Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Ghosts in Henrik Ibsen\u2019s 1881 play are not of the supernatural variety \u2014 no bumps in the night or spooky goings-on. Yet you might assume as much if you heard the audience gasps in Gary Owen\u2019s gripping new version, led by flintily excellent Callum Scott Howells. It\u2019s quite something that, in the hands of Owen and director Rachel O\u2019Riordan, this desolate tale of secrets and lies still has the power to shock.No theatre would stage Ibsen\u2019s coruscating play when it was first written, managers shying away from the Norwegian\u2019s frank treatment of incest, venereal disease and social hypocrisy. Owen strips away some of the details to make the drama work in a contemporary context. So when young Oswald \u2014 Oz here \u2014 returns to his family home to mark the opening of a charitable institution in his deceased father\u2019s name, he\u2019s not suffering from inherited syphilis. (In Ibsen\u2019s original it was a physical symptom of the damage handed down from father to son.) Instead, Owen focuses on the psychological scars that the dead man inflicted on everyone present, and the toxic legacy of secrets and abuse.At first, it\u2019s bitterly funny. Scott Howells\u2019s Oz, a spiky, sullen presence, pads through the living room in his underpants, dropping one-liners with perfect timing. \u201cDon\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not all for me,\u201d he chirps blithely as he makes off to his room with a couple of bottles of vintage wine. He and his mother, Helena, a cagey, brittle Victoria Smurfit, spar and smoulder, as Oz makes plain his resentment at being sent away to school at an early age. But gradually the truths creep out: Oz\u2019s sharp tongue arises from a deep self-loathing and painful desire for affection; Helena\u2019s defensiveness is born out of years of arming herself against a cheating, coercive husband. And then when Oz and Helena\u2019s young maid Reggie, played with fierce integrity by Patricia Allison, become close, a terrible truth emerges.In this reworking we feel acutely the theme of parenthood: in Helena\u2019s story, in the demands of local builder Jacob (Deka Walmsley), who helped to cover up a scandal in the family by taking in Reggie as his own and now wants his dues, and in the nature of the institution set to be opened. In Ibsen\u2019s text it\u2019s an orphanage, here it\u2019s a hospital for sick children. We do lose some of the wider critique, however. The original is in part a broadside against widespread social hypocrisy. When we learn that Helena once tried to flee her toxic marriage but was sent back by Pastor Manders (who here becomes suave lawyer Andersen), it\u2019s more to do with the personal history between them than social opprobrium.There\u2019s an element of melodrama to the production and it takes a while to settle: initially the prickly conversation between Helena and Rhashan Stone\u2019s Andersen feels sticky and burdened by exposition. But it\u2019s still a riveting moral and emotional rollercoaster. O\u2019Riordan\u2019s taut production ratchets up the tension on Merle Hensel\u2019s spare, symbolic set: a smart leather sofa and expensive drinks cabinet adrift against the backdrop of a huge translucent window, beyond which the mist swirls and eddies. And looming over everything are hulking images on the wall of the dead man, who haunts everyone onstage.\u00a0\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606To May 10, lyric.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Ghosts in Henrik Ibsen\u2019s 1881 play are not of the supernatural variety \u2014 no bumps in the night or spooky goings-on. Yet you might assume<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":280527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-280526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280528,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280526\/revisions\/280528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}