Ghosts review, Almeida

The strangest thing about this wonderful play set in the Scandinavian winter, was how much the three men in the cast were sweating. Will Keen as the righteous, unbending, and ultimately corrupt-as-all-the-rest pastor, was literally leaking from his beard as he criss-crossed the stage. At one point when Lesley Manville, wonderful as the waspish widow, Helene, reaches out for him, some of us recoiled in our seats at the grossness of it. In that moment Ghosts were preferable to reality.

Praising the dead

These were small diversions in a taut 90 minutes of refreshing and profound dialogue: a literal translation of the original Ibsen by Charlotte Barslund. Ghosts is about a past that cannot die. The middle section is a feminist delight. Helene, who endured a miserable marriage at the Pastor's insistence, forces him to stop using God as a shield and face some ugly truths. But in deconstructing the tyranny of marital ties, Helene is faced with her own truths: years of lies and covering up her husbands abuses to meet the Church and society's expectations. Only her son, Oswald, is free to be who he wants. Or is he?

When the orphanage Helene has built to be rid of her husband's money, burns to dust, it's an ashes-to-ashes moment. But while painful memories can be ritually jettisoned, the living legacy of the dead cannot. For Oswald, the Ghosts still walk alongside.

In conclusion: Richard Eyre elegantly directs a pukka cast. Manville and Charlene McKenna as the maid, Regina, are a delight, as are their shiny male co-stars: Keen, Brian McCardie and Jack Lowden. Tim Hatley has created a fabulous set which allows us to see through the main room into the dining area behind and the lobby beyond that,

References
Almeida Theatre, Tickets

Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, London N1 1TA.  Run ends 23 Nov.