I had not read or seen this play before, so I do not know how much Joe Hill-Gibbins adapted the original written in 1881, but it felt incredibly current and contemporary. I also do not know, whether it is through his directing that the performance, at least to me, seemed to be centred on the issues of male entitlement and toxic patriarchy.

The somewhat claustrophobic nature of the Sam Wanamaker stage is a compelling choice for such an exploration, and the scenography adds to the experience. For one act of 1.5 hours, the audience is locked into an atmospheric, intimate set, where a cherry-red, shaggy carpet muffles, and mirrored walls reflect, all movement. As the candles are lit, we all join the séance during which ghosts tell us about coercive behaviours, domestic abuse and the shame they bring to the victim. We witness men convincing women that they are to blame for everything, including the men’s weaknesses and shortcomings. We see them treating women like objects – using them, moving them around, placing and replacing, whoring them out.

Were it not for plenty of comic relief, the intensity would be impossible to take. It is amplified through the notion of inevitability – the sins of the father will be repeated by the son. The manner in which Osvald takes advantage of his half-sister extends beyond the sexual. In the same way as his alcoholic father depended on his wife to take care of him till his dying days, Osvald wants Regine to mother him through his syphilitic demise. Apparently, the original title has a double meaning in Danish – it means both “ghosts” and “events that repeat themselves.”

But it is Father Manders who is the most vile of characters – much worse than the deceased Captain Alving, whose despicable behaviour his wife recounts. He is a weak, contemptable creature whose desire for Helene is palpable – he both denies this passion and blames her for it. He is a schemer and a manipulator; a leach and a hypocrite. He has the audacity to lecture Helene on morality, whilst supporting a scheme to make Regina a prostitute. He is self-serving and loathsome.

But is Helene blameless? After all, she enabled the situation, her lying is at the heart of the unfolding tragedy and is perpetuating the damage. In the end Helene takes all the blame onto herself – having been sold into the marriage, unable to fake love, she was at fault for extinguishing the Captain’s joy, driving him to a life of alcohol and lechery, which led directly to the son’s illness and incest. Makes sense, right? Or is it rather that women have internalised misogyny to the point where they unwittingly perpetuate their oppressors‘ narrative and actions, becoming complicit in their own victimhood and that of other women?

The notion that women have internalised misogyny to the point where they put the needs of men before their own without even realising it seems embedded even within the dynamic between mother and son. Osvald – the man child in shorts – demands his mother euthanise him when the time comes. And, riddled with guilt, she considers his request in excruciating agony. Just like Father Manders who can forgive Regina’s ‘father’ at the drop of the hat, but not Helene for wanting to leave her abusive husband, she cannot forgive herself. And when the candles are all snuffed out at the end, you can but wonder if it is all life that has been snuffed out too.

You leave the theatre quite shaken.