Ibsen

Director John Austin and his cast present Ibsen's Ghosts as the sort of dust-bound "classic" that has lost all ability to convince. The actors do not seem to believe their lines very strongly and they rarely inspire much belief in the audience.

The individual performances range through several varieties of flatness. Nina Jeffers displays little plausible emotion in her role as Mrs. Alving, although she improves in the scenes with her son, Oswald, played by James Laferla. Laferla's low-keyed mumbling may be appropriate to the depressed Oswald, but it soon becomes, boring. He has some good moments, however, which is more than one can say for Peter MacLean as Reverend Manders.

Maclean's voice has intensity, but his bland, uniform and almost constant intensity fails to convince or even, after a while, to entertain. All three of these actors often speak too rapidly. They lose good lines and make many passages difficult to understand.

This reflects less on the actors than on Austin, whose direction is an uninspired as the acting. The painfully slow dimming of lights with which he ends his acts simply does not come off. And his handling of the final scene is inexcusable. Ibsen leaves his audience with the horror of Oswald's insanity and Mrs. Alving's terrible indecision whether or not to give him the fatal dose of morphine he requested. Austin gives her time to reach positive decision drawing attention away from Oswald and letting her escape her dilemma.

Austin has also managed to make Engstrom into a real slap-stick figure who does not fit in with the play, G. Quay Quenel does not act the part badly, but the part should have been totally different. That Manders can be taken in by such a buffoon exceeds belief. Etain O'Malley is better as Engstrom's daughter, Regina, especially when she remains sprightly but mute.

It would be presumptuous to criticize the playwright, but this performance makes him look pretty bad.