Theater: Ibsen’s “Ghosts” with Lily Rabe and Billy Crudup

Before Henrik Ibsen’s play “Ghosts” was ever staged, it was published in 1881–over 10,000 copies were printed. Few people bought one, and furthermore, no theaters in Scandinavia would touch it. When the play was finally staged in the UK, London’s Daily Telegraph called it “abominable.”

That was then. But I suspect that when “Ghosts” officially opens at Lincoln Center Theater, it may also cause a commotion, but a good one. Because the play, a scathing commentary on 19th-century morality, features a constellation of stars not often seen together on stage.

Lily Rabe plays Helen Alving, a widow living on a remote Norwegian island some time in the 1880s. As the play opens, she has just welcomed her son Oswald (Levon Hawke, son of Ethan and Uma Thurman) home from Paris, where he has been living the life of a starving artist. The reason for his return: to celebrate the opening of an orphanage dedicated to his late father.

Helen is visited by her friend Pastor Manders (Billy Crudup), who shows her a passel of documents she must sign before the orphanage is officially opened. The conversation takes an ugly turn, however, as he begins to lecture Helen on her “immoral” ways, including having “abandoned” her husband so many years ago. Helen, who considers herself a paragon of respectability, fires back and reveals never-before-told secrets about her supposedly happy marriage.

In the midst of this conversation, Oswald appears, serves himself a few drinks, and begins flirting with Regina, the household’s pretty maid (Ella Beatty, daughter of Warren). Regina is equally smitten with him, and is tempted to accept his offer to return with him back to Paris, if only to escape having to choose between a) a lonely life on the island or b) rejoining her dissolute father Engstrand (Hamish Linklater). He has plans to build a refuge for sailors on the mainland and wants her to work for him.

Step by step, the play reveals each character’s secrets (their “ghosts”). The upshot is that those in life who seem the most respectable (e.g., the pastor) and the most upright (Mrs. Alving) usually have the biggest secrets to keep.

The cast includes three “nepo” babies (besides Hawke and Beatty, Lily Rabe is the daughter of Jill Clayburgh and David Rabe) who demonstrate they have the artistic chops to shine on their own. Rabe and Hawke’s final mother-son scene is so fraught with emotion that if it does not bring you to tears, you must certainly have ice water in your veins. Crudup is also excellent as the hypocritical pastor whose integrity can be bought.

Directed by Jack O’Brien, the play has a simple, handsome set by John Lee Beatty, lighting by Japhy Weideman and atmospheric music by Mark Bennett all of which add tension that leads the play to its explosive finale.

As one critic summed up the play: “Regular tragedy deals mainly with the unhappy consequences of breaking the moral code. ‘Ghosts,’ on the contrary, deals with the consequences of not breaking it.”

Once the play officially opens and the raves appear, tickets will be as scarce as a 90-degree day in Bergen, Norway. So get ‘em while they’re hot, and while our New York City winter is anything but.

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