Alberta native Morris Panych is a veteran of all trades in Canadian theatre: he’s had over eighty of his productions and two-dozen plays shown across Canada, Britain and the United States. Now, the playwright, actor, director and winner of two Governor General’s Awards seeks to delight and enlighten audiences with his own adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s masterpiece, Ghosts. We caught up with Panych, who opened up about what it’s like to take on such a famous work.
What translation of Ibsen’s work are you using? Why did you decide to go with this particular translation?
My own. We hired a woman to do a straight across, like word for word from Norwegian to English, and then I wrote from that translation. So that’s why it’s billed as an adaptation by me, but essentially it’s a translation because I’m translating directly from word per word Norwegian, which is very strange.
What made you decide to adapt Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen? And why now?
To my knowledge there are no really strong Canadian adaptations. Most of what we get are British translations. So I felt that given that we were doing a new production, and that we were starting from the beginning and we are a Canadian company, that it was worthwhile to come up with our own version.
I think they [Soulpepper] are out to present classics in theatre. I don’t think they follow any contemporary current events agenda; there is no particularly impounding historical reason to do the play right now. The deception and hypocrisy [in the story] is always relevant. I mean, it may be more relevant in certain periods than others. And maybe they chose it for those reasons that I cannot speak of. Basically, it’s a great play, so that always has resonance for people watching it at any given time.
What did you find the most challenging about adapting this work?
I think the most challenging thing was finding a voice for the play that was authentic, modern, but still captured the feeling of the period because it was written in 1880. So to find a kind of English-Canadian voice that had a contemporary modern feeling, but still paid homage to the period that it’s written in. Certainly that was the most difficult thing. It is not written in my own particular style of talking, or anybody that I know; it has to be written in a certain way that is more formal and suited to the play and the period.
Originally when Ghosts was written, there was much outrage and controversy surrounding its debut. Will it be controversial today?
No, I don’t think so. I think that people just find it fascinating and probably a little sad that people ever were compelled to be that oppressed in their lives. Social restrictions were such that people had to keep themselves as tightly closeted as they were. And, I think, in a way, [the play is] a kind of a warning, a challenge to modern audiences and to modern society, to keep things open and to not go back to the way things were at that time — a cautionary tale, I would say.
So the themes in Ghosts are able to translate into modern-day society?
Yeah I think so, I mean, you’re talking about a man who cannot talk to his mother about a disease that he got while he’s been in Paris. The parallels are obvious with AIDS and the ideas of repressing information and being afraid to talk about things. We have the whole silence is death campaign with AIDS that I think has a huge resonance with this play. AIDS is not as much of an issue as it was 10 years ago, but it’s still with us. The issue has never been about AIDS but how do we as a society remain open and frank about discussions about sexuality and that the state and religion don’t interfere in the lives of individuals to the degree that they did at the time.
In a previous interview with the CBC in 2004, you had stated that what fascinates you is the daily struggle of ordinary people with life’s bizarre minor annoyances, rather than the major political or social issues of the moment. Is your adaption of Ghosts reflective of that?
No, I don’t think so. I think that I was talking about my own writing when I talked about that particular thing. I am not really a person who goes after social issues as a writer. As a director it’s different because if you’re not working on your own plays, you’re working on plays that other people wrote, obviously. Ibsen is fascinating to me as a directorial subject because he is a good writer, but also because the themes are essentially human. When we’ve stripped down all the social structures the heart of the story is about a mother and her son and the truth — the family truth — and those are universal and relevant. But as I said, my choices directorially are vastly different than my choices as a writer. I wouldn’t have chosen to write this play, but it’s fascinating to direct.
What’s next?
I am going to Los Angeles to do Vigil at the Mark Taper Forum, and then I have a new play opening in Montreal. [Following that] I have a new project in Vancouver. Then, I’m in Stratford for next season directing a musical based on Robert Service.
Ghosts, Yonge Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill Street, runs until Nov. 18