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Rating: 
Summary: The "Bad" Ibsen
Review: A genuinely wonderful comedy, not a bit dated, & a wiser way into Ibsen than any of the later & generally rated greater problem plays. Peer is immensely charming, if reckless & stupid from time to time. He learns, some, with special assistance from Mom & a perhaps incredibly grand sweetheart. Christopher Fry's translation (Oxford) seems particularly nice.
Rating:
Summary: The "Bad" Ibsen
Review: A genuinely wonderful comedy, not a bit dated, & a wiser way into Ibsen than any of the later & generally rated greater problem plays. Peer is immensely charming, if reckless & stupid from time to time. He learns, some, with special assistance from Mom & a perhaps incredibly grand sweetheart. Christopher Fry's translation (Oxford) seems particularly nice.
Rating: 
Summary: A Superb Writer
Review: He writes like a comedian, waving his fist at your face, all while enthronging you to read on!
Rating:
Summary: A Superb Writer
Review: He writes like a comedian, waving his fist at your face, all while enthronging you to read on!
Rating:
Summary: Did you like A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Review: If yes, then you might enjoy this drama. It had the same flavor. It was allright, but definitely not among my favorites.Ibsen is a wonderful writer, and has some other great works I would highly recommend, such as A Doll's House or Hedda Gabler. But Peer Gynt was one of his first, and in my opinion, he still needed to work on his plot. Disagree? Email me.
Rating:
Summary: Did you like A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Review: If yes, then you might enjoy this drama. It had the same flavor. It was allright, but definitely not among my favorites. Ibsen is a wonderful writer, and has some other great works I would highly recommend, such as A Doll's House or Hedda Gabler. But Peer Gynt was one of his first, and in my opinion, he still needed to work on his plot. Disagree? Email me.
Rating: 
Summary: the emptiness of prodigality.
Review: Often funny. Often bizarre. Always deep. Peer Gynt first appears to me as this self-centered youth who cares only for himself and the satisfaction of his impulses and whims at any cost. He is the quick non-thinker, who leaves a life of relative conventionality to roam as a dissolute wanderer. He is indeed all of these things, but all the while his "self" is not "centered". At the end of his adventures as a libertine, the grey-bearded Peer Gynt is at a cross-roads, and he asks the character of the Button Moulder this question: "What, after all, is this being one's self?" The Button Moulder replies that being one's self means slaying one's Self, and furthermore "observing the Master's intentions in all things." Peer Gynt contemplates this... restraint and delayed gratification have never been manageable themes with him. In my opinion, this whole idea of the search for the "self" is what Peer Gynt is all about. At the very final crossroads he is redeemed by the undeserved forgiveness and love of Solvieg, the woman he has once abandoned... this scene being a beautiful picture of the grace and love of God that is available to the Peer Gynt in every reader. Ibsen originally wrote Peer Gynt as a poem, and therefore we lose the Norwegian rhyme and metre in any English translation. To compensate if at all possible, I suggest reading the play while listening to the incidental music of Edvard Grieg, specifically composed to accompany the live performance of Peer Gynt. (Note: My review is based on the translation by Peter Watts).
Rating:
Summary: Superb!
Review: This ranks up there with Shakespeare. That is all you need to know
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