A Small Mind At The Theatre

I was very much looking forward to seeing the new Made In Northampton version of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts , as I had heard on the grapevine nice things about the early previews. Maybe my hopes had been raised too much? Widow Helen Alving is about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in the memory of her late husband, Captain Alving. However, with her son Oswald home after her having banished him away from the family home for his own good, and Pastor Manders visiting on a rare occasion, hidden stories of the past, ghosts, come to bear changing life in the Alving house forever. Ibsen was very much a forward and often controversial thinker with his plays, and here is no different, this is challenging and controversial material for the time, and indeed even now the morals held within have great bearing. It's clearly a brilliant play, however, there are too many issues with this production to make it a perfect version. The opening scene is a tough one to get into, a confron...

I always approach my first encounter with such well-renowned playwrights with a touch of trepidation, be they Pinter, Miller, Williams or B.G.S, I fear that while I feel I need to like them, simply because, I am concerned that I might not. Fortunately, all of those listed, I have got on with and we don't mention the ones that I haven't. So, anyway, here we are, a few years down the line of aggressive theatre-going, and I come to my very first meeting with the work of Henrik Ibsen. Yes, it's true. This brand new version of Hedda Gabler for the modern age is by Patrick Marber, a playwright I have seriously loved every previous encounter with. Here he and director Ivo van Hove brings the 1890 original bang up to date, with video entry systems and modern dress to Ibsen's words and a collection of other modern tinges. At the heart of Hedda Gabler is, unsurprising, the title character, a nasty, strong, yet also a childlike character in equal measure. I like my own chi...