GHOSTS. Tour to 20 April.

Tour

GHOSTS
by Henrik Ibsen, translated by Stephen Mulrine

English Touring Theatre Tour to 20 April 2002
Runs 2hr 40min Two intervals

Review Timothy Ramsden 10 April at Greenwich Theatre

Integrity and strong, clear performances make this a fine revival.This production is entirely fit-for-purpose - strong, straightforward and neither pre-supposing an audience that brings pre-knowledge of the play, nor one unable to pick up on Ibsen's points.

Neil Warmington's set gives a scrubbed, cold feel to the Alving household – no wonder young Osvald fled it for Parisian bohemia. The mood's intensified by Ben Ormerod's lighting, piercingly clean beams among surrounding gloom, until the final act brings sun and insanity: the ghosts of the past exposed with clarity.

Diana Quick's Helena Alving is stuffed into an elaborate period dress, like respectable insulation for the grief she has kept walled inside her head. It's only when William Chubb's ramrod-like pastor berates her over bringing up Osvald that the voice rises and temper flares.

So there's no surprise when the final horror comes, with its demand that maternal love expresses itself in euthanasia, that she turns from the problem, looking out in desperation to the fjord while her son slumps a mindless wreck in his chair.

It is a surprise, come curtain call, when only five actors take a bow. Stephen Unwin's precise direction respects Ibsen's structuring in mood and pacing, making it seem the intense, significant action must have involved more people.

Partly that's owing to the ensemble nature of the production and the energy from the lower orders. Michael Cronin gives the old rogue Engstrand a bluff dishonesty which easily outplays and manipulates the educated Manders Nursing his leg, sporting solemn formality for the opening of the Captain Alving orphanage, Engstrand's hearty hypocrisy plays respectable society for all its worth.

His daughter, with ideas of her own for advancement, is the only force to match him. Assertive, arms often folded determinedly before her, at times leaning against a wall for defensive support, Jody Watson's Regine could afford more vocal flexibility, but her flirtatious smiles and joking curtsy with the besotted Osvald show clearly how she's mapped her future. And she reaches a final defiance when she learns who her real father was, rebuking Mrs Alving for her servant's upbringing and angrily hanging her maid's apron on the family's coathooks.

Pastor Manders: William Chubb
Jakob Engstrand: Michael Cronin
Osvald Alving: Daniel Evans
Mrs Alving: Diana Quick
Regine: Jody Watson

Director: Stephen Unwin
Designer: Neil Warmington
Lighting: Ben Ormerod
Sound: Tom Lishman
Composer: Corin Buckeridge

2002-04-11 12:52:10