When Henrik Ibsen published Ghosts in 1881 – plays then were often released as texts with no production scheduled – the content (sexual transgression, venereal disease, suicide) so shocked many booksellers that they banned it. The book was reviewed in newspapers but with such fury that no Norwegian theatre would stage it; Chicago hosted the world premiere the following year. The playwright was so shaken that he wrote a great drama about ostracism, An Enemy of the People.
Almost a century and a half later, and with anything going in most areas of life, it’s tough for a modern production to still deliver a Ghosts spooked by taboos. But Rachel O’Riordan’s staging of Gary Owen’s new version achieves it.
