Ghosts on film: national screening: June 26, 2014
Ghosts

Almeida Theatre production
Islington,
London N1 1TA

Runs: 90mins

Review by Carole Woddis of screening, June 16, 2014:

Building on recent initiatives to bridge the gap between cinema and theatre, Richard Eyre’s multi-award-winning filleted Ibsen now reaches the big screen.

Almeida’s Ghosts is now on film. Catch it across the UK on June 26th. Carole Woddis reviews.

Filleting works on film.
There’s no doubt these `live’ broadcasts – be they NT Live, or Royal/Metropolitan Opera and Ballet Live – are the way of the future, bringing `high’ art performances to people at affordable prices and allowing great performances not only to be shared with wider audiences but for more people to savour and delight in culture at one time thought beyond their pocket or even interest.

Digital Theatre with its educational arm, Digital Theatre Plus is the latest into the field founded by former theatre director Robert Delamere. With Merrily We Roll Along and Private Lives already in the can, Eyre’s Almeida production of Ghosts is also a first in its use of high definition Dolby Atmos sound, a fact underlined several times by opening speeches at the film premiere if, ironically, not matched by the defective mic system used! So much for modern technology!

Ghosts, though – Ibsen’s rebuke to mothers, fathers and the suppression of the `life force’ – I have to report, comes off very well. Less impressed than most at its original viewing (see 2013 Reviewsgate review), I felt too much had been excised in Eyre’s 90 minute filleted version. Few others agreed and it went on to win a bucketful of awards, for Eyre and for Lesley Manville’s Mrs Alving.

Up close and full frontally cinematic, this version of Ghosts carries all before it, so powerfully does it connect. Ibsen’s tendency to melodrama takes grip through the battles joined between Adam Kotz’s (replacing Will Keen) straitlaced Pastor Manders’s and Manville’s capable but desperate Helene Alving. And, of course, through the intense mother/son guilt-love played out between Helene and Jack Lowden’s tremendous Oswald, aching for life but syphilitically scarred by the `sins’ of his father.

Despite the very real gap between conventions – theatre’s loquacious, bigger `style’ takes time to adjust to in a different context – this Ghosts adds yet another layer of meaning to its theatrical version. Handsomely designed, majestic in delivery, for students, the chance to capture the detail of such classics will surely prove invaluable. Audiences at large can catch it across 275 cinemas in the UK and Ireland next week on Thursday (June 26). Well worth a fiver.

Cast:
Regina Engstrand: Charlene McKenna
Jacob Engstrand: Brian McCardie
Pastor Manders: Adam Kotz
Helene Alving: Lesley Manville
Oswald Alving: Jack Lowden

Director: Richard Eyre
Design: Tim Hatley
Lighting: Peter Mumford
Sound: John Leonard
Casting: Cara Beckinsale CDG
Associate Director: Gaby Dellal
Associate Designer: Andrew Edwards
Associate Lighting Designer: William Reynolds
Literal Translation: Charlotte Barslund

First performance of this production of Ghosts at the Almeida Theatre, London, Sept 26, 2013; thereafter transferring to Trafalgar Studios, London, presented by Sonia Friedman Productions, Almeida Theatre with Rupert Gavin, Tanya Link Productios and JFL Theatricals/GHF Productions in association with 1001 Nights.

Cinema version presented by:
Digital Theatre, Cinema Live, Dolby Laboratories, Sonia Friedman Productions, Almeida Theatre and the Society of London Theatre.

Part of the West End Theatre Series.

2014-06-18 09:22:52