sinking which (for obvious
reasons!) has to be
created from scratch.
3.30 pm Start work on Peer’s
drowning sequence and
search for underwater
recordings. Find some very
good recordings of air
bubbles and I experiment
with de-tuning and
stretching them. The end
effect is almost exactly
what I’m looking for.
5.00 pm A friend from the
National Theatre phones
with a query about music
from Hindle Wakes.
5.30 pm Catch up with Ian to
discuss the day so far.
Last night’s programming
only needed minor
changes.
7.30 pm Watch the preview
performance of Martin
Yesterday begin and then
back to the studio to
record bottle smashes for
Peer Gynt. Make a few
minor changes to the
day’s recordings. I keep
one ear to the show
relay, all seems well.
9.45 pm The show ends and I
check with Ian that all
went okay. We plan
tomorrow’s work.
10.30 pm Go home - at last!

DESIGN
Friday 8 January
Can the television table be low
enough for actors to make
eye-contact over the top when
seated?
Monday 11 January
Please note that as the
madhouse/cage is wheeled on,
members of the company will
be hanging off the roof bars.
Please discuss with Mr Joseph
Murray how the Blair/Thatcher
costume will work and how he
will hang himself.
SOUND
Friday 8 January
Begriffenfeldt’s first two lines
will be spoken from off-stage
at Door 3 and will need to be
on microphone.
Monday 11 January
Can we have a tape of
wind/storm noises to play in
rehearsals?
PROPS
Thursday 7 January
Greenclad’s baby will bring on
a can of lager (opened
offstage).
Rehearsal Notes
Creating the world of the play is a team effort, with different departments working on sound, lighting, set, props and
costumes. Efficient communication between departments is therefore vital.
At the end of each day the deputy stage manager will compile rehearsal notes which are distributed via the theatre’s
computer network. The notes give details of all decisions which have been made during the day’s rehearsals as well as
listing additional props, actors’ queries about costumes, and requests for research materials. Here are a few examples:
Wednesday 13 January
Following the Production
Meeting it has been decided to
use a pre-broken bottle
instead of a sugar-glass one.
LX (LIGHTING)
Tuesday 5 January
We need a practical socket for
the iron at Door 2.
Thursday 7 January
Please could we have some
more light in the area between
the pillars in the Studio?
PRODUCTION
Monday 11 January
Please confirm how far the
madhouse/cage comes onstage.
Wednesday 13 January
Can the truck cab doors be
opened while it is parked in
aisle 7 and someone gets out?
WARDROBE
Wednesday 6 January
Can we have a tail in rehearsal
please? David is concerned
that the tails should be such
that actors can sit down
comfortably.
Tuesday 12 January
Can there be a pocket in the
Button Moulder’s coat to hold
the ladle and folded papers?
STAGE MANAGEMENT
Thursday 7 January
Please get a copy of the video
I Know What You Did Last
Summer for Mark Bruce.
Friday 8 January
Please get hold of a Church of
Scientology form - they give
you one to fill in when you go
in to ask for information.
Exchange Education - Peer Gynt Resource Pack. Written by Kim Greengrass ©1999
The Deputy Stage Manager watches rehearsals, making a note of all the blocking (actors’
moves). She has rehearsal props, including wigs, ready for when the actors need them.

The riddle about the
difference between trolls
and humans with which
the Old Man of the
Mountains challenges Peer
Gynt has also proved a
challenge for translators
throughout the century. In
a literal translation the
riddle’s solution is: “Troll,
be thyself enough”, a
line which is as obscure in
Norwegian as it is in
English! The difficulty lies
in the fact that there is no
Trolls from a 1982 RSC production
In the English-speaking world, our understanding of Ibsen’s works is dependent
upon the skill and judgement of translators. But what happens when one of the
key phrases in a play is almost impossible to translate into English?
English word meaning ‘selfsufficient’
in a negative
sense. ‘Self-sufficient’ now
tends only to have positive
implications.
Translator, Michael Meyer,
thought he had found a
solution when first
translating the play in the
1960s. “It was the only
time I have ever
consciously allowed myself
to use an anachronism.
