Ghosts

We might ask why adapt Ghosts at all?  Of course, this version of the play must stand on its own merits, and there’s not a lot to be gained by comparisons – Ibsen did this, Gallagher does that – but what does matter is the chosen theatrical style and mode of this production – that is, how effectively do the changes to character and emphasis tell the story – and do those changes make the story relevant for contemporary audiences? 

Ibsen was for the most part an exponent of ‘naturalism’.  He wrote of Ghosts specifically, ‘My object was to make the reader [and presumably the spectator] feel that he [sic] was going through a piece of real experience.’  On the other hand, Mitchell Wright says, in an interview, that he and Ibsen are ‘diametrically opposed in regard to [their] theatrical priorities.’  That is clearly demonstrated here. 

Mitchell Wright has given us some very powerful and original theatre.  His Medea at Theatre Works was in no way ‘naturalistic’, but it was visceral in its impact.  But Medea is a mythical tragedy of larger-than-life archetypical characters, already heightened and stylised - even operatic if you like. 

That style, so effective with Medea, feels to me imposed on the intimacy and hidden secrets of Ghosts.  This tale of judgemental religion, conventional ‘morality’, lies, hypocrisy, familial bonds, sexual repression and sexual excess, rape, grubby financial deals, and, centrally, the tragedy of the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children is not at all trivial but it is in fact, however heartbreaking, ordinary, everyday, suffered by human all too human individuals.

But the acting style often becomes declamatory, or proclamatory, in dialogue but especially in the characters’ monologues – which are largely exposition or revelations of inner states.  Then there are strange and indeed distracting directorial choices such as the ritualistic dance with Leahannah Ceff’s portentous music that begins and ends the play.  Regina’s costume changes for no discernible reasons, or Oswald climbing onto the two-storey set’s roof so that we fear for the actor’s safety.  The strange appearances of characters gesticulating or praying outside windows or conducting unheard business in the garden.

Yes, some elements are clearer and stronger – but only per se.  Mrs Alving’s extensive reading of ‘modern’ or ‘nihilist’ books – so strongly opposed by Manders – gives Gallagher the opportunity to introduce Nietzsche’s theory of ‘Eternal Recurrence’ – an entirely apt and gloomy addition to the central theme of ‘ghosts’ that influence, constrict and define us.  Laura Iris Hill succeeds in making this a dismaying and moving moment.  We feel her dread that she might live her entire nightmare over again – and again.  Yet another book enables her to read to us the horrible reality of tertiary syphilis. 

But overall the chosen style, this rhetorical mode, curiously keeps us out – at a distance as it were.  We feel that Mitchell Wright, such a bold and individual director, here pursues a concept, and adds touches and flourishes that don’t illuminate the story he and Gallagher want to tell us.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Daniel Rabin