Helena is about to inaugurate a hospital built thanks to the fortune of her late husband, a man admired by the entire community. But the arrival of her son Oz and an old friend will bring to light a truth capable of shattering the image of an apparently exemplary family.
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This is how Ghosts begins, the new production of the Centro para las Artes Zoco, based on the famous play Henrik Ibsen wrote in 1881 that forever changed the history of theater. Considered one of the great pillars of modern drama, the piece scandalized the society of its time by addressing then unthinkable topics about family, morality, and appearances.
Almost a century and a half later, British playwright Gary Owen revived that same text to write a deeply contemporary version. Instead of reproducing the Victorian context, he moved the conflict to the present: the orphanage becomes a hospital, venereal disease disappears, and old taboos give way to questions about gender violence, abuse of power, consent, memory, and the invisible traces that a family passes down from generation to generation.
Premiered at the Lyric Hammersmith in London in 2025 under the direction of Rachel O’Riordan, the adaptation was widely praised by specialized critics. The Guardian highlighted that Owen manages to update the classic without losing “the toxic strength of the original”, creating a work capable of moving both those familiar with Ibsen’s text and those approaching it for the first time.
Ghosts now arrives for the first time in this adaptation at Teatro Zoco, in a version directed by Luis Ureta, with a cast including Claudia Cabezas, Guilherme Sepúlveda, Tito Bustamante, Ignacia Sepúlveda, and Nicolás Alaluf. The translation is by Pablo Schwarz, the comprehensive design by César Erazo, and the original music by Carlos Cabezas (Electrodomésticos).
“What led me to bet on Gary Owen’s version was his ability to bring Ghosts closer to the present without betraying Ibsen’s essence,” says Pablo Halpern, artistic director of Teatro Zoco. “Owen does not just modernize the language or superficially transfer the action: he rethinks the conflict from a contemporary sensibility and manages to make the characters, their secrets, and contradictions deeply recognizable to us.”
For Halpern, that is precisely why the classic retains all its power. “Ghosts remains relevant because it talks about something that has not disappeared: the way decisions and conventions of one generation condition the life of the next. Owen makes those themes stop feeling like part of a 19th-century drama and appear as tensions that continue to operate today, both in family intimacy and in society.”
For director Luis Ureta —who arrives for the first time at Teatro Zoco—, one of Gary Owen’s main achievements is having shifted the conflict from biological inheritance to other forms of transmission that remain present in contemporary society.
“Gary Owen understands that the issue of inheritance transmission is much more complex and profound than genetics. There are social, cultural, transgenerational, and behavioral aspects that the play suggests in a very intelligent way, allowing inheritance to have a depth associated with internal, moral, and spiritual dimensions,” explains Ureta.
“Another very relevant aspect is that the pastor from the original play here becomes a lawyer. The exercise of power is no longer in the hands of a religious force, but in a realm related to justice, laws, rationality, and economic transactions. This shift distances itself from Church matters and approaches a political and civic dimension very pertinent to understanding how we relate today as a community,” he adds.
The director also highlights that Owen incorporates present-day phenomena that are decisive for the development of the conflict. “The play also very lucidly incorporates the value and power of social networks, and the phenomenon of image assassination or the shutting down of a person through them. This is something that obviously had no place in Ibsen’s time, but today generates very concrete actions, reactions, and consequences in the lives of the characters,” he adds.
However, for Ureta, beyond these transformations, the true ghost of Ghosts remains the same.
“One of the ghosts that runs transversally through the dramaturgy is the inability to respond with sincerity and honesty to our own nature, ending up making decisions associated with the gaze of others. In this play, Helena also raises something very similar: ‘what I am saying I would never say in public.’ That is, privately one thinks one way and publicly acts another. That double standard reflects many of the vices of Chilean society and contemporary Western society,” he points out.
The stage proposal seeks to transfer that tension to the stage through a language close to contemporary realism, privileging relationships between characters and an atmosphere where the past is always present.
“The dramaturgy already proposes a language very close to the audiovisual products we see today in cinema or on platforms. We try to reflect that in the way actors interact on stage, seeking that the viewer sees human beings relating organically. At the same time, we want that permanent fog that the text proposes to be a kind of character, a metaphorical and dramatic presence that refers to the spectral, to that past that never stops being there,” he concludes.
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
Version by Gary Owen
Translation: Pablo Schwarz
Direction: Luis Ureta
Cast: Claudia Cabezas, Guilherme Sepúlveda, Tito Bustamante, Ignacia Sepúlveda, Nicolás Alaluf
Comprehensive design: César Erazo
Original music: Carlos Cabezas
Assistant director: Soledad Henríquez
Production assistant: Isidora Ituarte
Scenographic realization: Fernando Quiroga
Makeup and hairstyles: Margarita Nilo
Photographs: Daniel Corvillón
CoordinatesSeason: August 28 to October 11.Performances and times: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 6:00 p.m.Where: Centro para las Artes Zoco | Avenida La Dehesa 1500, Lo Barnechea.Tickets at Punto Ticket.Free parking.
