“Ibsen’s ideas were so startling that they struck the smug, complacent society of the time with force of a tidal wave, and revolutionized not only plays but the pattern of thought of men and women everywhere.” – Eva Le Gallienne
Henrik Ibsen was a man that devoted most of his life to finding his own voice. He did not start on his great cycle of prose plays, the ones he is known for, until he was 50 years old. He shocked and awed his audience and the world and became the patron saint of the independent theatre movement around the world. A Doll’s House premiered in 1879 and was an instant scandal. The gentle audience of the time was outraged that a woman would leave her husband and her children to find herself. Her duty was in the home, not in self-discovery. This play was very personal to Ibsen and it lite a fire that would become his reaction to the criticism over A Doll’s House in the form of a play about a woman who stays in the bad situation and forgoes herself for her supposed ‘duty’ called, Gengangere, or in English, Ghosts. Though he preferred the translation to be more akin to the English term “The Revenants,” meaning “the ones who return.”
The characters of this play are haunted, as we all are by elements of our past. A decision made to protect our loved ones and ourselves can sometimes come back to bite us in the end. I feel that Ibsen wanted to show the consequences of not being true to oneself and the backlash one would receive for spending a life time doing what others think is best or right for us. This is a play that is not often performed. It is important that we continue to face the issues raised in this work and challenge ourselves to look past the perceived norm and locate our true wants and needs, to be our true selves, to do what must and should be done. Unhappiness breeds descent and spirals our world out of control.
The cast and crew have worked hard to bring this play to life. We don’t want to take you to a museum of “The World’s Most Famous Plays.” We want you visit a moment in our past that is alive. These people are we. They may live in Norway in the 1880’s, but their struggles and choices are no different than our own and what they face is exactly what we face in an increasingly divisive social and political environment. This play was banned around the world for its “shocking” content in 1880. It became a beacon for theatre free from censorship and restriction. I think in 2016, it can do they same for us. Art is just a means to help us open a part of ourselves that we may not have known existed or, perhaps, help us articulate something that we have trouble comprehending. We welcome you to share this story with us and help us continue the search for what a human is and should be.