Back in the 20-Aughts, Lincoln Center Theater went all the way with The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard’s nine-hour trilogy about philosophical ferment in pre-Revolutionary Russia, peopled by the historic likes of Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, Vissarion Belinsky, Ivan Turgenev, and a supporting cast of some 60 others. Though underwhelmed by the plays, Ben Brantley of The New York Times found the production “brave and gorgeous. . . . As directed by Jack O’Brien and acted and designed by a stellar team of artisans, ‘Utopia’ is a major work of theatrical craftsmanship, a luscious advertisement for the singular narrative seductiveness of drama.” Twenty years on, O’Brien, now 85, has assembled a comparable constellation of talents to mount Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881), a compact, vastly superior dramatic property that whizzes across the company’s diminutive second space in an uninterrupted hour and 50 minutes. Once again, craftsmanship is triumphant—none more than the playwright’s own. Observing the classical unities of time, place, and action, with a cast of five, Ibsen lays bare the cowardice and hypocrisies of an entire society. We zoom in on Helena Alving, a sea captain’s widow who is about to dedicate an orphanage to her husband’s memory. It’s not long before we discover that his idealized image bears scant resemblance to the man he was. A terrible reckoning lies ahead that will spare no one. But the sins that are coming back to haunt the next generation are not the “honorable” captain’s alone. As Mrs. Alving, Lily Rabe awakens to a lifetime of self-deceptions. The walking moral compass Pastor Manders, played by the Utopia alumnus Billy Crudup, has, as always, all the (wrong) answers. Levon Hawke, son of the Utopia alumnus Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, unravels before our eyes as Osvald Alving, the innocent Œdipus of this twisted saga. Completing the cast, Hamish Linklater and Ella Beatty portray another father with terrible secrets and the child who seeks only to get him off her back. A curious “experimental” framing device suggests that the production remains work-in-progress, but the action proper unfolds in a streamlined naturalistic style that looks perfectly finished. If O’Brien’s intent is to convey that Ibsen’s mysteries, old-fashioned appearances notwithstanding, have lost none of their power to baffle and bewilder, he’s right on the mark. Mark O’Rowe’s fluent new adaption of Ibsen’s play underscores that conviction. Original music cues by Mark Bennett are sparing but strike deep chords. —Matthew Gurewitsch