The production opened with a stutter. Entering through the aisles of the Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, five actors in Ibsen’s Ghosts made their way to the stage and picked up bound scripts that were waiting for them on what would become the Alving family’s dining table, as if getting ready for rehearsal. Ella Beatty and Hamish Linklater began to play the first scene as Regine, the Alvings’ socially ambitious housemaid, and her father Engstrand, a drunken carpenter whom she is doing her best to leave behind. But they spoke in a barely audible monotone, as if they were “marking,” going through the lines while sparing the voice. After a few exchanges, they started over from the beginning, now speaking quietly, conversationally. The third time was the charm: after restarting the scene yet again, Beatty and Linklater finally became Regine and Engstrand, and Ghosts was underway.
The Complacent Admiration of Courage, or Ibsen and Us
