Gabriella Sundar Singh, left, as Anitra and Qasim Khan as Peter in Gnit, written by Will Eno.Michael Cooper/Shaw Festival
Title: Gnit
Written by: Will Eno
Performed by: Julia Course, Nehassaiu deGannes, Patrick Galligan, Qasim Khan, Mike Nadajewski, Gabriella Sundar Singh
Directed by: Tim Carroll
Company: Shaw Festival
Venue: Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre
City: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
Year: Until Oct. 4
You’d be forgiven for pronouncing Gnit like “knit.”
But when the play’s titular doofus, an old-enough-to-know-better man-child living in the mountains of Norway, proclaims his own last name, he says, “guh-nit,” like “Galinda” or “gallumph.” “It’s a typo,” he explains. Cue tepid laughter.
American playwright Will Eno is something of an acquired taste. His plays are bleak and dryly funny – think Samuel Beckett meets Christopher Durang. Often, they comment on the absurdity baked into the human condition, blending the aesthetics of the past with the cynicism of the present.
Gnit, a sort-of adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, is no exception – it’s frequently amusing, and makes several salient points about what it means to grow up. Shaw Festival artistic director Tim Carroll offers a tight, cunning production, starring the reliable Qasim Khan in the role of Peter.
But Gnit is an unwieldy play. Its genre swings widely between scenes – between lines, even. Its through line, if there is one, is Ibsen’s source material, and while Eno’s subversion of Peer Gynt is really quite clever, it’s also a little opaque for the more casual theatregoer. (Audiences unfamiliar with the original may want to give it a quick skim before heading to Niagara-on-the-Lake.)
At Shaw, a confounding writing choice nearly ruins an otherwise passable trip to Narnia
When we meet Peter, he’s dressed in rags and hounding his elderly mother (Nehassaiu deGannes) for attention. (“Never have children,” she tells the audience at the top of the show, resigned irritation dripping from her lips.)
Before long, Peter decides that, yes, it’s time to get married, and, for heaven’s sake, it’s time to emerge from his mother’s care. He kidnaps his bride (Gabriella Sundar Singh, who plays a roster of supporting characters), then decides, no, he’d rather be with Solvay (Julia Course, who does the same, as does Patrick Galligan). Ignoring the lives he’s ruined, the futures he’s destroyed – after all, Peter will be Peter – he goes off in search of his purpose.
Meanwhile, a local man has become so drunk he’s become an entire town (indeed, the logic there is tenuous – just go with it). Mike Nadajewski flips easily between dozens of characters, a bevy of townspeople trapped just beneath his skin. Nadajewski has long mastered the art of silly voices and highly physical roles – this one might as well have been written for him. And, as in Tons of Money, it’s a treat to watch him and Khan spar.
Visually, Gnit’s about what you’d expect from a quirky modern comedy staged in the cozy Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre. Hanne Loosen’s intentionally sparse set feels like a forgotten wing of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, outfitted with rusty metal pipes that dispense everything from sparks to snow. Loosen’s costumes, meanwhile, are alive with whimsy – Nadajewski in particular dons some especially striking capes and boots.
Mike Nadajewski, left, as International Man, Khan, and Julia Course as the bartender.Michael Cooper/Shaw Festival
The various pieces of Carroll’s production – the actors, the costumes, the set – more or less coalesce into a pleasant evening or afternoon of theatre. But it’s Eno’s script, wispy and non-specific by design, that most frequently keeps the piece tethered to the ground, leaving the actors unable to fully take off in any particular direction.
Over the years, Khan has built a reputation for creating sympathetic, deeply layered characters (last year alone, he played meaty roles in The Inheritance, Hedda Gabler and Hamlet). But Peter Gnit, as written by Eno, is largely without depth – he’s a void of affection and love that swallows up anything and anyone in his way. So where does that leave Khan, without much by way of stakes to ground his performance? He does what he can with it, and his charisma occasionally shines through Peter’s thickly written facade, but it’s not quite enough to make the character feel fully formed.
Days later, I’m still chewing on Gnit. Indeed, Eno’s writing is often intellectual gristle, a never-ending thought experiment that lasts far beyond a given final curtain call. So it goes in this intriguing ode to Ibsen.
