Ghosts @ Sam Wanamaker Playhouse…

This afternoon Stuart and I went to see a candlelit version of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London's glitzy London Bridge Quarter.    

It was an afternoon of loss, abuse, self-denial, lies, snobbishness, debauchery, illegitimacy, incest, disease, suicide, arson, and evangelical pomposity. And that was just in the foyer.    

In this new version of this potent Ibsen drama, Hattie Morahan's haunted widow never loosens her grip on the audience.  She plays Helene Alving, a rich widow stifled by several awkward relationships: with her son Osvald (Stuart Thompson), an artist who has recently been living in Paris; with Manders (Paul Hilton) here called Father, the local pastor to whom she was at one time attracted; and with her dead husband, whose memory she has chosen to honour by building an orphanage. 

There is also friction between her, her maid Regina (Sarah Slimani), and Jacob Engstrand (Greg Hicks), the devious hypocrite who is generally understood to be Regina’s father.  

But there is a secret hiding. A secret that will bring the house down. 

The play is superb - the acting top notch.   

I cried at the raw emotion in the final scene. Bravo.