Live Performance Review - Ghosts

Images courtesy of Daniel Rabin.

The sins of the father are visited upon the children.

Like any good ghost story, this performance begins with an ominous religious sermon, paired with twitching limbs and fever-fuelled praising of the lord as it promises viewers a wild tale of societal hypocrisy, morality, and sinfulness. Opening the play with a scene not present in Henrik Ibsen’s original Danish 1881 iteration of the play Ghosts was risky on writer Jodi Gallagher’s behalf. Still, it works well to establish that this is a new tale, a different tale, but one just as relevant as the original. Most of Gallagher’s adjustments are subtle; it’s not revolutionary in any way. Instead, she has adapted the script with the care of a historian, merely adding fabric to mend the frays of time around the original vision. The most significant change of all was moving the original setting from the freezing fjords of Western Norway to the local Australian bush. 

Here, the five-person play centres around the widowed Mrs Alving (Laura Iris Hill absolutely steals the show in this role) as she prepares to dedicate an orphanage in honour of her late husband with the very wanted help of the Pastor (Phillip Hayden) and the very unwanted wanted help from the carpenter (Oliver Cowen). Her son Oswald (Gabriel Cali) has also chosen this day to return from his bohemian life as an artist in Paris, whilst her maid Regina (Kira May Samu) ponders starting upon a new trajectory in life. As the evening unfolds, tensions build, relationships fracture, and long-suppressed truths begin to flee their past to haunt their budding futures. 

The plot is fast; the entire play takes place over one day and one night, with the characters themselves serving as an eerie anthropomorphised version of a cuckoo clock, dramatically calling out the time whenever the hour ends. From the beginning, you find yourself at the edge of your seat, waiting for whatever the impending countdown is leading towards. Yet, at no point do you feel rushed; director Steven Mitchell Wright ensures a steady pace, allowing the drama to slowly unfurl with each passing conversation. The set design complements perfectly, with an open multilevel set of the house enabling us to further analyse the characters, not only when they are performing for us, but in stolen moments, lurking in the background as other characters soliloquy away. It’s in this haunting that the ghosts of their past are seen.

However, be warned, despite the title Ghosts, this is no supernatural tale of evil ghosts and wicked magic; Ibsen is, after all, the father of realism and loathed the English translation of his play title. He much preferred the original Danish title Gengangere, which more closely translates to ‘˜The Ones Who Return.’ Wright and Gallagher’s rendition centres this humanist view, showing that the supernatural is not necessary for a haunting; humans are troubled enough to bring it upon themselves. And whilst themes like venereal disease and euthanasia are no longer as taboo now as they were in Ibsen’s time, the play does not come across as dated. After all, intergenerational trauma remains as relevant as ever, if not more so in the modern world. 

So if you’re into complex sinners, the inverse of the hot priest from Fleabag, provocative theatre, and social hypocrisy, then Ghosts is the play for you. 

4 out of 5 stars.

Ghosts runs at Theatre Works from the 30th May to the 15th of June. For tickets and more info, click here.