Norse drama with a Latin flair

Tom Titus

From the fjords of Norway to the pueblos of Mexico is quite a

cultural transformation, but that’s where UC Irvine has gone with

Henrik Ibsen’s classic, “Peer Gynt.”

Drama professors Robert Cohen and Douglas-Scott Goheen have taken

the Norwegian epic and reworked it into a multilingual saga in the

mountains of Michoacan. It’s been retitled “Pedro Gynt,” and it

opened Thursday for a two-weekend run in UCI’s Humanities Hall Little

Theater.

The locale may be strikingly different, but the plot is basically

the same -- a narcissistic scoundrel faces an odyssey of

self-discovery as he travels around the world over many years before

finally returning home. It’s a journey that director Cohen believes

provides many opportunities for his cast, crew and the audience.

“It’s a play that is particularly ripe,” Cohen said. “The original

examines profoundly, and with great eloquence, vital modern issues --

cultural identity and assimilation, transnational economics and

patrimonies, emigration and return, and the search for universal,

meaningful life values in an increasingly secular global

environment.”

The director is promising a “truly cross-border experience

appealing to audiences both in Mexico and California.” To augment

this, he’s added dance and music (with a score by Mitch Greenhill) to

a script that’s now a hybrid of English and Spanish.

Cohen and Goheen hope eventually to take the show on a Latin

American tour, where any staging would be about 80% Spanish and 20%

English. This emphasis is reversed at UCI, where the show will be 80%

in English.

But won’t viewers be confused? Cohen thinks not, since he’s

carefully mixed the languages into the storytelling and offers

visuals that move the plot along. Sort of, one assumes, like South

Coast Repertory’s annual staging of “La Posada Magica.”

Essential to this goal is Goheen’s scenic design, a large

tent-like canopy dominating the arena staging and encompassing both

actors and audience. Mexican-flavored imagery is projected on this

“cosmic canopy” for atmospheric effect and to clearly establish sense

of place.

For those familiar with the original “Peer Gynt” -- which can

occupy an audience for upwards of five hours -- don’t worry about

getting home after midnight. Cohen has taken a surgeon’s scalpel to

the script, paring his staging to about 100 minutes.

“I don’t think we’ve lost anything of the original’s poetry and

power,” he said. “All the important soliloquies are in place and the

story is beautifully told. I have to say that I’m very pleased with

the results.”

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Fridays.