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:

29 February 2012

Virtually the first thing we hear in Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea is the painter Ballestad describing his painting of a dying mermaid: "She's been washed up on the sea and can't find her way back. So here she is, dying in the rock pools... The lady of the house gave me the idea." It's played for laughs and establishes a warm comic tone which filters through this production. But it also captures the central dilemma for Joely Richardson's character Ellida Wangel - if you feel like you don't belong somewhere, should you stay?

Following in the footsteps of her mother Vanessa Redgrave and late sister Natasha Richardson, she plays the young second wife of loving Dr Wangel (Malcolm Storry) who is desperately trying to understand her recent strange moods. It doesn't help that Ellida has never felt able to play mother to grown up Bolette (an engaging Madeleine Worrall) or slyly sardonic, petulant Hilde (Alexandra Moen).

So when the Stranger - a sailo...

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Latest User Review

David Baxter - 18 March 2012:

Stephen Unwin has a reputation as a journeyman director and this is a suitably workmanlike production of The Lady From the Sea, that rarity amongst Ibsen's plays - a story with a happy ending. The problem is that the two leads fail to sparkle. Malcolm Storry overdoes the stolidity of Wangel in the face of his wife's possible desertion and Joely Richardson, in a role that is a family tradition, doesn't completely capture the enigmatic passion and emotional confusion of Ellida. Fortunately the lighter sub-plots are much better handled and there are particularly good supporting performances from Madeleine Worrall and Alexandra Moen as the two Wangel sisters. There's always plenty to appreciate with the subtleties of characterisation and the ebb and flow of emotions of Ibsen but this production fails to do more than scratch the surface of its potential....

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