Lady from the Sea

Here is a theatrical occasion that is auspicious three times over. First, it brings the Almeida - one of the most innovative and consistently strong London producing theatres of the last decade - back home to their Islington base after a closure of over two years, during which time a £7.6million refurbishment and reconstruction took place (See News, 15 May 2003). On that score, the most important thing to report is that the magic of the place is completely intact - though there are welcome new foyer (it's now undercover!), stage and backstage facilities, the theatre looks virtually identical to how we left it.

Second, the production brings actress Natasha Richardson back from New York to the London stage after an absence of more than a decade, since meeting husband Liam Neeson on a Broadway staging of Anna Christie, and subsequently opened the productions there of Sam Mendes' Cabaret revival and Patrick Marber's Closer.

Richardson has spoken in interviews about how being in America has enabled her to shed the family comparisons that inevitably follow her here, but if that's so, it's a bit surprising to find her making her return to England in a role her mother Vanessa Redgrave once famously put her own signature on, and moreover to find her sounding and looking more like her mother than ever. When one character says to hers, "I'm in you. Inside you. In your face, in your voice," you can't help thinking that it could be her mother speaking.

But third, this production marks Trevor Nunn's first work since leaving the National Theatre that he's run for the last five years. His best work has often been on the more intimate canvases of studio settings but he's also an epic director, and the Almeida, virtually unique among London theatres, is a venue that's famous for providing epic events in an intimate setting.

And so it proves with this production of the mythically titled The Lady from the Sea, Ibsen's dark and tortuous drama about an unhappily married couple and the choices they're forced to make. For him, she's his second wife; for her, he's her second choice. Ellida (Richardson) has married Doctor Wangel (John Bowe), but she's still yearning for a seaman she pledged herself to ten years previously, a man who keeps making somewhat melodramatic returns in her mind and then in reality during the play.

Ellida yearns to belong to the sea, where she imagines her happiness lies, even though she's never actually been beyond the fjords. "If men had lived on the sea, in the sea.... From the very beginning... we would be different creatures," she imagines. The play's journey towards facing the truth is finally resolved when she acknowledges, "We're land creatures. We've left the sea. No going back."

Ibsen's play is loaded with symbolism, and Nunn's production literally underscores it with a rumbling music soundtrack (by Shaun Davey). It's a gruelling but also gripping evening, marvellously pitched between the reality and fantasy that Ellida herself exists in.

- Mark Shenton