Theatre in Review: Ibsen's Ghost: An Irresponsible Biographical Fantasy (Primary Stages at 59E59) Nobody makes an entrance like Charles Busch. Playing Suzannah Ibsen, the not-so-merry widow of playwright Henrik, the actor makes his first appearance, gliding effortlessly to center stage, finding his light and pretending to look oblivious -- yet deeply gracious -- while subtly encouraging the audience's applause; this is a skill not many possess. Later, standing in the doorway, dressed in a pink peignoir and looking radiant after a night of love, Busch is morning sunshine incarnate, simpering, ever so slightly, with carnal delight. Between these moments, he finds many other opportunities for his incomparably artificial technique: Falling to the floor and tipsily clutching a servant's hand or drawing himself up to his full height and announcing, in a voice that brooks no contradiction, "I am Nora Helmer!", he is every inch a great lady of the stage. Indeed, Ibsen's Ghost, which he also wrote, represents a new use for Busch's singular talents: Having spent a good portion of his career lovingly spoofing Hollywood film genres from beach party epics to pre-Code melodramas, he now reinvents himself as the last great nineteenth-century actress-manageress, channeling the likes of Sarah Bernhardt and Ethel Barrymore. For his latest vehicle, he has cooked up a plot that borrows from several Ibsen dramas, garnishing it with amusingly outrageous details and positively purple dialogue; his director, Carl Andress, has engaged actors equipped with classical training and the ability to navigate this melodramatic travesty with perfectly straight faces. If you're looking for a highly literate lark, this is it. The plot has to do with Suzannah's struggle to maintain her exalted position as keeper of her husband's legacy while tamping down various scandalous secrets and basking in the lusty attentions of a virile seaman who happens to be her illegitimate stepson. Others may be shocked at this liaison, but Suzannah, having survived her sterile marriage, insists she has a right to some happiness: "After I gave birth to our only child, a visit to my bedroom was as tantalizing to Ibsen as an amateur production of Peer Gynt." Only Busch can make a sentence that overripe seems like a throwaway line. Meanwhile, Suzannah must deal with the alarming presence of Hanna Solberg, a former Ibsen protégé whose diary, soon to be published, proves that she was the real inspiration for A Doll's House. (The title, I, Nora, sends Suzannah into conniptions.) Striding around the stage in knickers, wielding a bow and enough arrows to take out the stagehands, Jennifer Van Dyck makes Hannah the very model of a New Woman, complete with a scandalous literary career and a "young, prince-like companion." Offering an example of her fierce literary style, she proclaims, "Ibsen gave me the confidence to pursue my writing. As a horse doctor with a pregnant mare, he pulled my early stories out of me like a foal drenched in amniotic fluid and blood." So pleased is she with this metaphor that she doesn't see the looks of disgust on those around her. Then there's Magdalene Thoresen, Suzannah's stepmother, a prolific authoress and hostess, taking time out from swanning around literary salons to offer plenty of unwanted advice. Judy Kaye, a one-woman fashion parade thanks to Gregory Gale's gorgeous creations, delivers her lines in rich, rolling cadences that underline their absurdity. Assuming a false air of repentance, she apologizes to Suzannah for "my blundering rudeness in criticizing your appearance as [Ibsen's] coffin was being lowered into the ground." Even then, however, she can't stop herself from adding mournfully, "But, Suzannah, my darling, that wrinkled polka-dot veil." ("I wasn't wearing a veil," mutters Suzannah.) Also on hand are Thomas Gibson as Wolf, "the man from the sea," whom Suzannah enlists in her scheme to purloin that mortifying diary; Jen Cody as a housemaid whose hunchbacked condition may or may not be the result of extreme sexual hysteria; and Christopher Borg, double-cast as Ibsen's self-dealing publisher and Little Eyolf's Rat Wife, a bizarre creature gifted with second sight, who threw over the stage to hunt down rodents. ("A career in the theatre may be intoxicating, but rat-catching is far more congenial," she insists, unassailably.) All this amusingly literary nonsense unfolds on Shoko Kambara's charming set, a period sitting room, complete with a settee suitable for fainting spells, framed in a red proscenium and backed by a blue-tinted view of Norway's National Theatre. Gale's costumes are elaborate haute-bourgeois creations, detailed down to the last ruffle and bit of fringe; Bobbie Zlotnik's hair and wig designs provide the elegant final touches. Ken Billington's lighting makes everyone look great; nobody is more skilled at creating a patina of glamor. The sound design, by Jill BC Du Boff and Ien DeNio, wittily mixes grand, symphonic melodies with a string quartet playing the Britney Spears hit "Toxic." Presiding over everything is Busch, hurling letters into the stove and wielding a pistol à la Hedda Gabler, striking melancholy poses over her faded literary career, and, seized with rage, delivering a grimace that Gloria Swanson would envy. I can't pretend that Ibsen's Ghost is on the level of such Busch triumphs as The Divine Sister and The Confessions of Lily Dare; this time, he gets a little too entangled in plot complications that take time to sort out, resulting in the odd dull stretch. But the laughs, when they come, are explosive, and this piece opens up a whole new career direction. Think of the havoc he can raise with the theatrical canon! --David Barbour 
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