Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"..."Ibsen's 'Ghosts,'" a caroming, carousing and finally cathartic reimagining of the 1882 play (directed by Allen), doesn't shy away from mocking the more histrionic elements of the original, sometimes to a repetitive fault. But it also retains sufficient focus on Ibsen's evergreen obsessions of suffocating morality and the disinfectant qualities of the harsh truth to be more than clever pastiche."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...More importantly, Allen's version, and the fine cast he assembled to perform it, successfully entertains us with Ibsen's sometimes overwrought tale, even as it (and they) comment on the action. Stephen Walker is delightfully ponderous as the hidebound authority figure (virtually a stock character in Ibsen's plays) who enables the rampant immorality he thinks he is fighting."
Windy City Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...What makes this drop-off in creative energy doubly disappointing is that Allen clearly wants to make a cohesive case for our widowed heroine having it within her power to rescue herself and her children from their unhappy fate. We see her reading Ibsen's plays and even stepping out of the stage picture to view her options as spectators do before sorrowfully regretting her inability—now, as in the past—to implement her new discoveries toward alleviating the suffering of innocents."
Gapers Block - Recommended
"...Greg Allen's clever adaptation of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen is set "in a moribund historic store-front theater on the North Side of Chicago in its final season before it gets turned into bicycle storage for luxury condos." That about sums up the current state of Mary-Arrchie Theatre in its last season after 30 years of staging fine, thought-provoking theater. Fittingly, Ibsen's Ghosts is carried out meta-theatrically as a play within a play and the actors occasionally break the fourth wall to acknowledge the audience. This isn't done to excess, however, so it doesn't lapse over into cuteness."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...Ibsen's Ghosts is basically a series of manic revelations with the emotional volume turned all the way up to 11. Any dialogue that isn’t screamed is whispered forebodingly, with all players taking at least one turn throwing themselves upon a chaise lounge with as much despair as they can muster. But it’s all done with a knowing wink, and the uniformly excellent cast appears to be having a blast ping-ponging frantically from one emotional peak to the next. That said, only Hoerdemann manages to elevate her performance above the farcical nature of the material and locate some honest-to-goodness humanity. By the play’s final scene, it’s her words alone you're hanging on to, even as she reads them directly from the source text."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...As the play's most sensible characters, Hoerdemann and Wallace are also the most frequently earnest and exasperated. The ending, which is a perfect blending the original and the adaptation, is quite affecting, due to the humiliation and hopelessness they are suffering from, yet still remaining open. Despite its convoluted story and somewhat overdone dialogue, Ibsen was able to make the final dilemma Oswald presented to his mother a genuinely horrifying and agonizing moment, and Allen, recognizing that, chose not to mess with what made Ibsen worth the effort of reimagining. Was the adaptation strictly necessary? Perhaps not, and meta-theatre can be a little confusing. But the performers are excellent guides, and by freeing us to acknowledge Ghosts' artificial aspects, Allen has allowed us to focus on the spirit of Ibsenism unencumbered."
Chicago Theatre Review - Somewhat Recommended
"...In this bizarrely unorthodox adaptation that parodies the Ibsen classic (and which could benefit from some cutting), the past still continues to revisit the present. Not exactly like Scrooge’s Christmas Eve visitors, these ghosts are specters that supposedly result from the sins of the father. With a multitude of chaos and conflict stuffed into this play, the melodramatic style of the original piece is wisely played for humor. It just feels uneven, as if the absurdity could still be elevated even further. Most of the humor is a result of Carolyn Hoerdemann’s fine balancing act between her realistically modern interpretation and the play’s demand for overacting. Everything else is simply a collection of ghosts from the pen of Ibsen. For theatergoers searching for a quirky production with a non-holiday theme, this might be their best choice."
