The Illusionist / Peer Gynt

I spent so much time at JBW (see below) that when Monday came round I had that peculiar feeling you have when you get back home after a couple of weeks on holiday; you are back in the routine but everything seems just a little bit different, fresher perhaps.

This would seem to have been the perfect mood to encounter The Illusionist. It stars Edward Norton who, like his brother Graham, is an odd looking chap, if only marginally less camp. He plays somebody called Abramovitch, who changes his name to Eisenheim to escape persecution by Arsene Wenger and his goon(er)s who don’t like him trying to shtup some posh bird called Sophie. Or something like that. He is haunted by his inability to disappear out of trouble and hence becomes a magician and medium. He is also haunted by the apparition of a terrible goatee beard and a Melvyn Bragg like bouffant hairdo. He is not the only one. “I imagined you with shorter hair and no beard” says Sophie when they are reunited years later; arguably the funniest line in cinematic history since “I want an extreme close-up on the kugel”.

It’s a bit dull and plodding and even I, who never can, could see the big twist coming a mile off. The time out reviewer tried to persuade me of a “Usual Suspects” like double twist (like the twist might only be a twist in the mind of the narrator, and can we really trust him) but I don’t buy that.

It’s shot in nice sepia tones and the magic performances, in a creaky old theatre not unlike the creaky old theatre I saw “Under the Lintel” in with my creaky old friends, are atmospheric, as is the depiction of turn of fin de siècle Vienna. Despite the name business, the film shies away from any suggestion that the aristos are motivated in their hatred of Abramovitch by anti-Semitism, or even mentioning that he might be Jewish, instead employing a semiological approach whereby Abramovitch and his “peasant” cohorts are signified by their wearing Pinter hats. Also Norton can’t seem to decide if he is going for a Viennese or Golders Green accent.

Talking of weird accents (nice and smooth transition if I say so myself) the evening found me at the Barbican for the National Theatre of Iceland’s production based on (rather than of) Peer Gynt. I took the precaution of reading the play beforehand, not knowing what language it would be in (they performed In English as it happened). I was glad I did, because I found the diction of the cast to be poor. OK English isn’t their first language but it was all a bit shouty.

Having said that, in the first half it didn’t matter at all, as the visual poetry of the production carried me along. Set in a lunatic asylum of dirty white walls and old fashioned hospital beds, the characters and actors were able to weave in and out of consciousness as though conjured by Peer Gynt’s, or Ibsen’s, or my imagination.

The second half was heavily edited from the text and as a result seemed to lose its centre; ironic in a play that’s all about whether the central character has been true to himself. The humour and energy of the first half seemed to dissipate and I found myself losing interest in Peer’s existential struggle. Then there was the crass reference to the Iraq war thrown in for good measure. And finally the production downplayed any sense that Peer finds redemption in the love of the long suffering Solveig, preferring a bleaker ending.

So a game of two halves, a powerful and memorable production but one which seemed to go astray somewhere after the interval.