Horror fans will be disappointed to learn that there are no spectral figures commonly identified as ghosts in Henrik Ibsen’s groundbreaking stage drama Ghosts. The “ghosts” of the title are metaphorical, referring to outdated traditions and the lingering strains of the sins of the father that continue to “infect” their offspring. Ibsen actually didn’t like the translation of “ghosts,” chosen by the first English translation William Archer, for the Danish word more accurately translates as “things that walk again.” However, that longer translation—along with the proposed alternative “The Revenants”—was ungainly and were thus not used.
Ibsen penned the play in 1881 while living in Rome. No Scandinavian theater would stage it, so it premiered at the Aurora Turner Hall in Chicago, Illinois on May 20th, 1882. Over the next several years it opened in Sweden, Berlin, Denmark, Norway, London, and New York. Famously, the King of Sweden saw it and told Ibsen it was not good, to which the playwright replied, exasperated, “Your Majesty, I had to write Ghosts!”
When audiences attended the 1882 premiere, they were shocked to hear the characters openly discussing topics that had also existed only as “ghosts”: incest, euthanasia, and venereal disease. All had been incorporated into drama before Ghosts, but none had taken center stage as the topic of discourse. The audience may have been shocked, but many were prepared to follow Ibsen on his journey of discovery. Of course, many others were prepared to follow the theater critics who accused him of overstepping the boundaries of taste and decorum. In Bernard Shaw’s book The Quintessence of Ibsenism, he compiles selections from the criticisms of the play when it premiered. Some of the most notable adjectives used to describe it include the following: noisome, melancholy, malodorous, disgusting, offensive, putrid, gross, repulsive, blasphemous, and dismal.
Ghosts is significant in Ibsen’s development from crafting traditional, realistic drama to situating himself at the vanguard of expressionist theater. Ghosts and its follow-up, An Enemy of the People, would draw the curtain on the playwright’s realist period before moving into more symbolic experimentation with The Wild Duck and Hedda Gabler. Many critics also see Ghosts as a follow-up to A Doll’s House.
In 1906, not long after Ibsen’s death, Edvard Munch agreed to design the set for a new staging of Ghosts in Berlin. He used Biedermeier furniture and sickly yellow walls, stating, “I wanted to stress the responsibility of the parents, but it was my life too—my 'why'? I came into the world sick, in sick surroundings, to whom youth was a sickroom and life a shiny, sunlit window—with glorious colours and glorious joys—and out there I wanted so much to take part in the dance, the Dance of Life.”
The play has been revived numerous times in the century or so since its premiere. Most recently, it was staged in China in 2014.
