Ghosts
Henrik Ibsen’s controversial play Ghosts privately premiered in Chicago, Illinois in 1892. Produced in Danish for Danish immigrants, it dealt with themes too scandalous for a European public. Since then critics and Ibsen aficionados consider Ghosts a classic because it touches upon timeless themes of morality, adultery, euthanasia, familial duty, religious hypocrisy, duplicity, and more. A sleekly updated version written by Mark O’Rowe and directed by Jack O’Brien is at Lincoln Center Theater until 26th of April, and Ghosts is a must-see.
O’Rowe meticulously slimmed down Ibsen’s wordiness to present an accessible version that readily spills out each of the characters’ flaws and deceptions. The actors present the development of conflicts with a no-holds barred fluidity. This makes for stirring theater. When I saw it, the intense audience engagement revealed itself through breathtaking silences. The phenomenal ensemble and steely direction by O’Brien advanced the culminating high-points that make for enthralling theater. The audience was appreciative of how the cast lived authentically onstage in a sparely elegant playing area thanks to John Lee Beatty’s sets.
The unusual opening of the O’Brien production of Ghosts
Perhaps contrast is why O’Brien opened Ghosts with Hamish Linklater (Engsstrand) and Ella Beatty (Regina), entering costumed, then sitting and reading lines, script in hand. This occurs only for a few minutes before the magic of live theater takes over. Before our eyes, the actors slip into the skins of their characters and immerse us in the emotional events that inexorably careen toward the devastating and memorable conclusion. This remarkable process of transformation and catharsis takes one hour and fifty minutes with no intermission. How O’Rowe, O’Brien, and the five actors distill the setting, plot development, and action with acute spareness to create heightening emotional power deserves heady praise.
Ghosts, the third superb production trimmed of Ibsen’s verbosity, like the recent revivals of A Doll’s House (2023), and Enemy of the People (2024), probably will be an award-winner. Here’s why.
This version of Ghosts has immediacy
The events in the pared-down script present with immediacy, keep pace, and maintain our interest and excitement throughout. We discover the intriguing backstory of Ella Beatty’s Regina and Hamish Linklater’s Engstrand, uncovered with precision to set up the future disclosure of secrets. The past history of their alleged father/daughter relationship unravels in argument and continuing recriminations and difficulties. In a series of revelations, Regina discloses how the behaviors of her deceased mother haunt their relationship. As their conversation deepens, we note the failed family dynamic, the rancor, Regina’s resentment, Engstrand’s alcoholism, and Regina’s appreciation for Mrs. Alving.
Regina rejects familial connections with Engstrand, despite their official listing on the church register to cover up her mother’s tawdry behaviors and abusive relationship with him. Not only does he name Regina the “bastard” of a whorish mother in his drunken rages, Regina claims he married her mother for money then mistreated her and Regina. When Regina throws his alcoholic violence in his face, Engstrand claims himself the victim and sports a different version of events.
To escape further abuse, we learn Regina gladly ends up as a maid to the upscale Alvings. In this opening salvo, Linklater’s blustery, antic, drunken Engstrand is the foil for Beatty’s irate and righteously scolding Regina. After failing to lure Regina back “home” with him to work at a foundation he intends to establish with the payments for finishing the Alving’s orphanage, Engstrand announces Pastor Manders (the excellent Billy Crudup). He exits to return later for the orphanage’s commemoration by the pastor.
Pastor Manders
In his discussion with Regina, Pastor Manders, concerned with rectitude, suggests Regina’s duty and obligation requires that she return home with her father to help him with his charity. A second conflict erupts. Regina questions the legitimacy and propriety of being with the indecent Engstrand, whose alcoholism and violence Manders knows about. Manders dismisses Regina’s retorts, a clue to his weak character. He winks at Engstrand’s behavior, and instead, uplifts her familial duty and obligation. Better she suffer Engstrand’s abuse at home, a religious unction; however, he does promise to help Regina look for another position if possible. We appreciate Beatty’s Ella standing up for herself with both men as she renounces her mother’s destructive, wanton lifestyle.
Manders’ religious hypocrisy, hinted at in the initial scene with Regina, further manifests in his discussion with his friend and confidante, Lily Rabe’s Helena Alving. Because of son Oswald’s (Levon Hawke) return from Paris, Helena has decided to correct the record and exorcise her deceased husband’s libertine behaviors that haunt her life. She intends to face the truth and clear the air before the orphanage commemoration. Thus, she reveals facts about Alving’s sordid affairs and their miserable life together. Her revelations scandalize the hypocritical Pastor Manders. Crudup’s Manders walks the balance beam beautifully by not making Manders as loathsome as his hypocrisy is. He slips in his continual acquiescence to cover ups slyly, almost as an unwitting afterthought. Eventually, Rabe’s Helena calls him on it.
Mrs. Helena Alving
As the duty-bound widow of propriety, Rabe’s Helena meets with Pastor Manders for he will officiate the consecration of the orphanage built to memorialize her deceased husband. She honors her husband as a cover-up and equivalent hypocrisy in equal measure to Pastor Manders’ moral compromises. During the course of their conversation, Helena reveals the extent she allowed Mr. Alving’s debauched behaviors to haunt and oppress her.
Instead of escaping Alving and divorcing him, Helena suffered. Manders, who initially reciprocated her love when she turned to him for help, then betrayed her, by “nobly” sending her back to Alving. Uplifting morality, duty, obligation, religious suffering, and social probity, Manders forced her to return to her failed marriage. When she reminds him of their former love which still haunts her, he rebuffs her as if it never happened. By confronting him with additional secrets, Helena upends his complacency. With ironic finality he condemns himself when the fire destroys the orphanage.
Rabe searingly propels Helena to her final self-revelations with heartfelt authenticity. Helena’s expiation of her guilt and recognition of her participation in the fractured existence and hellscape she created in her life with her husband doesn’t prepare her for Oswald’s revelations in the final scenes between them. The final scene filled with powerful tension, the convincing authenticity by Hawke gives Rabe fuel to respond with like emotional grist. Together they hit the bullseye. Just smashing!
Thus, as each of the characters, haunted by what should have been, attempt to extricate themselves with the truth, they only move more closely to the suffering torment they can do nothing about. Only Hawke’s Oswald in the incredible final dialogue with Rabe’s Helena, expresses his hope that his pain will end. But for this, he requires Helena’s complete commitment.
The overall production
From start to finish this exceptional production radiates symmetry, coherence, and intensity. Not only do the creatives establish O’Brien’s vision for this pointed version of Ghosts, they do so with aplomb. The technical creatives include Jess Goldstein (costumes), Japhy Weidman (lighting), Scott Leher and Mark Bennett (sound), John Le Beatty’s sets as mentioned, and Mark Bennett’s original music.
Importantly conveyed by the minimalism of design and dialogue, one understands how the characters live in prisons of their own making, haunted by imprisoned individuals who torture them, even after they are dead. The uniqueness of this select ensemble brings this thematic revelation. One is left with the understanding how we may be haunted by memories we refuse to confront. And as each of the characters experience, by the time we do confront them, it is too late. The damage has been done.
Ghosts runs approximately one hour fifty minutes at Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse. Don’t miss it. https://www.lct.org/shows/ghosts/
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