Word: ghosts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Ghost Sonata is a play about the kind of judgments we are likely to make with insufficient knowledge of one another's motives, and, more importantly, with insufficient knowledge of our own intentions. These judgments have nothing to do with any rigid rules of human procedure which the playwright is trying to foist off on us. Rather they involve the immediate, second-to-second perceptions and judgments by which we decide within ourselves about the character of our fellow human beings. The nature of the Good and Evil on which these judgments are based (either by us or by Strindberg...
...obsessions." In this sense, he both misses the truth of the play, and, by this very fault, proves its validity. We so much the more belong to Strindberg's configuration by every insufficient and damaging appraisal we make of the appearances before us. Thomas J. Babe, Jr. '63, Director, "Ghost Sonata...
...Note: Mr. Babe has said precisely and thoroughly just what I was trying to express in my very awkward review. I never meant to Imply that we must see "The Ghost Sonata" through Strindberg's psychological history, or even that we must be aware of this history. That would be bad journalism and bad sense. But I did mean that Evil or not, a stage imposes some detachment on its audience, and that we can only overcome this detachment by seeing the play as "shifting states of mind" with which we can sympathize--"immediate, second-to-second perceptions and judgments...
That is the emotional cycle of The Ghost Sonata, whose second and third acts end with the quoted lines. I mean no irreverence by the analogy: if one does not see the play as a record of the author's shifting state of mind one must suppose it simply lopsided, shambling and confused. The playwright excites our sympathies as none of the actual characters can. For this is a "dream play"; the characters are at best ghosts; and the central thing is the controlling mind of the dreamer...
...easy to discount these weaknesses. Chris and Bitte Rawson's new translation gives a solid idiomatic script that never sounds awkward. Stephen Tucker has designed a brilliant, extremely compact set: the costumes and music are admirable. Babe has directed a Ghost Sonata that is a capable and striking rendition of Strindberg's fantasies and obsessions...