GHOSTS at Everyman Theatre - Think 'Scandal' on Stage

Remember the expression "Banned in Boston"? Well, playwright Henrik Ibsen's GHOSTS was banned in Sweden and England for a period of ten years.

Why you may ask? Well, how about the topics it deals with...there's incest, venereal disease, prostitution, premarital sex, infidelity, and assisted suicide . It wasn't until a century after it was written that it finally made it to a big theater on Broadway.

As usual, the Everyman Theatre pulls from its Resident Acting Company three accomplished actors, Danny Gavigan, Deborah Hazlett and Bruce Randolph Nelson. Add to this trio, the talented Sophie Hinderberger and James Whalen and you have a cast ready to handle the trials and tribulations of life in Sweden in the late 19th century.

Daniel Ettinger has designed a lovely set with the use of velvet furniture, and huge doors which double as windows onto a lovely forest. You begin to shiver as you hear the rain drops falling against the windows (sound by Stowe Nelson). Harold F. Burgess II did the lovely lighting. David Burdick adds the appropriate costumes for the era. I especially loved the gown worn by Hazlett as Mrs. Helene Alving who like Nora in Ibsen's A DOLL HOUSE, is center stage throughout the play. (I will always remember the great Janet McTeer in this 1997 Tony Award winning role on Broadway and you can now catch her on the television show "Battle Creek").

The play centers around the many scandals in the Alving household. Her husband, dead for 19 years, was a miserable individual who cheated on her. After she gave birth to her son Oscar, she sent him off to boarding school in France to keep him away. Things were so bad, she even desired an affair with her family friend, Pastor Manders (James Whalen) who refused to give in to her indiscretion.

Bruce Randolph Nelson plays Jakob Engstrand who has an adopted daughter Regina (guess who the father is) played by the naive Hinderberger. The play surrounds the return of son Oswald, back from France, who relishes Regina, not knowing their relationship. Oswald (Danny Gavigan) has a plum role. He's lived the Bohemian life in France, purposefully annoys Pastor Manders of his exploits and enjoys every minute of it.

There are attempts at building an orphanage by Mrs. Alving in memory of her husband and an "Old Sailor's Home" by Engstrand who tries to get funding from Pastor Manders who has no idea of the real plans by Engstrand to turn this edifice into a house of ill repute with his step-daughter helping him out.

My only criticism is the Direction by Donald Hicken. The first act seemed endless and could have used a quicker pace. There was a 2013 production in England directed by Richard Eyre (now playing in Brooklyn) which did away with the intermission, and lasted only 90 minutes. This production could have used such a trimming.

GHOSTS continues until through May 3, 2015. For tickets, call 410-75-2208.

Next up at the Everyman is Noel Coward's comedy, BLITHE SPIRIT running May 27 to June 28. A brilliant way to end the season.

cshubow@broadwayworld.com

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