Ghosts – Henrik Ibsen

Praxis Theatre Company – Main Stage

First performance: 29 November 2013.

Henrik Ibsen is considered the first great exponent of a cultural movement that departed from the beloved themes of the 19th century and brought everyday life and its sins to the forefront.

The work, written in 1881, is speculated to have been written by Ibsen due to his illegitimate child, whom he had fathered at the age of 18 with a servant girl and acknowledged without ever meeting.

His unsurpassed technical skill, penetrating psychological analysis, symbolism, and poetic theatrical language, all the elements that have characterized Ibsen, coexist in Ghosts.

Helen Alving, the heroine of the play, is destroyed in her attempt to preserve her moral freedom. She respects bourgeois morality but is ultimately defeated, either because she denied her own personality or because the hero of the play, Oswald, is burdened by a terrible inheritance.

Ghosts is a work that incorporates elements from earlier masterpieces of classical and ancient Greek drama. One can clearly see the strong correlation with Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, reflected not only in the almost paranoid relationship between Oswald and his mother but also in his relationship with his father, whose death haunted and ultimately killed him. Like in Oedipus, the heroes of Ibsen’s drama are possessed by the hunger for “revelation”, disregarding the consequences…

Furthermore, the two young people in the play, Oswald and Regina, must inherit the world created by the older generation and navigate within it to realize their dreams and hopes.

Source: www.culturenow.gr