GHOSTS WILL POSSESS YOU
The world is full of ghosts, and some of them are still people.
—Peter Straub, The Throat
Outstanding performances from a first-rate cast and Jack O’Brien’s expert direction make his staging of Mark O’Rowe’s new version of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, currently playing at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, a riveting experience from start to finish.
Hamish Linklater and Ella Beatty
Set on a dreary island off the coast of Norway, Ghosts centers around Helen Alving (Lily Rabe), a widow who’s just completed construction on an orphanage that she had built to honor the memory of her dead husband. To the public, as well as to Mrs. Alving’s devoted spiritual advisor Pastor Manders (Billy Crudup), her gesture looks like an admirable example of a devoted wife keeping alive the memory of her loving, virtuous, and well-respected spouse. Yet we quickly learn that all was far from blissful in the Alving household. And as secrets long-kept come to light, characters question their past deeds and motivations, their recollections of events, as well as how they see themselves and the world around them.
Lily Rabe and Billy Crudup
Besides Helen and the Pastor, there’s Helen’s son Oswald Alving (Levon Hawke) who’s come to visit from Paris. His mother sent him away to school when he was a child, and now he’s a bright and lovely bohemian painter living in the City of Light. We meet Regina (Ella Beatty), Mrs. Alving’s pretty, flirtatious young maid who is studying French, as well as Regina’s dubious alcoholic father Engstrand (Hamish Linklater), whose current ambition is to build a hostel for sailors.
Lily Rabe and Billy Crudup
The action is both intimate and immediate on John Lee Beatty’s simple but effective set, which gives room for actors to roam and for energy and tension to build. And the thrust stage, lit with subtlety by Japhy Weidman, adds both to the vulnerability and accessibility of the characters.
Ella Beatty, Levon Hawke and Lily Rabe
My one issue with Ibsen’s mostly brilliant work is the last scene, which feels like it was tacked on from another play. I feel like it’s meant to drive Ibsen’s point home, but (at least in this production) its dramatic energy doesn’t flow with the rest of the story, and ultimately it feels like it’s either too little or too much. That said, Ghosts is a satisfying, enriching show, the kind of show that makes you glad you went to the theater.
Lily Rabe and Levon Hawke
photos by Jeremy Daniel
Billy Crudup as Pastor Manders
Ghosts
Lincoln Center Theater
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, 150 West 65th St
1 hour 50 minutes, no intermission
ends on April 26, 2025
for tickets, visit LCT
Lily Rabe as Helena Alving
