Haunted by the past
Secret society:
Stephen Downing as Engstrand, Andy Bingham as Oswald and Olivia Rimes as
Regina standing behid Louise Fulwell as Helena Alving and Chris Clarke
as Pastor Manders
Ghosts
The Nonentities
Rose Theatre, Kidderminster
*****
SO, we have an
artist son who returns home dying from inherited syphilis, the disease
that killed his philandering father, and who now wants to marry his half
sister – Henrik Ibsen was not one for fun. His target was the hypocrisy
of stifling 19th
century morality.
That being said Stephen Downing manages to
extract every ounce of humour in a wonderful portrayal of the scheming
Jacob Engstrand – perhaps just as well with wife Susan Downng as
director.
Engstrand is a Jacob-the-lad, a fine carpenter,
when he is sober that is, with a roving eye for the main chance. He has
saved a lot of the money he earned working on the Captain Alving
Memorial Orphanage at Rosenvold, the Alving estate and wants to open a
sailor’s rest, or as we might call it, a brothel, by the docks.
Louise Fulwell gives us a striking performance as
the lady of the house, Mrs Helena Alving, widow of the good captain, but
perhaps all is not as it seems.
Helena has kept two big secrets from her son, her
maid and her spiritual crutch Pastor Manders, who takes pomposity and
hypocrisy to new levels.
She had left her husband a year after
marriage and gone to the Pastor, a family friend who it is obvious she
had feelings for, at least then she did, but he had persuaded her to
return to her husband to protect his own reputation and because he told
her duty as a wife was more important than anything else – the anything
else being the secrets she had keep for more than 20 years.
Chris Clarke gives us a priggish, supercilious
infuriating small town preacher – someone you would suspect believes
battered wives had done something to deserve it, someone impossible to
argue with as logic and common sense have no place in his thinking and
someone so easy to dislike in a delightful performance.
Oswald and Regina who could have been lovers if not for
the ghosts
He gives us such gems of liberal thought as "Only
the rebellious expect happiness in their life" and "it is not for a
woman to be her husband's judge." Fun guy.
There is much more to acting that remembering
lines and not bumping into the furniture too often, that, like costumes,
is just part of the trick, the rest is giving the characters life and
making them into real people with words and actions which seem natural
and this trio managed that beautifully well supported by Andy Bingham as
Oswald and Olivia Rimes as Regina, daughter of Jacob.
Bingham gives us plenty of angst as the dying son
Oswald. His return to the repressive atmosphere of Rosenvold is the
catalyst for revolution when he stands up to the Pastor and challenges
his views on morality. Whether it is to defend her son, or whether
Oswald has just breached the floodgates we will never know, but his
outburst has cleared the way for Helena’s revelations - the ghosts of
the past that have haunted here almost from the day she was first
married.
Olivia Rimes provides another view of the affair
first as the subservient, deferential maid to Mrs Alving and then, when
she discovers the truth, we see real
anger at what she sees as betrayal, the lies and deceit that has kept
her, an equal, as a servant.
We learn the orphanage is a tribute to Helen’s
husband in name only and has a much deeper purpose and when it burns
down we discover the pastor’s morality does not extend as far his own
reputation and he will happily fund a brothel to save his skin.
There are echoes today with corruption and buying
favour and influence and, as a final poser, assisted suicide and mercy
killings, the final issue raised by Ibsen in the closing moments of the
play. It is a question he never answers, just one he poses.
Mrs Alving and her son
Oswald
both carry the scars of her marriage to the
dead Captain
The play was originally written in 1881, in
Danish, while Ibsen was living in Rome and spending a summer in Sorrento
and was published in Copenhagen and first performed in Norwegian in
Chicago in 1882.
Ibsen is not the easiest to perform, it can
easily become a depressing dirge making Norway appear the most miserable
place on earth, sodden under constant rain and populated by intense,
humourless souls in constant torment.
Ghosts was an attack on the morality of its time
and it is interesting how many echoes are still resonating today, helped
by sensitive direction from Sue Downing who keeps up a good pace,
managing to bring the play home in two hours including an interval.
She also allows the characters to speak their
mind with a delivery much closer to Wilde than Ibsen, which, despite the
play being 132 years old gives it a more contemporary feel.
The intimate studio setting puts us in the Alving
living room and Keith Higgins and Mike Lawrence and their team have done
a splendid job with the simple set, particularly the panelled wall as a
backdrop and the
potted plants, live not plastic, which punch well above their
weight in making set look realistic,
while Lynn Ravenhill has done an excellent job with an authentic looking
wardrobe.
With performances like this it is easy to forget
Ibsen is not a favourite of mine. To 12-04-14.
Roger Clarke
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