When I translated it in
1962 there was a very
common phrase in English
which precisely meant selfsufficiency
in a bad sense:
‘I’m all right Jack’, meaning
‘f**k everybody else’. I
made him say, ‘we trolls
say “be thyself Jack”’ and
the audience understood
exactly what it meant.”
However within a few
years the English phrase
had lost its currency and
the translation was once
again unclear.
During rehearsals for the
current production,
Michael Meyer’s translation
has changed again.
Rehearsals began by using
the translation, “Troll, be
thyself - and to hell
with the rest of the
world”, but Espen
Skjønberg, who speaks the
line, asked if he could say
“Troll, be thyself - and
thyself alone”. At first
Michael was uncertain, but
now thinks that “the way
Some Translation
Solutions
Out there, under the shining
vault of heaven,
Men tell each other: ‘Man, be thyself!’
But in here, among us trolls, we say:
‘Troll, be thyself -
and to hell with the rest of the world!’
Michael Meyer
Out there, where the sky shines,
humans say: ‘To thyself be true’.
In here, trolls say: ‘Be true to your
self-ish’.
Kenneth McLeish
Espen is going to do it,
hugging himself with a sort
of laugh, will make sense”.
Although persuaded that
this production has found
an acting solution to the
translation problem,
Michael believes that “it is
not a phrase one would
want in a printed
translation. I still think ‘to
hell with the rest of the
world’ gives the more
immediate meaning.”
Out there, under the radiant sky,
They say ‘To thine own self be true.’
But here, in the world of the
trolls, we say
‘To thine own self be - all-sufficient!’
Christopher Fr y and Johan Fillinger

Henrik Ibsen
Peer & Åase from the
1962 Old Vic production
Avoid
anachronisms
Michael believes that
anachronisms are
destructive and has
“made it a rule never
to use any word that
would not have been
current English at
the time the play in
question was
written; apart from
the intrinsic
vulgarity of
anachronisms, any
attempt to update
dialogue will date
within a decade.”
Being confined to
“the 95% or 97% of
words which are
common to both
1899 and 1999” is
not too difficult a
task for the
Michael
Meyer
outlines the
key points for
a good
translation:
Know the
language
An obvious point,
but there is a fashion
for theatre companies
to commission
distinguished playwrights
to create versions of foreign
plays, working from a literal
translation. As Michael Meyer points
out, there can be flaws to this
approach:
“There are quite a lot of people who think you
can get someone bilingual to do a literal
translation and then kick it around, but that’s no
good. I know that because the first Ibsen I ever
translated, over forty years ago in 1955, was Little Eyolf
for BBC radio. I knew Swedish but I didn’t know
Norwegian and I got a bilingual lady to be my intermediary.
Although she was completely bilingual she couldn’t read a play.
Some years later, by the time I had learned Norwegian, I had to
revise the translation for publication and I had to alter almost every
line because she had missed the point entirely! With a literal translation of
someone like Ibsen, where there are very subtle nuances, all you get is an
approximation of the text.”
Be faithful to the play
translator since the
English language has
changed very little in the
course of the century. In
contrast, Michael
believes, in the one
hundred years since
Ibsen was writing, “the
Norwegian language has
changed as much as
English has in two
hundred years.” This
means that in the original
Norwegian, the language
of the plays can sound
extremely dated.
Norwegian actors like
Espen Skjønberg (who
plays the Button Moulder)
approaching Ibsen in
English often feel relieved
“to be acting Ibsen in a
language which doesn’t feel
old-fashioned!”
Translation Tips
The translation used in the Royal Exchange Theatre
production is by Michael Meyer, the
distinguished translator and biographer of
Ibsen and Strindberg. For director
Braham Murray, there was no doubt
about which translation to use:
“Michael Meyer did this translation
back in 1962 for Michael Elliott, a
former director of this
Michael believes that it is an advantage for a translator not to be a famous
playwright. “The most difficult thing, if the translator is a creative writer himself, is to
keep himself out of it, to resist leaving his thumbprint. Gogol once observed that
the ideal translation should be like a new window pane. One should not be aware
that it exists.”
