Peer Gynt

Name: Peer Gynt
Start: 2026-09-20T19:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-09-20T19:00:00+02:00
Location: Akademietheater

Sunday 20 September · 19:00Akademietheater · wien

What's it about?

Peer Gynt is a theatrical figure that has long become a myth – an egocentric dreamer, fantasist, liar, an anti-hero as well as a figure of identification in a world gone mad, a world that has lost all measure. As a young man, Peer Gynt leaves his Norwegian homeland and embarks on a journey through continents and through his own self, floating between dream and reality and always searching for his identity and his role in life. He wanders through mountains and deserts, crosses seas and rivers, meets mythical creatures from other worlds. He gains wealth in America, experiences himself as a spiritual person in Africa, and finally has himself crowned emperor in a psychiatric hospital in Egypt. At the end of his life, having returned to his homeland, Peer Gynt must realize that he has lived past actual life, has become an average person like everyone else, and only a long-forgotten love can save him from insignificance. With the "dramatic poem" PEER GYNT in 1867, Henrik Ibsen wrote a key text about modern man, an epic of an "ego-realizer." The restlessness and urgency with which Peer Gynt tries out and discards life plans, adopts and abandons identities, exhausts creative potential and incurs guilt through greed and megalomania, confronts us with our fragile existence and allows us to explore our own dreams and longings, fears and hopes. With a small ensemble and Mavie Hörbiger in the title role, the Icelandic director Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson undertakes an exploration of the central question of the text: Who am I? Am I a beggar or an emperor? Am I the beginning or the end? Director: Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson Set design: Daniel Angermayr Costumes: Daniel Angermayr Music: Gabriel Cazes Lighting: Paul Eisemann Dramaturgy: Anika Steinhoff Cast Mavie Hörbiger Peer Gynt Barbara Petritsch Aase, Peer's Mother Lilith Häßle Solveig/ Anitra/ The Green One/ Ingrid Johannes Zirner The Stranger/ The Button Molder/ Crooked/ Mr. von Eberkopf/ Quill Nils Strunk Matz Moen/ Begriffenfeld/ Dovrealte/ Mr. Cotton Gabriel Cazes Live music