Ghosts. Stephen Unwin D.

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      GHOSTS

      First published in 2013 by Oberon Books Ltd

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      Translation copyright © Stephen Unwin, 2013

      Stephen Unwin is hereby identified as author of this translation in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The author has asserted his moral rights.

      All rights whatsoever in this translation are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to the author c/o Oberon Books. No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the author’s prior written consent.

      You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or binding or by any means (print, electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      PB ISBN: 978-1-78319-052-2

       E ISBN: 978-1-78319-551-0

      Cover design by feastcreative.com

      Printed, bound and converted

       by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.

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      This production of Ghosts was first produced by Rose Theatre Kingston and English Touring Theatre on 19 September 2013 at the Rose Theatre Kingston.

ENGSTRAND		Pip Donaghy
PASTOR MANDERS		Patrick Drury
REGINA ENGSTRAND		Florence Hall
MRS ALVING		Kelly Hunter
OSVALD ALVING		Mark Quartley
Director		Stephen Unwin
Designer		Simon Higlett
Lighting Designer		Paul Pyant
Composer		Corin Buckeridge
Dramaturg		Sue Prideaux
Casting Director		Ginny Schiller CDG
Assistant Director		Kim Pearce

      A note on the translation

       In respect of language, Ibsen stands at a unique disadvantage. Never before has a poet of world-wide fame appealed to his world-wide audience so exclusively in translations.

      William Archer

      Ibsen knew that he wrote in a ‘small language’ and that if his plays were to have an impact, they would have to be translated.

      Ibsen’s Norwegian is remarkably spare and direct. Indeed, some early critics dismissed his naturalistic plays as having little literary value. But that is to misunderstand Ibsen’s intentions, as he wrote in a letter of 1883:

       In the last seven or eight years, I have hardly written a single line of verse; instead I have exclusively studied the incomparably more difficult art of writing in the straightforward honest language of reality.

      Furthermore, Ibsen specified that his plays should be translated into the everyday language of the audience to whom they are played. My aim has been to give the actors space and not load them down with too many words.

      But Ibsen was a great poet and very particular in his intentions. I’ve resisted the temptation to use English’s huge vocabulary to soften the pattern of repeated words that creates the text’s allusive character, and I’ve tried to ensure that the more poetic phrases arise from the character’s responses to the situation and don’t feel imposed. I’ve avoided English Victorianisms or additional explanatory phrases. I’ve also tried to retain a sense of nineteenth-century social mores and convey something of the play’s particular Scandinavian atmosphere.

      Like many translators of Ibsen, I’m dependent on others. I’ve drawn on several translations, especially early ones, and Sue Prideaux has helped me with dozens of details. And then, of course, there are the actors: in just a few short days of rehearsal they helped me improve it enormously. To all, our thanks.

      Translation is always and inevitably a compromise. I hope I’ve created something which the actors will enjoy playing and the audiences will want to engage with. Ibsen’s great play deserves no less.

       Stephen Unwin

      Characters

      MRS ALVING

      OSVALD ALVING, her son

      PASTOR MANDERS

      ENGSTRAND, a carpenter

      REGINA ENGSTRAND, in Mrs Alving’s service

       The action takes place at Mrs Alving’s house on one of the larger fjords of Western Norway.