Peer Gynt figure quite so exuberant, outrageous, vitalistic as Peer Gynt. He merely "seems" initially to be an unlikely candidate for such eminence: "What is he", we say, "except a kind of Norwegian roaring boy?" – marvelously attractive to women, a kind of bogus poet, a narcissist, absurd self-idolator, a liar, seducer, bombastic self-deceiver. But this is paltry moralizing – all too much like the scholarly chorus that rants against Falstaff. True, Peer, unlike Falstaff, is not a great wit. But in the Yahwistic, biblical sense, Peer the scamp bears the blessing: More life. On 5 January 1867 Ibsen wrote to Frederik
Peer Gynt US production of "Peer Gynt" opened at the Chicago Grand Opera House on October 24, 1906, and starred the noted actor Richard Mansfield, in one of his very last roles before his untimely death. In 1923, Joseph Schildkraut played the role on Broadway, in a Theatre Guild production, featuring Selena Royle, Helen Westley, Dudley Digges, and, before he entered films, Edward G. Robinson. In 1944, at the Old Vic, Ralph Richardson played the role, surrounded by some of the greatest British actors of the time in supporting or bit roles, among them Sybil Thorndike as Åse, and Laurence Olivier as