Theatre review: Ghosts

Ghosts is probably my favourite Ibsen play and one of the most frequently-produced; both things may or may not be connected to it being comparatively short. In fact while watching Kwame Owusu's production at Jermyn Street I did think maybe I could do with a break from it for a while as I'm a bit too familiar with every beat of the story to be surprised by any of it, although as with Shakespeare there's always the chance to see what particular angle each production will take. In this case the overwhelming feeling is one of sickness, of an atmosphere as steeped in disease as a Southern Rail service at rush hour. And not just because this is The Congenital Syphilis Play. Oswald (Joe Pitts) has returned from art school in Paris to his family's remote Norwegian home for the tenth anniversary of his father's death, to be marked with the opening of an orphanage in his honour.

But he's also coming home because he's been getting increasingly sick - his doctor says he must have inherited the disease from his father, but as his mother has always insisted her late husband was a virtuous pillar of the community, Oswald is sure he must be paying for some moral failing of his own.

But Helene's (Flora Montgomery) decade-long campaign celebrating her late husband has been an elaborate distraction technique from his relentless sleeping around with prostitutes as well as the staff - the maid Regina (Cecilia Appiah) is his secret illegitimate daughter. But the truth is going to have to come out now, not least because Oswald and Regina have started flirting heavily in French, unaware that they're siblings.

Owusu uses the Richard Eyre translation of the play which can feel quite dry at times, although maybe it's a blessing it isn't more florid as the production isn't afraid of the ick factor, right from the start as it becomes uncomfortably obvious how much everyone is keen to tell Regina how much she's grown up and filled out, starting with the man she believes to be her father, Jacob (Peter F Gardiner.) He's very keen for her to come and work at the refuge for sailors he wants to set up, which could not be more transparently a brothel.

Helene's convoluted way of hiding her husband's true nature borders on a delusional mental illness to rival what the syphilis is doing to her son's brain, but the sickest-seeming character is one who has nothing wrong with him that we know of: Oliver Alvin-Wilson is weepy-eyed, nervy and twitchy as Pastor Manders, the self-proclaimed arbiter of morality who in reality is so focused on self-preservation he keeps throwing people he claims to care about under the bus with terrible advice.

The mausoleum-like feel of Cara Evans' dark wood sitting room combined with Ben Ormerod's ever-decreasing lighting make the tiny theatre feel even more claustrophobic, which isn't always a helpful thing in a production that makes you feel steeped in sickness. It is one with a distinct identity of its own though: Ibsen's disgust at hypocrisy and the damage it can do even generations down the line is never far from the surface in Ghosts; in this production that disgust is so tangible you might need a shower afterwards.

Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen in a version by Richard Eyre is booking until the 14th of November at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: David Monteith-Hodge.