The Lady from the Sea

by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Elinor Cook

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 12 October 2017

Kwami Kwei-Armah directs Finbar Lynch as Doctor Wangel and Nikki Amuka-Bird as Ellida, with Helena Wilson as Bolette, Ellie Bamber as Hilde, Jonny Holden as Lyngstrand, Tom McKay as Arnholm, Jim Findley as Ballestred and Jake Fairbrother as the Stranger, in a version of Ibsen's play reset by Tom Scutt in the Caribbean in the late 1940s or early 1950s (the tutor Arnholm limps from a war wound from 1943).

The original play depends on the setting in a small fjord town to emphasise the suffocating remoteness of a place which is effectively cut off from the outside world once the winter weather sets in. The transposition to the Caribbean works surprisingly well: the references to the outside world focus on escaping to England or New York, and the influx of visitors dries up when the summer tourist yachts disappear. The tensions between teenage girls and an ill-at-ease stepmother are sufficiently universal, and the stunning mismatch between Lyngstrand's views about women and Bolette's aspirations are absolutely plausible in this milieu. Even recasting Arnholm as a diffident expatriate Englishman fits his character to the times, while Ellida's difference from all the rest lies in her different racial origin as much as in her strange connection to the sea. The central importance of the sea is maintained, if with rather different resonances, but more importantly the social setting remains completely relevant to Ibsen's vision of the traps into which men and women fall when they try to live together either with or without some degree of honesty and self-confidence.

The performances were excellent - the characterisations deftly revealed and the misunderstandings and cross-purposes subtly explored. The principal focus is on Ellida's crisis, and Nikki Amuka-Bird shows us her volatility, her insecurity and her steely resolve to be free to choose her path in an accomplished performance. She is ably supported by Finbar Lynch as her husband, a man who only slowly learns that trust may be more important than authoritarian conviction. 

The younger people present interesting comparisons and contrast with this central problem. Lyngstrand, the self-obsessed artist, hardly knows how many times he puts his foot in his mouth, while Hilde, the younger girl, veers between teenage petulance and sharp, potentially damaging, awareness. Helena Wilson gives a poignant portrayal of Bolette, keenly aware of her own potential but also burdened with the sort of guilt that family love so easily engenders. Her interaction with Tom McKay as her ex-tutor and would-be suitor is delicately done, complementing the more tempestuous trajectory of Ellida's journey.

All in all, a fine re-imagining of a classic Ibsen play.