Jean-Pierre Mignon and Peer Gynt: A French Director in Australia

Abstract

Nothing   could be more different from Patrice Chereau's Peer Gynt than Peer Gynt   staged by Jean-Pierre Mignon in Melbourne in 1990. This French director   arrived in Australia in 1978. In 1980 he founded Australian Nouveau Theatre   (ANT) which, until very recently, was based at the Anthill Theatre in South   Melbourne. ANT has mounted more than fifty productions to date. Among them   are Chekhov's great plays, Moliere's Tartuffe, Don Juan, The Misanthrope and   The Imaginary Invalid, Beckett's Happy Days and Waiting for Godot, Lawler's   Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and, for the 1992 Melbourne Festival, La Vida   es un Suefzo (Life is a Dream) by Calderon. Mignon has not worked exclusively   with his own company. He has mounted productions for the Victorian Opera, for   example, and the Sydney Theatre Company, including a highly acclaimed   Marriage of Figaro  by Beaumarchais,   and in 1992 Strindberg's Miss Julie.