Ghosts

As part of the ongoing series of Henrik Ibsen plays at the Century Center for the Performing Arts, Ghosts is the fourth to be revived in this space, though it is actually the third of Ibsen's plays in chronological order, written in 1881 right after A Doll's House, perhaps his most revered work. Ghosts is an even darker look at the ultimate dysfunctional family headed by Mrs. Alving (Kathleen Garrett), a somber matriarch who tells her detailed past to the rigid Pastor Manders (Mark Elliot Wilson). He's appalled by her strong female will and her handling of a bad marriage to a philandering man who gave her a son, Osvald (Dennis Turney), who has inherited alarming symptoms of an ailment that he can't quite succumb to or find a logical answer for having. Meanwhile, Mrs. Alving is supported by her maid Regina (Heidi Dippold), who has eyes for Osvald and is constantly bombarded by the appearance of Engstrand (Stephen Payne), a drunken lout with shady plans for the Alving business.

Ghosts remains a powerful play even 118 years later, since its themes of familial discord, female suppression and societal ills still hold true today. Century Center's perfectly respectable adaptation, astutely directed by J.C. Compton, works best in the first act, when the play's philosophical musings are most pungent. The production is genuinely gripping in its exchanges between Mrs. Alving and Pastor Manders, wonderfully embodied by Garrett and Wilson, both sturdy performers with robust stage voices who make their presences deeply felt.

The play veers into baroque territory in the later acts, not always unwelcome, but less effective somehow. The other actors give nicely detailed portrayals, but there is a slight tendency toward cartoonish buffoonery (Payne's broad drunk) or soap-operatic huffiness (Dippold's statuesque Regina), and sometimes the play's atmosphere is so overstuffed, you half expect Baby Jane and Blanche to waltz into the Alving home.

Still, this revival gets to the heart of Ibsen's incisive examinations of deep, dark secrets within family units. At times, the play is still shocking in its audacity. Ghosts creates a world of its own, and this production at its best makes it an affair that sticks in the mind, if not exactly in the heart.