Ghosts

Henrik Ibsen, Stephen Unwin

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781783195510
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Oswald returns home from Paris to honour his dead father. As his mother begins to feel the presence of ghosts from the past around her, Oswald discovers that there is more to his mystery illness than he first thought. Only by uncovering the truth can they both be set free...

ACT ONE

A large garden-room with a door on the left, and two on the right. In the middle, a round table with chairs, books, magazines and newspapers. In the back on the left, a window, with a small sofa and a sewing table. At the back, a conservatory smaller than the room, with large glass walls. On the right wall of the conservatory, a door leads into the garden. Through the windows, a gloomy fjord landscape can be seen, half-hidden by pouring rain.

ENGSTRAND is by the garden door. His left leg is slightly deformed, and he wears a boot with a clump of wood under the sole. REGINA, with an empty garden syringe in her hand, is trying to stop him coming in.

REGINA: (Under her breath.) What do you want? Stay where you are. You’re soaking wet.

ENGSTRAND: It’s God’s own rain, my girl.

REGINA: The Devil’s own rain, more like it.

ENGSTRAND: Good Lord, the way you talk, Regina.

Takes a few limping steps forward.

But what I wanted to say was this —

REGINA: Don’t clump around like that. The young master’s asleep, upstairs.

ENGSTRAND: At midday?

REGINA: It’s no business of yours.

ENGSTRAND: I was out on a spree last night —

REGINA: I’m sure.

ENGSTRAND: Aye, well, we’re all mortal flesh, my girl —

REGINA: Aren’t we just?

ENGSTRAND: — and legion are the temptations of this world — but, as God is my witness, I was hard at work at half five this morning.

REGINA: I’m sure, but now clear off, will you? I’m not standing around as if I had a rendezvous with you.

ENGSTRAND: A what?

REGINA: I don’t want anyone to find you here. So now you know, beat it.

ENGSTRAND: (Coming a few steps nearer.) Not a chance. Not till we’ve had a wee chat. I’ll have finished work on the schoolhouse this afternoon, and I’ll be on the steamer back to town tonight.

REGINA: (Mutters.) Have a nice trip.

ENGSTRAND: Thanks, my girl. Tomorrow’s the opening of the orphanage, and there’s bound to be a right old knees up and plenty of drink. And I don’t want anyone saying that Jacob Engstrand gives in to temptation.

REGINA: No.

ENGSTRAND: There’ll be plenty of fine folk here. And Pastor Manders is expected from town.

REGINA: He’s coming today.

ENGSTRAND: There you are, you see. And I won’t have him saying anything against me.

REGINA: Oh, so that’s your game, is it?

ENGSTRAND: What do you mean?

REGINA: (Suspiciously.) What are you going to trick the Pastor out of this time?

ENGSTRAND: Are you mad? Why would I want to trick Pastor Manders? No, no — he’s much too good a friend for that. But what I wanted to talk to you about, see, was my going back home tonight.

REGINA: The sooner the better, if you ask me.

ENGSTRAND: Aye, but I want you to come with me, Regina.

REGINA: (Astonished.) You want what?

ENGSTRAND: I want to take you home.

REGINA: (Contemptuously.) I’m not going home with you.

ENGSTRAND: We’ll see about that.

REGINA: Yes, we will. Mrs Alving has brought me up like a lady — as one of her own — d’you think I’d go home with you? — to a house like that? No chance.

ENGSTRAND: What the hell do you mean? Are you setting yourself up against your own father, you little hussy?

REGINA: (Mutters, without looking at him.) You’ve often said you had nothing to do with me.

ENGSTRAND: Pah — why do you listen to that?

REGINA: The number of times you’ve called me a b — ? For shame.

ENGSTRAND: I never used that word.

REGINA: I know what you called me.

ENGSTRAND: Anyway, that was when I was a bit, well... You know. Many are the temptations of this world, Regina.

REGINA: Oh, God.

ENGSTRAND: Or when your mother was in a temper. I had to find some way of getting back at her, my girl. Always so la-di-da.

Mimicking her.

‘Let me go, Engstrand, let me go. I worked for the Alvings at Rosenvold for three years when he was Court Chamberlain.’

Laughs.

Oh yes, she never forgot that Captain Alving was ennobled when she was in service here.

REGINA: Poor mother — you worried her into her grave.

ENGSTRAND: (Shrugging his shoulders.) Oh, aye, I’m to blame for everything.

REGINA: (Beneath her breath, as she turns away.) And that leg.

ENGSTRAND: What did you say, my girl?

REGINA: Pied de mouton.

ENGSTRAND: Is that French?

REGINA: Yes.

ENGSTRAND: Well, you’ve certainly got yourself an education out here, no mistake. It might come in handy one day, Regina.

REGINA: (After a short silence.) So why do you want me back in town?

ENGSTRAND: Need you ask why a father wants his only child? Aren’t I a poor and lonely widower?

REGINA: Oh, don’t give me that. What do you want me to do?

ENGSTRAND: Well, you see, I’m thinking of starting a new line of work.

REGINA: (Whistles.) You’ve tried that before — it always ends in tears.

ENGSTRAND: But this time you’ll see, Regina. I’ll bloody well —

REGINA: (Stamping her foot.) Please stop swearing.

ENGSTRAND: Quite right, my girl, quite right. I just wanted to say that I’ve put a few pennies aside from working up here on the new orphanage.

REGINA: Really? Good for you.

ENGSTRAND: What’s a man to spend his money on out here?

REGINA: And?

ENGSTRAND: Well, you see, I thought of putting the money into something that would pay. A home for sailors —

REGINA: Urgh.

ENGSTRAND: A classy place, of course — not a pigsty. Damn it, no, for captains and first mates. Classy folk, you know.

REGINA: And what would I do?

ENGSTRAND: Help out. Just for show. Wouldn’t be hard work, I promise. You’d do what you like.

REGINA: I see.

ENGSTRAND: We’d have to have ladies around, obviously. Because in the evening we want to make the place nice — singing, dancing, that sort of thing. They’re sailors, Regina — travellers on the oceans of life.

Coming nearer to her.

So don’t be a fool and stand in the way. What are you going to do out here? This education of yours, what’s the use of that? You’re going to look after the wee ones in the orphanage: is that what you want? D’you want to chuck away your youth for the sake of those dirty brats?

REGINA: Not if things work out the way I want them to — Well, they might, who knows? They mi...