Suzannah Ibsen (Charles Busch) is attended by her maid Gerda (Jen Cody), who has pelvic and spinal issues, in Busch’s newest comedy, Ibsen’s Ghost.
Charles Busch has frequently used old films as fodder for his comedies: Red Scare on Sunset, Shanghai Moon, and The Lady in Question all draw on silver-screen melodrama for a knowing send-up of Hollywood tropes. But his latest play, Ibsen’s Ghost, is a marked change. Busch has steeped himself in the life of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and fashioned both facts and fiction into a charming and funny Improbable Biographical Fantasy, as he calls it.
Judy Kaye (left) plays the condescending stepmother Magdalene Thoresen—a thorn in the side of Suzannah (Busch).
The Norwegian playwright’s history yields a wealth of material. He fathered a son when he was only 20 and never had contact with him again. He typically took young women under his wing. And his own son grew up to become prime minister. (Who knew?) If Ibsen’s advice to an actress—“No declamation! No theatrical emphasis! No pomposity at all!”—has been ignored by Busch and director Carl Andress, it’s all for the better.
The comedy opens after the writer’s death. His widow, Suzannah (Busch), has personal letters she wants published, but their substance is ho-hum, and the publisher (Christopher Borg) refuses them. Suzannah also has a fractious relationship with her stepmother, Magdalene Thoresen (Judy Kaye), a prolific playwright and novelist; Suzannah forsook her own writing to care for Ibsen and is jealous of Magdalene’s acclaim. There’s comic bitchiness as the celebrated Magdalene describes a swank party that she has attended:
Magdalene: The centerpiece of the smorgasbord was an entire vodka-brined smoked salmon. I spent nearly an hour devouring each heavenly morsel.
Suzannah: Your favorite pastime. Picking the flesh off bones.
Jennifer Van Dyck plays Hanna, a former Ibsen protegée in possession of a revealing diary. Photographs by James Leynse.
Then Hanna Solberg (Jennifer Van Dyck) turns up: a former protegée of Ibsen’s, she asserts that she is the inspiration for Nora in A Doll’s House, contrary to Suzannah’s own claim that “I am Nora!” But Hanna has a diary to back her up.
Meanwhile, Ibsen’s bastard son Wolf (a ruggedly mature Thomas Gibson, who was in the film of Busch’s Psycho Beach Party in 2000) burglarizes the home to seek a tangible memento of his father. He is caught by Suzannah, who takes a shine to him and enlists Wolf to steal Hanna’s diary. The plot threads somehow entangle a character called the Rat Wife (Borg, in drag), whose pursuits have not always been vermin.
Busch has written himself a terrific role, but more important, he’s parceled out memorably florid speeches and cutting lines for his co-stars’ parts. The rough-hewn Wolf to Suzannah: “Don’t push me away. The only women I come across are hard-faced doxies who’ll grant you a jack-o’-lantern grin after you’ve placed your coins on the dresser and rinsed off your lob in the basin.” The Rat Wife, though, has a quip that sounds more like Oscar Wilde: “A career in the theater may be intoxicating, but rat catching is far more congenial.”
Apart from obvious name-checks, Ibsen fans will find oblique ones, though the pleasures of Ghost aren’t dependent on that. In a sitting room (plushly designed by Shoko Kambara), Suzannah burns letters in the stove and later promises to cover Wolf’s head with “vine leaves”—both references to Hedda Gabler. There are mentions of Wolf being a “man of the sea,” a nod to The Lady from the Sea. And the Rat Wife enters the play with the same line as the Rat Wife in Little Eyolf: “Have you good people any troublesome thing that gnaws here?”
Busch, naturally, has also written himself a juicy part. Meeting Wolf, Suzannah is enraptured:
The glamour of the sea clings to you. Your eyes speak of unsettled waters, saturnine and turbulent. They glisten with the hope of uncharted islands and frenzied ports of call. Or do you merely have an astigmatism?
Wolf (Thomas Gibson), Ibsen’s illegitimate son, listens to a discourse from the Rat Wife (Christopher Borg) about vermin infestations.
As an actor, Busch deftly deploys a variety of melodramatic pouts and grimaces. When Hanna calls Suzannah “the beady-eyed architect of my destruction,” Busch widens his eyes and puts on an innocent face. When Wolf calls Suzannah “Lorelei,” he totters over the unexpected flattery.
All the melodramatic speeches and witty repartee are further enlivened by Jen Cody’s Gerda, a maid with pubic pain and a spinal disorder that force her to lurch and hobble around. Cody’s physically superb performance is a running sight gag, yet there are others as well. The best is surely costume designer Gregory Gale’s archery get-up for the quasi-sapphic Hanna, who writes under a male pseudonym and declares, “I look forward to a day when a woman prone to being hirsute has the conviction to grow a kingly set of muttonchop whiskers.” Ibsen’s Ghost is a strong entry in the long list of Busch’s literate, affectionately mocking comedies and an apt introduction for anyone who hasn’t encountered his talents.
The Primary Stages production of Ibsen’s Ghost runs through April 14 at 59E59 Theaters (59 E. 59th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit primarystages.org.
Playwright: Charles Busch
Director: Carl Andress
Scenic Design: Shoko Kambara
Costume Design: Gregory Gale
Lighting Design: Ken Billington
Sound Design: Jill BC Du Boff & Ien DeNio
Hair, Wig, & Makeup Design: Bobbie Zlotnik
