Ibsen's mid-19th century journey through the life of peasant lad Peer Gynt, who has been neither good enough to merit heaven nor bad enough to be sent to hell and so faces the ignominy of being melted down, has a fiendishly difficult reputation. Ibsen never intended it to be staged at all, and I have never seen an entirely successful production. I'm still waiting.
The National Theatre of Iceland's distinctive version is certainly visually stunning, and offers a contemporary spin with its images of trolls as Russian mafiosi sporting tails and Peer's nefarious money-making activities interpreted a business guru-style seminar supported by a military junta. But even though its about half the length of many productions of this work, it still feels like a very long haul.
Director Baltasar Kormakur gives us an autopsy on a man's life set on a sterile white stage surrounded by white plastic curtains which conjures up both the asylum and the abattoir. It is visceral in every way: Nordic winds blow onto the stage; pig carcasses swing on hooks; Frank Sinatra's My Way assaults your ears and the smell of gutted fish gets up your nose.
Although Kormakur is clearly a director of distinctive vision who makes a very good case for the play as a journey into the teeming madhouse of the unconscious, he never succeeds in building the successive episodes into a narrative of any emotional weight. You just don't care what happens to Björn Hlynur Haraldsson's callow Peer.
The visuals begin to look like enticing wrapping paper designed to hide the emptiness at the core of the play, which is as corrosive as Peer's own spiritual barrenness. Kormakur's English rhyming translation is infinitely forgettable, and the evening sacrifices clarity for effect to the point that the entire thing would probably be more comprehensible if it were in a language you didn't understand.
Still, it's easy on the eye and the cast not only speak perfect English but turn in pitch-perfect performances, not just playing the hordes of main characters but also acting as dead leaves, drops of dew and, in one instance, a moaning wind.
· Until March 10. Box office: 0845 120 7554.
