Ghosts
Well, I saw _Ghosts_ at the Shakespeare Theatre last night. It's a good thing I have a calendar, since I had no idea my tickets were for last night until I looked at said calendar at work.
In any case, I went. Very interesting and powerful production; perhaps as much so as the one of _The Trojan Women_ they did a few years back. The play by Ibsen, which I have never otherwise seen, was adapted to place it in the modern era (1981) from the eighteenth century. I'm sure this was somewhat controversial, but the end result worked very well. The cast was rather small for one of their productions - just five people, all of whom did an excellent job. Jane Alexander as Helen Alving and Alexander Pascal as the doomed Oswald, in a rather moving performance, both in particular deserve mention.
The play itself is, as I see it, about society's expectations and the associated hypocrisy, and the dangers and impossibilties of lying to conform. Apparently, the original version of this play was sufficiently controversial in Norway to raise quote the stir, both because of the themes of hypocrisy and the implicit references to syphilis. Who knew Ibsen was such a rabble-rouser?
So - not an uplifting play, but then it is a tragedy after all. Worth seeing.
In any case, I went. Very interesting and powerful production; perhaps as much so as the one of _The Trojan Women_ they did a few years back. The play by Ibsen, which I have never otherwise seen, was adapted to place it in the modern era (1981) from the eighteenth century. I'm sure this was somewhat controversial, but the end result worked very well. The cast was rather small for one of their productions - just five people, all of whom did an excellent job. Jane Alexander as Helen Alving and Alexander Pascal as the doomed Oswald, in a rather moving performance, both in particular deserve mention.
The play itself is, as I see it, about society's expectations and the associated hypocrisy, and the dangers and impossibilties of lying to conform. Apparently, the original version of this play was sufficiently controversial in Norway to raise quote the stir, both because of the themes of hypocrisy and the implicit references to syphilis. Who knew Ibsen was such a rabble-rouser?
So - not an uplifting play, but then it is a tragedy after all. Worth seeing.