There are still tickets left for the production of the play written in 1881, and staged for the first time in 1882, translated into Papiamento by Ramon Todd Dandare.
What’s the play about?
About a dead man, a heavy drinker and adulterer, whose ghost, his legacy and memory, not the actual ghost, still haunts his family members.
His son is going crazy from the effects of a venereal disease he inherited at birth from his unfaithful father.
His illegitimate daughter is destined to open a ‘hotel’ for sailors, with the man she thinks is her father.
His cheated-upon wife who decides to open an orphanage on the tenth anniversary of his death, and sees it go up in accidental fire, did not want to buy insurance for fear people will say she doesn’t believe in God’s protection.
The orphanage is symbolic of course, because the man failed to raise both of his children, who grew up practically fatherless.
Meanwhile the half-siblings want to get married.
And everyone else is busy making sexual advances.
At the end we’re unsure if the mother helped kill her son with morphine pills.
When he asked for assistance in committing suicide.
In summary, shame and scandals in the family.
The darkest family secrets, revealed.
The Hungarian born director Hilda Hellwig who now lives in Aruba, thought the play would be appropriate if adjusted a bit. She came up with the idea to stage Ibsen with a Papiamento twist, locals enjoy the spice in life, says the star of the show Faritah Luidens, they don’t like dramas.
Everything going on, on stage, is a mirror. The play allows us to look ourselves in the eye, and decide if we like what we see, we can always brush it off.
The staging was a long process, first rehearsals once a week, then for a long time, five times a week.
Is it worth it? I asked Faritah, so much work for a small audience. Yes, she said, it’s worth it for me, because that’s what I want to do, and Jhon Freddy Montoya, and Dimanche Jolie and Ferdinand Franca and Carlos Croes and Tuesday Irwin. We enjoys the theater, so we do it for us.
Diahuebs mainta nos a ranca sali cu un show special pa scol (16+), nos amigonan di prensa y adultonan mayor. Cas di Cultura y Faritah Luidens ta gradici Unoca Aruba, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Caribisch Gebied, Fonds Podiumkunsten / Performing Arts Fund NL y Departamento Di Cultura Aruba cu a haci e proyecto y obra aki posibel. Danki tambe na Cas di Max pa e cama y David Janse pa e auto Triumph Spitfire den nos decor. Tin carchi ainda. Pa haya sa mas yama 582-1010.
October is a good month for ghosts.
