York Settlement Community Players return to York Theatre Royal’s Studio with Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’ from Wed 2 to Sat 12 March.

Written in 1881, Ibsen’s classic drama tells the story of widow, Mrs Alving, who is preparing for the opening of an orphanage in memory of her late husband. When her artist son, Osvald, returns to the family home to celebrate the heroic memory of his dead father, Mrs Alving believes she can finally lay to rest the ghosts of the past she is so desperate to forget. However, over the course of one day, dark secrets and unresolved tensions are gradually exposed, bringing to light the strange and complex ties that bind Mrs Alving, Osvald, their maid Regine, her father Engstrand and Pastor Manders. As the story unfolds, we finally discover the shocking truth about Mrs Alving’s late husband.

Acknowledged as York’s premier amateur dramatic society, York Settlement Community Players (YSCP) have recently staged sell-out productions of Chekhov's Three Sisters, Ayckbourn's Joking Apart, Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba and more recently, the world premiere of the York based musical Black Potatoes. With a history dating back to 1922 and boasting Dame Judi Dench as a former member, YSCP are the first community theatre company to stage Amelia Bullmore’s vibrant new version of Ghosts (which premiered at London’s Gate Theatre in 2007).

Director Andy Love comments “It is 130 years since Ibsen wrote Ghosts and it is hard to imagine the shock it caused at the time. It was roundly savaged by most critics for what they saw as ‘As foul and filthy a concoction as has ever been allowed to disgrace the boards of an English theatre’.

“We have seen much more shocking theatre since then, but seen as a satire on late Victorian moral strictures, the play still has dark, disturbing and contemporary themes: sexually transmitted diseases still ruin the lives of many youngsters, religious inflexibility and general hypocrisy are still encountered and women are still struggling to be heard - thanks to institutionalised sexism.

“Amelia Bulmore’s new version is stark and thrilling; distilling the essence of Ibsen’s original into a modern idiom, whilst still capturing the heart of his humanity. As the ghosts that have haunted this unhappy family are slowly revealed and laid to rest we realise that lies, even lies lived for the very best of reasons, will, with grim predictability, shatter and destroy both the person those lies were conceived to protect and the person doing the lying.”

Ghosts run from Wed 2 to Sat 12 March 2011, 7.45pm (Matinee at 2pm on Sat 12) at York Theatre Royal Studio. Tickets cost £12, £7 students & u25s, £10 concessions and are available from www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or by phoning the Box Office on 01904 623568.