Silly Little Country

Soulpepper's "John Gabriel Borkman"

I always read whatever reviews are available when I am heading to see a theatrical production. There are hints of things to watch for, and some indication of what some other person thought (I do not regard reviewers as privileged in terms of knowledge, simply as other people with their own perspectives). Reviewers too have each of them an agenda that becomes not too hard to spot over time. My loyal readers know how little I often find myself thinking of the reviews I have read; one good example is my response to Canadian Stage's "Hair", which I thought to be quite mediocre, but in NO way justifying the reviews it got.
So it was with only mild apprehension that I went with friends to see Soulpepper's production of Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman", which has received uniformly harsh reviews, particularly for the use of puppets , to allow an eight-character play to be performed by three actors. Reviews had asserted that this conceit meant that intensity was lost, that key dialogue wound up looking silly, that the depth of emotion could not be expressed, that the humour would be totally missing.
One thing is I love Ibsen; when SillyWife and I visited the Ibsen museum in Oslo last summer, what I thought was most characteristic was being told of him and his wife reading his dialogues in the evenings and laughing. This seemed so right, and so Norwegian, from what I get of a little experience of my mother's Norwegian background (though a lot of the knock-on effects).
And what happened? I thought the puppets were quite useful. The actors could push themselves into a scene, and pull back by way of the puppets as called on. This seemed to fit Ibsen perfectly. They could toss a puppet off the stage once it was no longer needed, and that felt right as it was done as well. I thought the emotion got expressed quite enough for Ibsen - this is NOT "Love Story", it is Ibsen.
And the humour seemed to me to be wonderfully accentuated by the way the actors could take over a role or pass it on to the puppet. I did get the feeling through the show that I was laughing more than anyone else, but Ibsen is funny, often while at his most depressing. And I would not expect a non-Scandinavian to find it funny. But the performers had me enjoying the dialogue very much, and responding as I think one ought to have.
The second act was less satisfying. After an early explosion involving five puppets and three performers, the young son goes off to live his life (Ibsen as a youth?), while the rest of the bunch then later for the rest of the second act seem to become less interesting. We all fought to stay awake.
But I say enjoy the first act! As long as this runs. And I must say the John Gabriel Borkman puppet looks really good. Major hunk for his puppet age, and time in jail.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 1:48 PM