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Say what you will about critics.
Gross, almost putrid indecorum …
Literary carrion … Crapulous stuff …
Novel and perilous nuisance.
It feels stuck between times and impulses: 1880s Norway or now?
Unashamedly tragic or vaguely ironic?
But the man also has his own wicked sense of humor.
When do you need them rapt?
They carry scripts bound in green cardstock.
They stop, go back to the top, and do it again.
But Im still not certain I know what it all has to do withGhosts.
Thanks to Ibsen, thats still an enthralling shape.
Ibsens Danish title for the play wasGengangere literally the ones who return or, more forebodingly, the revenants.
Not that anyone says the word syphilis inGhosts in Ibsens version or, notably, in ORowes.
Hes lanky and golden and remarkably chill for someone whose brain is supposed to be disintegrating.
Ihatethe way people judge our way of life!
Say it louder, Oswald!
Thats a speech that hasnt aged a minute, but Hawke isnt undergirding it with full Ibsenian backbone.
We hear the words, but we dont feel the punch.
Whether that same deepening and sharpening is likely in OBriens production overall is another question.
Ghostsis at the Mitzi E. Newhouse at Lincoln Center Theater through April 26.
