Peer Gynt Essay, Research Paper

I have just recently attended a play called Peer Gynt on the night of March 2, 2001. In seeing and writing this paper I was asked to evaluate one of the major characters in the production. So for my evaluation I have picked the character of Peer Gynt. In this paper I will evaluate many different items about the character and his contribution to the overall glimpse of the play I can portray to you.

To describe to the overall spectacle of the play I will first describe to you how my choice of Peer Gynt related to the plot. Basically Peer is the main character of the play so the plot wouldn t be there if it was not for him, but looking more closely we can see how Peers behavior and miseduacation has thrown him in a bad direction. So basically his behavior threw the whole play gave a great amount of ideal to the plot. Relating to the other characters on stage deals greatly the same way. As Peer keeps screwing up the other characters in the play suffer as much or even more pain than him. Such an example is when he abducts Ingrid because he is in love with her and does not want her to marry another man. Thus he takes her to the mountains and abandons her and she dies from his mistake. I believe the theme of the play can be from several very different points of views. But from all the lessons to be learned here I believe the major theme is Time, Youth, and Love is priceless meaning that seize the day and live your life the way it should be lived and cherish every moment and loved one.

Now moving on I want to tell what I believe the artist tried to communicate to the audience. Looking at just the role of Peer Gynt alone I believe it is a very emotional but a cold role. What I mean is Peer seemed to be emotional at sometimes such as his mother dying, why ll other times he seemed very abrupt and cruel to people. So I believe threw viewing the role and the actor playing it that the artist tried very much to show great emotion at times but suddenly make very abrupt changes to being cold and cruel.

Now trying to show the effectiveness of the character alone in a particular scene is easy. The scene where his mother is passing away, he relates to his childhood. He recalls when him and his mother would sit on his bed and pretend it was a slay, and they would ride around to different places in there imagination. Well here the character of Peer Gynt showed great love and passion in this scene. He was trying so hard to get his mother to heaven on the slay. By what he was saying and the expression of his body language you could see great love and passion. So basically this scene showed even though Peer is a screw up and a menace to society he can be different.

Judging whether or not Peer Gynt strengthened or took away from the production is also very easy to answer. If it were not for Peers attitude or behavior during the play it would not make great since. I mean if you get really into this play you notice there s a great deal of confusion and emotion in it. Scenes change very quickly, meaning one second your in a village in the next your on a mountain with a bunch of trolls. Thus from the confusion and emotion of the play alone, excluding Peer Gynt; and then adding in his emotion and confusion everything comes together. It gives a great atmosphere ranging from love to heartache, to as I said before emotion and confusion.

Looking at the artist I believe he did not do a very good job. I know I am not very qualified for these kinds of criticism but hear me out. I keep mentioning emotion. It was hard to me to see great emotion from the artist myself. I think the way he interpreted Peer Gynt and delivered a few lines was very dull to the emotion needed. I believe we could have used more from the actor. Especially in the scene when his mother passed away. Now looking to his mirror of the whole cast I think he did a good job. This role was probably a challenging one. I mean the character had relationships with many different characters at different times. So he had to deal with a lot of stage business and of that sort. Over all I liked the play and would recommend seeing it. Plus it was nice with the orchestra in the background.