After several years abroad, Helena Alving’s son has returned home. He carries with him a terrifying secret. Ibsen’s Ghosts is a devastating moral thriller in which ideas of love, duty and family are mercilessly put to the test. This spectacular new version, written by one of Ireland’s leading playwrights, Mark O’Rowe, and directed by Jack O’Brien, grabs you by the throat from the outset and refuses to let go – all the way to its electrifying climax.
O’Rowe’s translation minimizes talk of syphilis and scandal, focusing instead on the characters’ interpersonal dynamics, which are solid but unremarkable without the prurience coursing through the work’s venereal veins. Sex might have been more scandalous in 1881, when the play’s publication nearly ruined Ibsen’s career, but eschewing it outright seems a misguided attempt to honor his larger intention of skewering bourgeois morality. Despite the fine performances from the cast, Jack O’Brien’s production never provides a reason as to why we should be eavesdropping on this particular family.
Distasteful though that is, it’s good drama, and 'Ghosts' remains a provocative, engrossing work, to which O’Brien’s production does justice. It also does justice to the idea of provocative, engrossing work in the first place. 'Ghosts' is the 14th and presumably final collaboration between O’Brien and André Bishop, Lincoln Center Theater’s producing artistic director, who is stepping down at the end of this season after 33 years with the company. Their notable productions of Hellman, Stoppard, Shakespeare and others have earned them this warm valedictory moment. And yet not totally valedictory. As 'Ghosts' demonstrates, men’s imprints do not fade so easily. And nothing is ever as haunted as a stage.
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