Windfall Theatre chases a challenging gravity at the beginning of this season as it presents Henrik Ibsen’s weighty family drama, Ghosts. Carol Zippel is resolute as Mrs. Alving, a family matriarch who is trying to put to rest certain sinister shadows from her family’s past.
Joe Picchetti casts a hauntingly deep energy into the role of her artist son, Oswald, who has returned home suffering from an ominous disease. There is a passion at the heart of Picchetti’s performance. The character’s infirmity doesn’t hold him back from a feisty interaction with a pastor who is helping the family with certain business affairs. The pastor is played with elegantly troubled poise by Ben George, who conjures an admirable amount of authority onstage even when he’s not speaking a word. Samantha Martinson is given quite a bit more to communicate nonverbally in the role of Mrs. Alving’s maid. Martinson plays a very strong and articulate person who must work in subtlety and clever planning to navigate her way through the undesirable options that have been presented to her since birth. Martinson defines the role quite well, giving her just the right amount of fire and passion underneath the precise layer of formality necessary for a domestic servant.
It’s a cozy space that Windfall inhabits. Much of the intensity of the drama is brought to the stage by proximity. Silences and sighs grow to fill the entire space in an organic way. Director Maureen Kilmurry developed a production that lives just as much in the space between actors as it does in the tension between them.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Through Oct. 10 at Village Church Arts on 130 E. Juneau Ave. For tickets, call 414-332-3963 or visit brownpapertickets.com
