Peer Gynt

​It's very slow going on Peer Gynt. I think I'm making more of it than I have to, because it's a very straightforward task -- take something that's written for the stage, but very hard to stage, and adapt it for radio, where you can do anything. But it's so easy to underestimate the source material. It's Ibsen, so all the mechanical stuff is hidden, you can't really see it just reading through the thing, and cognitively, I can't feel it either. It's all so smooth--in a bad way. It's like I'm looking for the component parts I know should be there, the plot twists, the reversals, the reveals of motivation or character, and they're really well hidden. I understand that for an audience, that can be really pleasurable, but for someone trying to adapt it, it's frustrating. 
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It's a great opportunity to study Norwegian folklore (as opposed to Norse Mythology, which is something else altogether) because among the elements I want to translate are the tales that might be as familiar and as automatic to Ibsen's audience as "Peter Peter Pumpkin-Eater" is to us, or "Yankee Doodle."  Not only familiar, but irritating: a playwright could count on the audience knowing them by heart, even though he wouldn't want to write any reminders of them into his play. 

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