Ghosts Henrik Ibsen

Reaction to the script

Ghosts was published in Copenhagen on 13 December 1881 in an edition of 10,000 copies.[2] It caused a firestorm of public outcry,[2] and most of the 10,000 copies did not sell, which was financially a severe blow for Ibsen.[2][12] A subsequent print run of the text was not published until 1894.[2]

The play was initially sent to a number of Nordic theaters, including the Royal Theater in Copenhagen, the Nya Teatern and Dramaten in Stockholm, and the Christiania Theater, but all of them rejected the play.[2] In the early 1880s, the play was generally rejected by all major European playhouses, including those in Norway.[12]

Upon the publication of the text,[2] Ibsen's contemporaries found the play shocking and indecent and disliked its frank treatment of the forbidden topic of venereal disease. At the time, the mere mention of venereal disease was scandalous, and to show that a person who followed society's ideals of morality was at risk from her own husband was considered beyond the pale. According to Richard Eyre, "There was an outcry of indignation against the attack on religion, the defence of free love, the mention of incest and syphilis."[9]

Premiere and subsequent 19th-century productions

Ghosts premiered in May 1882 in the United States, produced in Danish for Scandinavian immigrants by a Danish-Norwegian cast in Chicago, at the Aurora Turner Hall.[2][13]

The first performance in Sweden was at Helsingborg on 22 August 1883.[11]

Ghosts was produced in Norway in October 1883, and it received good reviews.[2][9]

It was produced independently in September 1889 at Berlin's Die Freie Bühne.[14]

The play achieved a single private London performance on 13 March 1891 at the Royalty Theatre, which was its English-language premiere.[13] The issue of Lord Chamberlain's Office censorship, because of the subject matter of illegitimate children and sexually transmitted disease, was avoided by the formation of a subscription-only Independent Theatre Society to produce the play. Its members included playwright George Bernard Shaw and authors Thomas Hardy and Henry James.[15] The play was reviled in the press. In a typical review at the time, The Daily Telegraph referred to it as "Ibsen's positively abominable play entitled Ghosts.... An open drain: a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly.... A lazar house with all its doors and windows open ... Gross, almost putrid indecorum.... Literary carrion.... Crapulous stuff".[16]

In 1898 when Ibsen was presented to King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway, at a dinner in Ibsen's honour, the King told Ibsen that Ghosts was not a good play. After a pause, Ibsen exploded, "Your Majesty, I had to write Ghosts!"[9]

Ghosts had its first New York City production on 5 January 1894. It was produced again in 1899 by the New York Independent Theatre with Mary Shaw as Mrs. Alving.

Russian actress Alla Nazimova, with Paul Orleneff, gave a notable production of Ghosts in a small room on the Lower East Side. When Nazimova was a student in Russia, she wanted to "play Regina for my graduation piece at the dramatic school at Moscow, but they would not let me. Ghosts was at that time prohibited by the censor, because it reflects on the Church."[11]

20th- and 21st-century productions

The play later received many European performances. In its 1906 production in Berlin, the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch was commissioned to create the original stage designs.[17]

On 4 May 1962, the play was performed in the Theatre Sala Chopin in Mexico City with Mexican actress and Hollywood star Dolores del Río in the role of Mrs. Alving.[18]

A Broadway revival of Ghosts ran from 30 August to 2 October 1982 at the Brooks Atkinson Theater in New York City, and starred Kevin Spacey as Oswald in his Broadway debut. The cast included Edward Binns, John Neville (who also directed the production) as Pastor Manders, Liv Ullmann as Mrs. Alving, and Jane Murray as Regina.[19] The production opened originally at the Eisenhower Theater in Washington's Kennedy Center on July 19, 1982.[20]

A touring UK production, designed by Simon Higlett and inspired by Edvard Munch's original stage designs for a 1906 staging in Berlin, began performances at Rose Theatre Kingston in the United Kingdom on 19 September 2013, prior to an official opening on 25 September. Directed by Stephen Unwin, the cast included Patrick Drury as Pastor Manders, Florence Hall as Regina, Kelly Hunter as Mrs Alving, and Mark Quartley as Oswald.[17]

An award-winning 2013–14 London production opened at the Almeida Theatre on 26 September 2013 and transferred to the West End at Trafalgar Studios on 9 December, running through 22 March 2014.[21] Adapted and directed by Richard Eyre, it featured Lesley Manville, Jack Lowden, Will Keen, Charlene McKenna, and Brian McCardie. Manville and Lowden won Olivier Awards for their performances;[22] Manville also won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress, and Lowden also won the Ian Charleson Award.[23][24] Eyre won the Evening Standard Award for Best Director.[25] The production also won the Olivier Award for Best Revival, and received Olivier Award nominations for Best Director and Best Lighting Design. A filmed February 2014 performance of the production screened in more than 275 UK and Irish cinemas on 26 June 2014.[26][27][28] The entire filmed performance can be viewed online.[28][29] The production was also adapted for radio by director Richard Eyre, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 15 December 2013 and re-broadcast on 26 April 2015.[30] Eyre's production was presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Spring 2015, where Ben Brantley in The New York Times called it "possibly the best Ghosts you'll ever see".[31]

In 2014 a Chinese-Norwegian co-production entitled Ghosts 2.0 was produced in Beijing, commissioned by Ibsen International and directed by Wang Chong, who had started the Chinese New Wave Theater Movement. The multimedia performance used four cameras on the stage, giving the audience different perspectives.[32][33][34]

In 2019, Uma Thurman led a revival at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.