The Lady from the Sea

Synopsis

Ellida, the Lighthouse Keeper's daughter, is homesick for the sea. Her life with her husband Dr Wangel and his daughters leaves her restless. Then, on a hot, brilliantly clear summer morning life changes...Ellida Wangel's mysterious seafaring lover has returned after many years to reclaim the woman to whom he believed himself to be betrothed. With piercing eyes he exerts a mesmerising hold over all whom he encounters. Yet, he is a man with a past, a murderer, a man of the sea. What is Ellida to do? Whom should she choose? The husband who loves her and is prepared to grant her freedom or the enigmatic man with whom she shares the same watery affinity. A man who holds a 'horrible unfathomable power' over her mind. Yet Ellida's mind is like the sea, it ebbs and flows and finally reaches its own firm conclusion. The Lady from the Sea (1888) represents an important turning point in Ibsen's work. Within a few days of its publication Edmund Gosse wrote 'There is thrown over the whole play a glamour of romance, of mystery, of landscape beauty...moreover, after so many tragedies, this is a comedy...the tone is quite unusually sunny, and without a tinge of pessimism.' This play explores the hypnotic hold one person may gain over another. It is an emphatic defence of individuality, of inner struggles faced with courage and integrity.

Our Review:

6 May 2008

There is something mystical and elemental about Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, and the valiant revival at the Arcola, in a new version by Frank McGuinness, has plenty of sighs and wafting sounds of ships and mermaids, and a strong central performance by Lia Williams as Ellida, whose child has died with the eyes of a maritime stranger.

The play’s symbolism is rooted in physical detail, which gives it a special flavour: an incomplete portrait of a dying mermaid is made real by Ellida’s first entrance after a swim in the fjord. Williams may not exude the powerful sensuality of a drenched and glistening Vanessa Redgrave in a white towel thirty years ago, but she is certainly frantic.

Her outburst against the diseased water makes a link with the Arcola’s first Ibsen play in this season, An Enemy of the People. But instead of veering into civic disruption, the play strives towards the higher ground of spiritual well-being: Elli...

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