Feature image – Pamela Rabe as Mrs Helene Alving and Robert Menzies as Pastor Manders in ‘Ghosts’. Pic by Brett Boardman.
Dave, one of my close friends, has a pet saying – ‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? He uses it whenever he hears a bad news story, yet another story of man’s inhumanity to man.
Dave’s turn of phrase can be applied to any number of dramas penned by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Actually that is something of an under-estimation…his plays tend to be very harsh. They are explorations into the dark side of life.
Take his play GHOSTS. Ibsen draws us deeply inside the world of Mrs Alving, played by the remarkable Pamela Rabe.
Mrs Alving’s life has been tough, mainly due to a very unhappy marriage – a common scenario for women in Ibsen’s plays. Her late husband, Captain Alving, went to the grave with his reputation as a distinguished military man and respectable family man in tact. The reality was that he was anything but, he was an alcoholic and as well had countless affairs on his wife.
GHOSTS opens with the very pious family Pastor Manders visiting upon Mrs Alving. Another memorable portrayal by Robert Menzies. Pastor Manders has come to officiate at the opening of a new orphanage in town, which Mrs Alving has set up in honour of her husband.
The talk between the two is intimate and frank. Mrs Alving chooses the time to finally reveal to the Pastor her husband’s philandering nature. Then Pastor is in disbelief, the rather naive man of the cloth had always seen the Captain as a pillar of strength and morality.
The Pastor is not the only person that Mrs Alving has been withholding the truth from. She also protected her son Osvald from the truth about his Dad, sending Osvald away to boarding school from a young age.
Osvald has returned to live at home, after studies at University. He is a free spirited and radical thinking young man, incisively portrayed by Tom Conroy. Things go very awry for his mother when Osvald tells her that he wants to marry the housemaid, pretty young thing, Regine, well played by Taylor Ferguson.
Osvald is of the understanding that Regina is the daughter of local knockabout, Jakob Engstrand, with Colin Moody well cast in the role. The truth however is that Regina is Captain Alving’s illegitimate daughter, with Jakob having been asked to step into the role of father to avoid the scandal.
Through the play Ibsen continues to ramp up the pressure. In classic dramatic style, to use an Arthur Miller phrase, ‘all the chickens come home to roost.’
Eamon Flack’s production, from his own adaptation taken from a literal translation by Charlotte Barslund, is strong. Flack runs the play straight through. not allowing an interval in to break the play’s momentum.
Michael Hankin’s compact set of the Alvings’ living room, Julie Lynch’s period costumes, Nick Schlieper’s atmospheric lighting and Stefan Gregory’s edgy soundscape each help in creating the world of the play.
The final scene, a crushing mother and son scene exquisitely played out between Pamela Rabe and Tom Conroy, is unbearably telling.
Recommended, see the play for yourself and watch how Osvald never stands the ghost of a chance…
GHOSTS is playing upstairs at Belvoir Street until 22nd October