Iconoclasts blowing up the classics are an everyday occurrence in theater. But the process acquires an extra cachet when the demolition experts are as inventive and celebrated as Will Eno and Taylor Mac, both finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
A master of the anxious ellipsis, Eno (“Thom Pain,” “The Realistic Joneses”) will be reinterpreting — and shrinking — the sprawling, five-act study in evolving identity that is Henrik Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt.” Eno’s version is called “Gnit,” with a seeming typographical capriciousness that suits a portrait of the randomness of human personality. This Theater for a New Audience production opens in March at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn. Oliver Butler (“What the Constitution Means to Me”) directs a presumably very busy six-member cast, led by Joe Curnutte as the egocentric title character.
-BEN BRANTLEY
READ THE FULL SPRING PREVIEW IN THE NY TIMES HERE.