If the title of Ibsen’s 1881 tragedy about toxic family inheritance stands as a metaphor for the way the past continues to haunt us, this production makes that idea literal. It begins with the lighting of candles, rather like the start of a séance, bringing characters to life before they are snuffed out at the end.
A play that dealt in bold subject matter for its time (from venereal disease and incest to euthanasia and critiques of the nuclear family), it sounds crisply modern in Joe Hill-Gibbins’ adaptation. Also directing, he divests the drama of its naturalistic qualities.
