GHOSTS To 22 August.

London.

GHOSTS
by Henrik Ibsen new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz from a literal translation by Charlotte Barslund.

Arcola Theatre 27 Arcola Street E8 2DJ To 22 August 2009.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 15, 22 Aug 3pm.
Post-show discussion 5, 10 Aug.
Runs 1hr 50min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7503 1646.
www.arcolatheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 July.

Revival with interesting ideas but not ultimately haunting.
Henrik Ibsen was a master of realistic detail. At the Arcola Ghosts has a realistic setting; designer Alex Eales’ glass-panelled rear wall allows a contrast between rain outside and the light within. Jon Clark ensures the colourless, barely varying illumination creates a coldness reflecting characters’ relationships.

This lighting, always slightly underpowered, creates an intimate intensity till lights are doused at dawn, leaving the room silhouetted by the sun. Its unrelenting impact is ultimately unrealistic, though it emphasises the confidential intensity of Helena Alving’s conversations with her son and Pastor Manders, who puts marriage above everything, condemns modern ideas and misjudges everyone.

Several ghosts, inheritances from the past which characters bear, occupy Ibsen’s play, which Rebecca Lenkiewicz subtitles “those who return”, bringing out the Norwegian title’s significance of the past’s impact on the present. Her economical language incorporates modern phrasings that work with the 19th-century look to give immediacy.

The Arcola’s roof has never seemed lower, compressing the mood further, along with intense, low-volume playing creating a rare sense of compacted emotion – fitting especially the early scene between Mrs Alving and Pastor Manders, in whom Paul Hickey finds both the authoritarian and simplistic sides.

But the intense low-key playing irons out moods. Exceptions – Helena clutching at Manders, the raised, despairing voices near the end - seem overly theatrical. Suzanne Burden’s alive to every point in the script but Mrs Alving remains emotionally distant, while Harry Lloyd’s Osvald seems uninterested in anything much, whether the Parisian bohemianism he approves or a Regine who’s less openly venal than usual (where, incidentally, between working-class English Engstrand and the middle-class English Alvings did Natasha Broomfield’s Regine acquire her Scottish accent?).

This is sometimes well enough but detracts from the final crisis, which is both over-contrived - Osvald setting a chair to face the sun as if aware his final breakdown from syphilis (Lenkiewicz names names) is imminent - and underwhelming, played briefly and distantly in near-darkness.

Perhaps Jim Bywater’s Engstrand comes out best, hiding his manipulative mind under head-hanging guilt and cap-clutching humility. He provides an energy otherwise missing from this cool, sometimes impressive, sometimes perverse production.

Mrs Alving: Suzanne Burden.
Osvald: Harry Lloyd.
Pastor Manders: Paul Hickey.
Engstrand: Jim Bywater.
Regine: Natasha Broomfield.

Director: Bijan Sheibani.
Designer: Alex Eales.
Lighting: Jon Clark.
Sound: Emma Laxton.
Assistant director: Rikki Henry.

2009-07-28 23:49:49