Choose the dramatic medium with care
company. He is the best
translator of Ibsen. There
wasn’t much competition
really.”
With Peer Gynt, written in a subtle, rhymed verse, translators must choose
whether to use verse or prose. If they are using verse, what sort of verse
form is most suitable? Before approaching Peer Gynt, Michael had
confronted these same choices when tackling Ibsen’s Brand:
“The first decision I made was that one obviously can’t translate it
into rhymed verse because rhyme in English is death to any dialogue
except farce. I tried prose and it just didn’t work. The difficulty was,
and it is the same with Peer Gynt, that you move between the
sublime and the slightly frivolous. You have got to have a medium in
which you can move from one to the other without seeming
incongruous. I tried it in blank verse for a page or so, and that did
not work either. Then I remembered T.S. Eliot who is a poet and
playwright I much admire. I remembered the medium he had used in
The Family Reunion: a kind of free verse. He said he did not want the
audience to realise it was listening to verse. If they are conscious
that they are listening to poetry then the dialogue becomes a bit
like opera - they know it is not really happening. He used a free
verse, not always easily distinguishable from prose, but in
which one could be high-flown without seeming
incongruous. That is what I tried to do in both Brand
and Peer Gynt.”
Contemporary illustration of Ibsen
Q uotations are taken from Michael
Meyer’s memoirs, Not Prince
Hamlet (1989) and from a 1999
interview with the translator.

Alex Jennings as Peer Gynt (RSC, 1994)
Peer (Alex Jennings) and Åase (Haydn Gwynne) in the 1994 RSC production
Discussion Points
Peer Gynt’s account of his struggle
with a reindeer is shown below in
three different translations. Use
Michael Meyer’s comments on the
art of translation to help you to
consider the following questions.
£ Do the translations all tell
precisely the same story?
£ What effects do the different
verse and prose forms have upon
the translations?
£ All three translations were
written to be performed. How
do you imagine each would work
in performance?
£ The version by Frank
McGuinness was commissioned
by a theatre in Dublin. Does this
knowledge affect your reading of
the speech?
“Bang! The bucko’s on the ground, me on his back the minute he’s landed.
Have him by the left ear. Knife ready to drive itself into the skull. Mad roar
out of him, bastard standing on all fours, a back kick hits the weapon out of
my fist. He has me pinned about him, horns up my leg have me fucked like
I’m finished, then he’s off… Hammers of hell along the ridge -”
A version by Frank McGuinness from a literal translation by Anne Bamborough
“I fired then.
Down the deer fell on the hillside -
And the instant that he stumbled
Up I jumped, on to his shoulders,
Gripped him firmly by the left ear,
Drew my knife to slice his windpipe -
Hey! the ugly brute starts screaming,
Jumps up, sends my dagger flying,
Sheath and all. I’m caught. His antlers
Pin my legs, as tight as pincers.
Off he goes - his stride’s enormous! -
Bounds along the ridge of Gjendin.”
Kenneth McLeish
“I fired. Down he dropped,
smack on the hill!
But the moment he fell, I
straddled his back,
Seized his left ear, and was
about
To plunge my knife into
his neck -
Aah! The brute let out a
scream,
Suddenly stood on all
fours,
Hit the knife and sheath
from my hand,
Forced its horns against
my thigh,
Pinned me tight like a pair
of tongs,
And shot right on to the
Gjendin Edge!”
Michael Meyer
The quotations in this section are taken from
the following translations of Peer Gynt:
Christopher Fry and Johan Fillinger
(Oxford World’s Classics, 1989)
Michael Meyer, in Ibsen: Plays 6 (Methuen)
Frank McGuinness (Faber and Faber, 1990)
Kenneth McLeish (Nick Hern Books, 1990)
Exchange Education -
Peer Gynt Resource Pack
Written by Kim Greengrass ©1999
Peer & Åase from the 1962 Old Vic production