York Settlement Players present Ghosts in The Studio, York Theatre Royal, from March 2 to 5

Director Andy Love chose the play after seeing the Sheffield Crucible production of Ibsen’s An Enemy Of The People, starring Antony Sher.

“I wanted to stage something that was in keeping with that dark style,” he says.

“I started looking at the whole popular Ibsen catalogue, and though I toyed with A Doll’s House, eventually I plumped for Ghosts and then tried to find the best adaptation I could that would suit a studio performance.”

Bulmore’s vibrant version was premiered in 2007 at the Gate Theatre in London, a factor that attracted Andy. “The Gate is a small theatre, on a par with the Donmar Warehouse, and because Bulmore condenses the story, that factor would have been a bad thing in a more conventional theatre, but in a studio it works,” he says. Written in 1881, Ibsen’s Scandinavian drama tells of widow Mrs Alving as she prepares for the opening of an orphanage in memory of her husband. When her artist son, Osvald, returns to celebrate the heroic memory of his dead father, Mrs Alving believes she at last can lay to rest the ghosts of the past.

However, over the course of one day, dark secrets and unresolved tensions are gradually exposed, bringing to light the strange and complex ties that bind Mrs Alving, Osvald, their maid Regine, her father, Engstrand, and Pastor Manders. As the story unfolds, the shocking truth is revealed.

Bulmore’s adaptation makes for a more straightforward play, suggests Andy. “What Amelia has done, which may alienate Ibsen aficionados, is strip away the longer speeches by Pastor Manders and Mrs Alving,” he says. “The running time will be only one- and-a-half to one-and-three-quarter hours long.”

Andy believes this version strengthens the shocking impact. “It is 130 years since Ibsen wrote Ghosts and it’s hard to imagine the shock it caused, when it took ten years to be staged for the first time in Britain. Once it was, it was roundly savaged by most critics for what they considered ‘as foul and filthy a concoction as has ever been allowed to disgrace the boards of an English theatre’. “We’ve seen much more shocking theatre since then, but viewed as a satire on late-Victorian moral strictures, the play still has dark, disturbing and contemporary themes: sexually transmitted diseases still ruin the lives of many youngsters, religious inflexibility and general hypocrisy are still encountered; and women are still struggling to be heard, thanks to institutionalised sexism,” he says.

“Amelia’s adaptation is stark and thrilling; distilling the essence of Ibsen’s original into a modern idiom, while still capturing the heart of his humanity.”

More is done in natural conversation in Bulmore’s script than in a straight translation of Ibsen’s play, reckons Andy.

“What that has enabled us to do is concentrate on the relationships of the characters, such as Mrs Alving’s relationship with her son, Osvald, which is taken further into Oedipus territory than you might be tempted to go in a conventional version,” he says.

“The way we’ve worked with the ending, without giving too much away, is that we’re playing up to that Oedipus element a little bit, and so we’re still trying to shock to a certain extent because the play has lost a lot of its shock factor since it first came out.”

Love’s production, which will combine the original 1881 Ibsen setting with a modern context, features three Settlement regulars: Maurice Crichton as Pastor Manders, Beryl Nairn as Mrs Alving and Ged Murray as Engstrand, alongside Mattew Wignall as the ailing Osvald and Anna Rogers as Regine.

Wignall was seen last in York Shakespeare Project’s production of Henry IV Parts One and Two last summer, while Anna is new to the Settlement ranks, but you may have spotted her in the murky depths of the York Dungeon.

• York Settlement Players present Ghosts in The Studio, York Theatre Royal, from March 2 to 5 and March 8 to 12 at 7.45pm plus 2pm on March 12. Tickets cost £7 to £12 on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk