Ghosts

Henrik Ibsen

“Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and
you along with it… it’s just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may
come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse.” Ibsen

The characters of Ibsen’s Ghosts seem to be suspended in the mistakes of the past. The transparency of their lies becomes evident through nature’s ability to overwhelm man. Despite Ms. Alving’s attempts at protecting Oswald from her husband, his presence still lingers when syphilis infects her son. All that remains is a mere skeleton of the Victorian home and those within it are left raw and unprotected.

The Nordic landscape painters depict their land with sweeping gestures leaving its inhabitants to fight against the elements. Using these paintings as inspiration, I set the play against that landscape with the frail house framing the action. The white furniture sits perched on slabs of rock behind which looms the orphanage..Ms. Alving invested her inheritance in the construction of an orphanage. This building, in honor of her husband, sits upstage center and when charred, takes on the same skeletal structure as the house frame.

The characters in this landscape maintain the austere clothing of 1880′s Norway. I felt the play needed to be grounded in the era to which it was written, although the questions it raises are fully resonant today.

Oswald is calm about his fate and I believe goes home with the purpose of seeking solace in Regina so that he may die in comfort. For this I felt he needed a casual ease to his clothing. Ms. Alving has always been the foundation of the home and wears a strong silhouette with heavier fabrics that move stiffly with her.

Engstrand is first seen soaking wet and fighting with Regina. I wanted his clothes to have a permanently damp, loose look to them. Regina is fairly simply dressed in matte black with an apron made of light, sheer linen.