PEER GYNT, GOOD`S CHOICE 2018

Peer Gynt is both a Norwegian cultural heritage and relevant as a starting point for the discussion about people's responsibility towards each other. To be oneself - or to be oneself enough! Based on Ibsen's Peer Gynt, we look if the public debate affects our values.

In the spring of 2017, Kompani13 produced the performance Peer Gynt - God’s Choice, and this version 2, is a further development, with more defined and clearer interactivity and dissemination. Here Ibsen's concepts are highlighted: To be oneself - or to be oneself enough!

As a young man Peer Gynt dreamed of becoming an emperor, and he is "crowned" as the emperor by "himself". We want to look at the phenomenon of opportunism, the "being oneself-enough", and highlight the tools Peer Gynt used to get the benefits he wants in life. The action is placed in the Norwegian mentality concerning the rhetoric surrounding the current migration situation in Europe. Ibsen problematizes Peer with an almost blind egoism and protectionism, which probably exists in all humans, where Peer Gynt has cultivated it by a central feature to lie and manipulate people around him to achieve benefits. A cynical and opportunistic way of thinking that conflicts with central humanistic values.

Peer Gynt is regarded as Norway's national epos, with a look at what the Norwegian people's soul is, both in terms of tribute and critical problematization. Kompani 13 intends to discuss Ibsen's original idea of ​​the work from the year 1850, by looking at the same phenomena in today's Norway, seen in the light of the concept of humanity and human rights!