Ghosts, Almeida/Rose, Kingston - theatre review

Ibsen’s brisk, gloomy masterpiece about the sins of the father being visited upon the son is currently enjoying two simultaneous revivals both staged by directors who are working with their own new versions of the text
7 October 2013

Ghosts, Almeida ★★★★✩

Ghosts, Rose Kingston ★★★✩✩

Two cases of inherited syphilis in the same week: it’s been an eventful few days for London theatre. Ibsen’s brisk, gloomy masterpiece about the sins of the father being visited upon the son is currently enjoying two simultaneous revivals, at the Almeida and the Rose, Kingston, both staged by directors who are working with their own new versions of the text. As has happened too often in its brief history, the plucky Rose comes off decidedly second-best.

Stephen Unwin’s production in Kingston is like the fading second carbon copy on an old typewriter of what the indefatigable Richard Eyre, directing the fourth of his five major productions this year, has come up with in Islington. From the start of its hurtling, interval-free 90 minutes, Eyre’s staging is compellingly vibrant, with an assured sense of itself. His translation is direct and robust, pushing Ibsen’s nuances to their limit (and, occasionally, comprising phrases that are far too modern. Surely no one in 1881 said, “He slept with the girl”?) Eyre has fine form in this area, having previously adapted and directed an award-winning Hedda Gabler at this same theatre.

As Mrs Alving, the widow of a debauched philanderer who sent her beloved only son away at a young age so that he might escape the “poisonous” atmosphere at home, the fine Lesley Manville starts out exasperated and witty and thus has a scintillatingly long way to fall.

There’s an intriguing sense of the beginnings of a liberal, independent life that she has started to carve out for herself in this suffocating Norwegian backwater, watched over by the disapproving Pastor Manders

(Will Keen, wonderful with his pedantic expression and pinched tone). Tim Hatley’s striking set, of once elegant mirrors now tarnished, reveals shadows — or perhaps ghosts — in the rooms beyond.

An interval followed by a 25-minute second-half doesn’t help the momentum over in Kingston but then there’s little suggestion of very much being at stake on this too-wide stage, with its design inspired by Munch’s work for the 1906 Berlin production.

This staging, like so much at the theatre which Unwin now leaves as artistic director, is steady but uninspired. What it isn’t is the very thing Ghosts should be: a spring-coiled five-hander of secrets and lies setting off dramatic fireworks in a single room.

Nonetheless, Kelly Hunter’s pale Mrs Alving is moving and eloquent in her quiet anguish.

At the Almeida until November 23 (020 7359 4404, almeida.co.uk) and the Rose until Saturday (08444 821 556, rosetheatrekingston.org)

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