Arts & Culture

Please join us on Monday October 24, from 7-8 pm and hear guest speaker, Paula Wing, Associate Artist, Soulpepper Theatre Company, talk about Ghosts, the play and production.

Ghosts, known as Henrik Ibsen's most controversial play, was initially turned down by Scandinavian theatre houses.  Though written in 1881, its first staging was not until a year later in Chicago, at the Aurora Turner Hall, for an audience of Scandinavian immigrants. 

When Ghosts finally enjoyed its European premiere in Sweden in 1883, it scandalised audiences, one critic writing, "Revoltingly suggestive and blasphemous ….Characters either contradictory in themselves, uninteresting or abhorrent."  Perhaps this is not surprising given that the play uses, according to The New Penguin Dictionary of the Theatre, "venereal disease as a symbol of collective guilt in a hypocritical society." 

Despite such press, however, it was well reviewed, and has been translated, adapted, and performed many times, and even parodied by J.M. Barrie in his play, Ibsen's Ghost. 

Here are two recent versions of Ghosts we have in our Performing Arts collection, the first by Amelia Bullmore, and the second by Frank McGuinness. 

Morris Panych, author of the current adaptation of Ghosts, is a Canadian playwright well known for plays such as 7 Stories, Trespassers, and most recently, Gordon.  He has also written adaptations of other popular plays, such as Revizor by Nikolai Gogol, LH̉ôtel du libre-échange by Georges Feydeau & Maurice Desvallières, and Anatol by Arthur Schnitzler, which have been published in the collection Still Laughing: three adaptations.

This is the second in our program on current Toronto theatre – On Stage Performing Arts Theatre Series – six lectures / six theatres.  They are all being held free of charge at the Toronto Reference Library – Beeton Auditorium.

• “The Normal Heart” hear guest speaker Joel Greenberg, Director and Artistic Director, Studio 180 Theatre on Monday, October 3, 7 – 8 pm.

• "Ghosts”  hear guest speaker Paula Wing, Associate Artist, Soulpepper Theatre Company  on Monday, October 24, 7 – 8 pm.

•  “The Children's Republic”  hear guest speaker Hannah Moscovitch, Playwright-in-Residence, Tarragon Theatre on Monday November 7, 7 – 8 pm.

• “Red” hear guest speaker Natasha Mytnowych,  Associate Director of Programming, Canadian Stage  on Monday, November 14, 7 – 8 pm.

• “Topdog/Underdog” hear guest speaker Philip Akin, Director and Artistic Director, Obsidian Theatre Company on Monday, November 28, 7 – 8 pm.

• “The Penelopiad”  hear guest speaker: Kelly Thornton, Artistic Director, Nightwood Theatre on Monday, December 5, 7 – 8 pm.

Did you know the Performing Arts Department at the Toronto Reference Library also had:

• an audition board of current plays and also extensive collection of monologues
• plays from across Canada in English and French and plays from around the world
• theatrical reviews
• clipping files on Canadian performances and organizers
• theatre programs from local theatre companies – both current and historical collections
• index to Canadian theatre productions
• original stage designs by major Canadian artists
• sound recordings of stage dialects, plays and comedies
• music scores – popular, classical, theatre and by instrument
• online literary criticism you can access from home or in a library branch