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After this performance of Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” sunrises will probably look a good deal more threatening and conflicted than they should. What a show! Having never sat in gallery seats before, I was struck by the odd feeling you get looking down on these characters from abnormal angles – like a god almost, eye-level with the stage lights. It’s funny watching characters speak with their backs to you sometimes. It gave the performance a disturbing verisimilitude. The only thing that bothered me: cheesy thunder sound affects, cued any time the father’s malevolent presence is felt. (If they’d just turned the volume down a little…)

But even creepier: So “Ghosts” is about, among other things, a talented young artist who finds himself haunted by the ghost of his mentally deranged father and ultimately pays a heavy price for the discovery of some dark truths about his family.

Um, Through the Pale Door is about, among other things, a talented young artist who finds herself haunted by the ghost of her mentally deranged mother and ultimately pays a heavy price for the discovery of some dark truths about her family.

Proof from the jacket description: “Sarah finds her own artistic endeavors haunted by grim yet compelling memories of growing up under the rule of an inexplicably deranged artist on one side and an oddly aloof, workaholic entrepreneur on the other.” She “will face a great challenge: domesticating her own emerging inner demons…”

Cue the cheesy thunder.