ABSTRACT
Patrice Chéreau’s 1981 production of Peer Gynt renewed the reception of Ibsen’s theater in France. The play was performed without any cuts for the fi rst time (the performance lasted seven hours). A single actor (Gérard Desarthe) played the part of Peer aged 17 to 70. The production was a collective venture requiring a year of preparatory work and four months of rehearsals. Relying on an elaborate reading of the play, Chéreau’s approach not only paved the way for a new era of Ibsen productions but also heralded a new perception of the issues, both aesthetic and political, raised by Ibsen’s theater as a whole.
