Peer Gynt House. In 2006, as part of the Norwegian Ibsen anniversary festival, "Peer Gynt" was set at the foot of the Great Sphinx of Giza near Cairo, Egypt (an important location in the original play). The director was Bentein Baardson. The performance was the centre of some controversy, with some critics seeing it as a display of colonialist attitudes. In January 2008 the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis debuted a new translation of "Peer Gynt" by the poet Robert Bly. Bly learned Norwegian from his grandparents while growing up in rural Minnesota, and later during several years of travel in Norway. This
Peer Gynt market in its original language. Peer Gynt is the son of the once highly regarded Jon Gynt. Jon Gynt spent all his money on feasting and living lavishly, and had to leave his farm to become a wandering salesman, leaving his wife and son behind in debt. Åse, the mother, wished to raise her son to restore the lost fortune of his father, but Peer is soon to be considered useless. He is a poet and a braggart, not like the youngest son from Norwegian fairy tales, the "Ash Lad", with whom he shares some characteristics. As the play opens,