“The most exciting part of practicing the play is that it was very challenging for us. It’s a higher level of literature, it was difficult to read into,” said Drew Davidson, theater performance junior.

Because of its subject matter, which includes religion, venereal disease, incest and euthanasia, it immediately generated strong controversy and negative criticism. Since then the play has fared better, and is considered a “great play.”

“The play is very wordy; the language is different because it was from a few centuries back. The play originated from a Norwegian background. Once you get past the language barrier you start to see how tragic the play is. Each character is from a different social class some character talk in third person or slur their words the majority of the play,” said Jonathan Stone, theater performance sophomore.

On the eve of opening an orphanage in her late husband’s name, Helen Alving anxiously welcomes the return of her bohemian son, Oswald.

“It was neat getting to do something like this compared to some of the stuff we did in the past because it was different. We were excited to tackle this play; it was challenging because the play was a different type of literature then normal,” said Davidson.

 Ibsen produced Ghosts in Norway and was strongly criticized because it was scandalized the community. At the time, the mere mention of diseases was scandalous and to show that a person who followed society’s ideals of morality was at risk.

“The societies view on many issues discussed are different from when the play first came out. People’s views about sex, the sex without marriage and also having children without being married are things in the late 1880’s people never really discussed if the action happened. Now if the issue were to happen people would talk about it. Much of the difference between the play back then and now is the societies views on different social issues, we had to change the play a bit based off of the modernization of time,” said Davidson.

Ibsen wrote the play during the autumn of 1881 and published it in December of the same year. In the summer of 1881, he was working hard on the play. He finished it by the end of November 1881 and published it in Denmark in December. Its world stage premier was in May 1882 in Norway by a Danish company in Chicago.

“The hope was that we could convey without giving any hints away, it is just hard to convey when it really hasn’t been spoken. The issues occurring in the play aren’t not really relevant in this day in age,” said Stone.

“I believe there are different adaptations and different translations from the first time the play was performed in the late 1800’s. The main story will be there and how it is approached or delivered from a character dialog will change greatly,” said Stone.

The play will be held at the Fain Fine Arts Theatre Oct. 13-16 at 7:30 p.m. The play is free for Midwestern students, faculty and staff. People can get tickets in the box office in Fain Fine Arts Center lobby.