Ibsen’s Ghosts is a serious challenge for anyone to update and adapt. This production falls unfortunately short of meeting that challenge, despite some bright moments.
We follow a rich family of mother, Helena, and her difficult son, Oz, as they prepare for the grand opening of a children’s hospital using the money of Carl, Helena’s recently deceased husband. All this is complicated by the presence of Andersen, a lawyer helping to launch the hospital and an old flame of Helena, and Reggie and Jacob, who have worked for Helena and her family for a long time. Soon, all of the buried skeletons come out of the closet, and there is manipulation, suicide threats, and incest.
Sadly, where Ibsen’s original is a masterpiece of writing, Gary Owen’s update is not of the same ilk. His adaptation certainly does the work of making the piece feel very current, but there are all sorts of issues with it structurally, not least that for a play set exclusively in one room, the main means used to get information into the scenes is lengthy, expositional monologues. In doing this, the writing saps the power from some of its stronger points and because much of the subtext and internal emotional states of the characters is told directly to us, the characters themselves become very two-dimensional. There are some very funny jokes early on and some punchy lines, but equally there are plenty of bad ones, such as, ‘I thought your life was one thing, but it turns out it was completely the opposite’ and Owen’s treatment of rape in the play feels very ham-fisted.
Why Owen also felt the need to cut away the original’s discussion of syphilis and religion is also unclear, as without them the heart of the play is reduced to incest and money. As my friend pointed out, when the moral centre of the play is shifted from faith and adherence to strict social rules into being just about money, the moral dilemmas are simultaneously reduced. Similarly, the inflation of the incest narrative in this production makes it effectively a comic device, wringing agonised, but not really shocked, oos and ahhs from the audience. Nothing about it is genuinely disturbing – unlike The Other Place’s spitting-in-mouth sequence – with the many laughs in the audience pointing to the lack of moral weight needed to make the drama pay off. This is Ghosts: The Comedy.
It must be said that some of the performances are of real quality despite this. The best is Victoria Smurfit, who brings some real emotional weight through her journey between victim and perpetrator, and Callum Scott Howells is very funny as Oz, which works a treat in the first half, though contributes to the tone problems of the play as it goes on.
Really the cast are let down by their script and by the directorial and design choices. In between some of the tensest scenes of the second half we are treated to almost dracula-esque pieces of music and vast lighting states that are over the top. Characters also make over-use of the two side walls of the stage, constantly pressing themselves or each other against it to show fear, nervousness, anger, lust, and boredom, with a repetitive effect. Having the back wall be a constant cloud of smoke onto which the ghostly shadows of the actors are occasionally cast is a very neat trick, but as an image, it doesn’t really further our story nor allow the actors to explore the space on stage.
Mostly then, this play is a disappointment, because a retelling of Ibsen at such a large stage should produce more exciting results. Only a few sections of this production shine, however, and its handling of serious themes is at best a bit misplaced, and at worst quite damaging, turning serious topics of drama into shock points to grab an audience’s attention. Not everyone has seen this production this way, for sure, and the house overall seemed pleased. Despite that, however, my experience was of a deeply misplaced update on a much better original.
Reviewer: Ralph Jeffreys
Reviewed: 16th April 2025
North West End UK Rating: