"The playwright Will Eno puts his own stamp on Ibsen’s version in “Gnit,” which opened at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn on Sunday night. Portraying the protagonist as a listless young man on a search for self, Eno ends up with a funny story that is myopic in scope — a self-aware and sometimes cloyingly precocious thought experiment in individualism and identity."
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"Peer Gynt was initially received with a mix of praise and skepticism. Eno’s work has often divided audiences similarly, with some calling him an heir to Samuel Beckett and others protesting that, like Peter, he falls short of realizing the lofty goals he sets. Gnit almost seems like a response to such critics, as if to say: I may be on a doomed quest for meaning, but just go with it."
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"What’s strange about the show, now resuscitated after its long hiatus, is that a Rip Van Winkle air still hangs around it. For its entire two-hour length and for a while thereafter, it’s disorienting, making you feel as though you’ve just woken up...Gnit is an odd night at the theater, full of suspended understanding and puzzled laughter. Eno writes droll, sorrowful jokes that land late enough that your mind doesn’t have time to be amused or upset."
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"The worlds of fairy tale and Will Eno are both capable of revealing the beating hearts that lie underneath their metaphysical messages. Gnit, unfortunately, just doesn't seem to have a strong enough pulse."
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"Ultimately, Gnit is a minimalist account of an epic, using small deflecting jokes to shy away from anything like grandiosity. It's to Butler's credit that his cast doesn't try to oversell this limited material, but it's harder to tell what anyone sees in it."
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"Will Eno’s wry, contemporary Gnit solves the problem of attempting to stage Ibsen’s unwieldy, five-hour verse play Peer Gynt...Heavily influenced by the plays of Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco, Gnit is a journey of the self to enlightenment with travel throughout the world. Part road movie, part folklore, and part horror story, Gnit makes an old play new again."
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"Peter Gnit himself admits that he may not be the most sympathetic character, though as he is portrayed by Joe Curnutte, we see an internal dialogue between sympathy, apathy, and a commitment to the journey within him. As he looks back upon his journey at the end of the play, we wonder – was it worth it? Did he find the truest sense of self – and if he did, what did it cost him?"
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"The first act of “Gnit” is crazy funny, and so it’s unexpected when Oliver Butler’s flippant direction turns dark with the death of Peter’s mother at the end of the first act. We’ve watched this woman and her son go at each other for over an hour; but now at the final moment, regardless of all the crap that’s gone down in their pitiful lives together, death breaks an elemental bond from which Peter will never recover. The final scene of act one is powerful, heart-wrenching theater."
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