After several years abroad, Helena Alving’s son has returned home. He carries with him a terrifying secret. Ibsen’s Ghosts is a devastating moral thriller in which ideas of love, duty and family are mercilessly put to the test. This spectacular new version, written by one of Ireland’s leading playwrights, Mark O’Rowe, and directed by Jack O’Brien, grabs you by the throat from the outset and refuses to let go – all the way to its electrifying climax.
Jack O’Brien’s new attempt on Ibsen’s reviled and—eventually—revered truth-bomb doesn’t so much answer that question as sub it out for another less interesting one: What happens if you put a bunch of famous people in the show and, for the majority of its 110 minutes, play it pretty straight? In a streamlined, surprisingly low-key new translation by the Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe, this Ghosts doesn’t exactly founder, but it doesn’t haunt or horrify either. It feels stuck between times and impulses: 1880s Norway or now? Stylized or not? Unashamedly tragic or vaguely ironic?
Distasteful though that is, it’s good drama, and 'Ghosts' remains a provocative, engrossing work, to which O’Brien’s production does justice. It also does justice to the idea of provocative, engrossing work in the first place. 'Ghosts' is the 14th and presumably final collaboration between O’Brien and André Bishop, Lincoln Center Theater’s producing artistic director, who is stepping down at the end of this season after 33 years with the company. Their notable productions of Hellman, Stoppard, Shakespeare and others have earned them this warm valedictory moment. And yet not totally valedictory. As 'Ghosts' demonstrates, men’s imprints do not fade so easily. And nothing is ever as haunted as a stage.
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| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
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| 2025 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play | Lily Rabe |
| 2025 | Drama League Awards | DISTINGUISHED PERFORMANCE | Lily Rabe |
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