My apologies to Joan Baez and to you. Wisconsin Classic Stage’s original plan was to present Ibsen’s Ghosts in a site specific production in a church parking lot for six delightful July Wisconsin evenings. The audience was to be small and intimate and they hoped to take full advantage of the transition from daylight into evening dusk. According to comments that I saw on social media this worked marvelously the first weekend, July 10th through 12th, 2026. But nature had her way and the smoke, haze, and particulate matter from the Canadian wildfires made it dangerous for some of us to spend extended time out of doors. Fortunately, Wisconsin Class Stage was able to find sanctuary inside Calvary Presbyterian Church in downtown Milwaukee for their second (and last) weekend of performances (July 17th through 19th, 2026). That didn’t blunt the enthusiasm of the company or the anticipation of the audience when I attended on Sunday evening.
Working from a translation by Brian Johnston and Rick Davis, director Joshua Pohja has put together a tight and riveting production of Ghosts. And it seems that he also put together the optimal cast from local talent for each role here. And I have to give him extra credit for so successfully making the pivot from his initial vision of Ibsen in the Parking Lot to re-staging the play indoors.
Johnston, Davis, and Ibsen gave Pohja five strong characters to work with, all with incredible dialogue and personas. And despite how real the action feels and how easily we fall into their story, when you step back it is amazing to realize how different their cultural and societal norms are compared to our 21st Century. And how willing we are to set those aside for the nonce.
If you need a sleazy, manipulative, ne-er do well character, Pohja couldn’t have made a better choice than Ryan Holifield as Jacob Engstrand. Holifield can embody all of those traits and a few more as he endears himself to the reverend…even though he frequently isn’t being particularly truthful. Smooth and oily with all of the adults, but not even Holifeld’s smarmy charm can quite win over his daughter. Ashley Garcia plays Regina, Engstrand’s daughter (or step daughter?). Garcia presents a feisty young woman who envisions a better life for herself. She has endeared herself to Ms. Alving, in whose home she is serving as a maid. Despite her vivid determination, she is caught up the emotional space around her father and her hopeful suitor Osvald Alving. Garcia manages to keep her cool and presents a Regina still wondering where her future lies while fulfilling all of her responsibilities in the Alving home.
Deborah Stencil is Osvald’s mother, Helene Alving. Stencil’s Alving is the most resolute and smartest character in the story. She knows what she knows and only shares what she sees as absolutely necessary, all in its right time. Although a strong feminine personality, and Stencil easily projects that feeling throughout, even when caught in a bit of self doubt, much of what she accomplishes is through a very stubborn sense of duty instead of what would be best for Helene Alving. Late in the play, her determination to do what’s right and open up about the family history, Stencil maintains that noble bearing and practiced distance from others. Except of course, Stencil so smoothly transitions to the doting mother when Osvald appears until…
Next we have Pastor Manders. Cole Castine presents a Manders who is confident and sure of himself on the outside. But Castine shows that it is just a role that Manders is playing and using the respect for the collar to gain the trust of the other characters. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be easily persuaded. By Helene, by his own wandering self dialogue, and most of all, by Jacob Engstrand. And he doesn’t always seem to know what he’s actually doing.
And finally Osvald Alving. An artist who like many young artists of the era went off to the art capitols of Europe for their education and maturing. Here Ben Skwierawski presents a head strong but totally lost young man…completely taken with the ways of the world capitols and the arts and the darker side of the cafe/atelier lifestyle. Skwierawski has this down pat. A bit of a scoundrel, seemingly unable to see his mother’s affections, existing outside of his home cultural norms, and clearly a brat. Skwierawski has mastered the physical looseness and stumbling tendencies of someone under the influence. And until all is revealed about his back story, we might feel there is a bit of mental illness here as well.
This is Ibsen. And Pohja knows that. He reels us into a seemingly loving and stable realistic home and then pulls the Ibsen thread and leads its logical unraveling…until it ends…not well for a single character.
Extra Credit Reading: the program to Wisconsin Classic Stage’s Ghosts
