The National Theatre’s boss, Rufus Norris, has confessed that he ‘took his eye off the ball’ when it came to female writers and he plans to strike an equal balance between the sexes in future. Good news for male scribblers who’ll know that they’ve been selected on merit but rather demoralising for females who’ll suspect that they’re just making up the numbers. Sir David Hare, who has written or adapted 25 shows for the National, could easily solve the NT’s sexual identity crisis by announcing that he’s a woman.
His latest is a modern version of Ibsen’s barmy but enjoyable fable Peer Gynt, which mixes folklore, fantasy, social comment and tragicomedy. The anti-hero, renamed ‘Peter’ here, is a randy drifter whose life keeps changing beyond recognition. Some of the choices in Sir David’s update are hard to understand. Others make Peter difficult to like. He starts as a cocky Scottish infantryman who fights wars for Big Oil and claims to be a conscript.
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