Ghosts

[nineveh_uk]

I greatly enjoyed Ghosts yesterday evening at the Trafalgar Studios, with Lesley Manville as Mrs Alving. Having seen Manville as Lona Hassel in Pillars of the Community at the National, in which she was brilliant, this was a major draw. The production lived up to its promise, and was excellent; the decision to do it straight through without an interval has rightly been praised in the reviews and really worked. I couldn’t see where you could possible have an interval make sense, though it probably helps that the theatre has lots of leg room. It was “adapted and directed by Richard Eyre” (I don’t know what his C19 Danish is like, perhaps the programme that I didn’t buy mentions a translator), but it seemed to be adaptation as a freer translation rather than “Don’t worry darling! I invested your dissolute father’s money in exciting new medical developments. Some penicillin will sort you out and we shall move forward into a new life together.”*

Anyway, it was a good play text, good design, terrific direction and acting. You can absolutely see why it was a tremendous shocker when it came out; Ibsen’s always keen on skewing social hypocrisies, not least those guided by “what will people say” rather than human reason and decency, the characterisation of Pastor Manders is scathing, and a central message of “self-abnegation by a woman will not magically transform the character of a complete shit and maybe divorce is in fact sometimes a better idea” was perhaps not going to win over the critics who had their position by virtue of being signed up to it.

Speaking of dubious hereditary traits, I read Brat Farrar on the train. I enjoyed it, but would have done so more had it been less ragingly snobbish**. I can see why Ginty Marlow liked it.

*Though it is handy for the modern viewer that since congenital syphilis is not transmitted from the father skipping the mother, Ibsen gives a second possible route for transmission from Dad. Besides it being symbolic, that is.

**And a bit of the ending REALLY annoyed me. No, that is NOT the best solution for all concerned because after all it's in the past.

Comments

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

you just have to accept that snobbishness will be part of the landscape
Like being able to tell whether or not people are evil/15 year-old sex maniacs by their eye colour.

If Eleanor really does want Brat, she'd be better off just facing it out and ignoring what people say because I agree, people are going to be saying lots for a very long time.

When I read it in my teens, I was just pleased that Eleanor got the farm (even with the death duties). What if one of the twins had been a boy? I suppose the farm would be safe if it was Jane, but Ruth is Simon all over again. Now I think it's the inherited property that's the whole problem. Without There Have Always Been Ashbys at Latchetts, Bee could have kept her job and taken all the children off to live in a flat in London and no-one would have had to be self-sacrificing for the sake of the estate* or killed anyone else for it. And yes no plot, true.

*see also Antonia Forest

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Not to mention position in family. "Second sons are dodgy" indeed.

Perhaps Ruth, not being horsey, might have been sensible and flogged it. Or considered that, like the Marlows might have done*, they could perfectly well have rented it out, hard as it is to imagine Simon getting a job. Eleanor isn't too bad, given that she does at least seem to work hard. I hope she can only pay death duties by selling a farm to Mr Gates, though.

*I am now wondering about Mrs Marlow's role in this. Does she want to move to the country?

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Second sons need something to occupy them, even if it is murder. I like Eleanor. She's sensible, hard-working and has developed her own separate business with a transferrable skill as a riding instructor if Simon had wanted her out after he inherited.

Mrs Marlow married a dashing naval officer and has an entire chest full of dance dresses. It doesn't sound like someone who fancied being a farmer's wife with no-one to talk to all day but Mrs Bertie and Mrs Merrick next door. The Girlsown mailing list used to have threads entitled "What does Mrs Marlow do all day?" Perhaps she did lots of things in London and from Falconer's Lure onwards is in the throes of post-moving-to-the-country-depression.

Have you read Miss Pym Disposes, which really is about taking the law into your own hands.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Perhaps she goes into the local town (whatever it's called) that is in fact a very short distance away and likewise close to Kingscote, being careful to avoid days on which her children are actually there. Though having said that, since Lawrie and Nicola have been at boarding school for what's really a relatively short period of time, she has presumably spent quite a lot of the last 15 years in childcare rather than gadding about London, given the total lack of mention of any nanny.

Now she's reminding me of Mrs Tallant in "Arabella" who is fond of her husband, and doesn't seem to regret her choice, but nonetheless wants her daughter to make an exciting London marriage for a variety of reasons...

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

My youngest daughter has baby blue eyes, but since she's only two I have yet to discover whether she's a plausible liar or not :). I don't think Ruth would be as bad as Simon, because she doesn't ride (so no cozening of future victims onto Timber) and I think Nineveh's right that she'd be perfectly happy to sell or rent the place since she has no interest in horses. I can't imagine what Simon's job would have been; he seems like one of those types who's too good for any job in which he isn't in complete control of everything, and who expects to have one handed to him.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Simon might have gone into politics...