Henrik Ibsen stood in the midst of a maelstrom. The publication of the text of Ghosts (1881) had critics seething; they accused the playwright of over-stepping the bounds of decency, undermining the social fabric, and corrupting the very art of playwriting. Ibsen shrugged them off--he guessed from the first that the play's daring outstripped its era.
With great happiness, Mrs. Alving (Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee Uma Thurman) welcomes her painter son Oswald (Tom Pecinka) home from years of living abroad. But when he starts to flirt with the family maid (Catherine Combs), she must intercede to save her son and herself from scandals present and past. Mrs. Alving struggles to find joy in a life bound by the strictures of Pastor Manders (Bernard White) and the spectral chains of mistakes from long ago.
Directed by Carey Perloff, Henrik Ibsen‘s vivid and passionate play asks – even now – how far one mother, caught between duty and desire, can or should go to protect her family.
NEW TRANSLATION
