Gnit NYC Reviews and Tickets

80%

(58 Reviews)

Positive

91%

Mixed

Negative

Members say

Clever, Quirky, Funny, Great acting, Great writing

About the Show

A new version of Ibsen's classic "Peer Gynt" by award-winning playwright Will Eno.

Peter Gnit, a modern-day version of Ibsen’s heroic character Peer Gynt, is a carefree young man on a reckless search for Experience and the True Self. Armed with tales from his mother of his early greatness and his absent father, he heads out into the world. "Gnit" is part horror story, part fairy tale, and part road movie.

Member Reviews (58)

Quirky, Overrated, Disappointing, Confusing

See it if If you want to see a different perspectve( joneses meet P gynt). Interesting concept some good writing/ acting.

Don't see it if Gets very slowww at times and can be as confusing as well. Does not flow naturally.

Great acting, Touching, Ironic, Quirky, Hilarious

See it if Morality play about selfishness. But it’s really about endless opportunities to love. Full of irony & humor, expertly performed. Great sets

Don't see it if You won’t enjoy dark dry humor and a meandering main character with little plot. Each vignette has a similar message, but is a creative gem.

Self centered, Absurd, Slow, Great staging, Great acting

See it if you enjoy self involved theater of the absurd; great acting and sets; satirical journey that takes the character a long time to discovery.

Don't see it if u don't like satire; main character isn't particularly likeable; often funny but very slow moving; you're not a fan of Will Eno humor.

Slow, Quirky, Great staging, Great acting

See it if You want a truly odd story with very dry humor and an anti hero protagonist. Great acting and staging.

Don't see it if It gets slow at times and is quirky enough to throw you if you don't go with it. If you don't like Will Eno's work don't see it.

Thought-provoking, Slow, Quirky, Overrated, Disappointing

See it if you want to see everything that is out there.

Don't see it if you want great theater with meaningful performances. this ends up being trivial and misses the opportunity to make a statement

Overrated, Indulgent, Thought-provoking, Slow, Disappointing

See it if You’d like to see a flat, condensed Peer Gynt told through Will Eno’s creative writing. The cast is great, the set superb. On the dull side.

Don't see it if You are looking for a refreshing, high energy play. This play strangely had the opposite effect - Causing drowsiness, confusion. Left lost.

Cliched, Thought-provoking, Quirky, Clever, Absorbing

See it if You enjoy humorous (and slightly sad) plays that are modern fresh plays on classics.

Don't see it if You’re looking for something straightforward and quick moving.

Quirky, Great writing, Ambitious, Ingenious, Smart

See it if you're drawn to Will Eno's signature wordplay; you're up for a sharp reinvention of Ibsen's "Peer Gynt" that emphatically nods to Beckett.

Don't see it if you're aching for the marathon of the 4-hour original by Ibsen; you're frustrated when one actor plays many roles w/o totally disappearing. Read more

Critic Reviews (8)

"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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