Commonweal Season Begins in April

Each year as I attend the Commonweal’s annual holiday production my enjoyment of the play is followed by the sad realization that I’ll have to wait until February for the next season’s opening. A couple of things changed that experience this winter/spring. First of all, I waited until the last weekend to see the Commonweal production of Inspecting Carol, and a winter storm prevented me from attending. So rather than feeling melancholy about having to wait two long months for the return of professional theater, I was mad at myself for waiting until the last minute and missing December’s offering. The other change is that the wait for the Commonweal’s Ibsen production is longer this year: Peer Gynt doesn’t open until April 26 (with previews starting April 18). The Ibsen festival will take place May 2 - 4.

In a meeting with local business owners last summer (as reported in the Preston Republican-Leader), Executive Director Hal Cropp and Managing Director Erick Bunge explained the condensed season (April - December rather than February - December) from several angles. First of all, with the new, larger theater, the Commonweal has the ability to fill more seats with fewer performances. By shortening the season, the company is trying to keep from overextending itself by having too many performances for its audience base. Presumably, fewer performances will save costs as the company cautiously incorporates the new expenses of owning and paying for a new building.

Cropp also pointed out that the Ibsen production is not always well attended beyond the opening week. And because much of the Commonweal’s audience must travel to get to Lanesboro, bad weather can further impact attendance as the picturesque roads that wind their way to Lanesboro can quickly turn treacherous. Ultimately, the theater’s board hopes that, for now, starting the season in late April will better financially serve the theater with larger, more predictable audiences.

It always seemed appropriate to consider Ibsen in February when the snow and darkness reflect Ibsen’s Norway. But Ibsen didn’t necessarily see his dramas as emanating from near the Arctic Circle. In the Introduction to his translation of Peer Gynt, Rolf Fjelde identifies a change in Ibsen’s work which dates to his first crossing of the Alps three years before writing Peer Gynt. Fjelde sees Ibsen metaphorically leaving the “Gothic North” with its “grinding poverty in cheerless, wintry towns,” to enter the “Mediterranean South.” Ibsen describes this Alps crossing as a turning point: “a wonderful soft brightness, shining like white marble, was suddenly revealed to me and was destined to set its stamp on all my later production, even if that production was not all beauty.”

Just as the revelation of a warmer south set Ibsen on the path of writing Peer Gynt and most of the Ibsen canon, perhaps the Ibsen Fest’s move to spring will allow us to look at Ibsen in a different light. But just to be sure, I’m not going to wait until the last weekend to see Peer Gynt; I don’t want to get snowed out again.

Peer Gynt

By Henrick Ibsen, Directed by Hal Cropp
Previews: April 18
Runs April 26 - May 18

2008 Commonweal Season

Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen
Harvey by Mary Chase
Man of La Mancha by Dale Wasserman
(A new American work, to be announced)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
New times:
Plays now run Thursday - Monday
Evening curtain: 7:30
Matinee curtain: 1:30

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre