About the work
“Das Ferienhaus” (The Holiday House) is the German-language version of “Ibsen Huis”, a play by the Australian-Swiss director and writer Simon Stone based on motifs from Henrik Ibsen. The Dutch world premiere took place on 9 May 2017 at Toneelgroep Amsterdam, directed by Stone, and in July 2017 the production toured to the Festival d'Avignon. For the Burgtheater in Vienna, Stone wrote and directed a new version, which opened on 18 December 2025.
Plot
At the centre is a glass holiday house that an architect built for his family, and the family who live in it over several decades. The scenes do not follow chronology but jump between periods. Gradually it emerges that the father abused young girls from his own family and that everyone else knew and kept silent. The consequences of that silence reach into the next generation.
Cultural significance
Stone weaves motifs from “The Master Builder”, “Ghosts” and “A Doll's House”, along with traces of “Hedda Gabler” and “John Gabriel Borkman”, into a family saga of his own set in the present. The Vienna version runs almost four hours and was praised by critics as a gripping family epic with an outstanding ensemble.