“Darling, I’m going to spend the night with the bad boy ex who makes me feel sexually alive. I need to see if I still love him. Is that OK with you?” says a young wife to her older husband. “Of course, my sweet,” replies her old man. “You must follow your heart.” OK, I am paraphrasing and the husband is actually quite put out about the whole thing, but that’s the gist of this radical rethink of Henrik Ibsen’s 1888 play.
Neurologist Edward (Andrew Lincoln) has two teenage daughters by his first wife, who committed suicide. Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike) and Asa (Grace Oddie-James), aren’t really getting on with their stepmother, Edward’s new spouse Ellida (Alicia Vikander), who doesn’t look that much older than they are. The family live in a beautiful house on the edge of Ullswater in the Lake District. When the play opens, they’re expecting a visit from family friend Lyle (John Macmillan) and distant cousin Heath (Joe Alwyn) is hanging around, awaiting the results of some blood tests.
The characters josh and banter and bicker. They quaff wine, show off their knowledge of poetry, and make middle-class jokes about “Bircher muesli”. They are, as Heath says, “insufferable”, but they know it and they’re funny with it, particularly the stroppy daughters. There are plenty of laughs and there’s even some black comedy to be had from Heath’s depressing diagnosis.
There’s an excruciating water-based sex scene in the second act, that goes on and on and on and on
Although Ellida is a little detached — she and Edward have been having some problems — it looks as though The Lady from the Sea is shaping up to be an amusing family drama. Then the tone changes when Ellida realises that an eco-activist former boyfriend — she was underage when they got together, he was much older — is on his way to see her. Finn (Brendan Cowell) has been in prison for years, having been found responsible for the death of an oil rig security guard. When he was jailed, Ellida had promised she would wait for him. Things start to unravel.
Ibsen is famous for writing strong, complex female characters but Ellida, as depicted here, is pretty irritating — intentionally, I think. Yes, she’s traumatised by her experiences with Finn but, wow, she doesn’t half go on about it. Late in the play she launches into a speech saying “When I was twelve … ” and my heart sank realising we were about to get yet another long Why-I-Am-Like-This story.
It’s thanks to Vikander’s skill as an actor that despite Ellida’s meandering me-me-me monologues, we still listen to every word. This is the first time that the Oscar-winner, the star of Ex Machina and Irma Vep, has been on stage since she was 19 and training to be a dancer in Sweden. Some theatregoers moan about big Hollywood names getting roles in London productions. I can see their point — we have an absolute plethora of stage talent who could do with the work that wealthy TV and movie actors don’t really need. On the other hand, I enjoy the opportunity to watch film stars do their thing up close. It’s the equivalent of getting to see a stadium act play an intimate gig at a small venue. Alicia Vikander is magnetic in the way she moves and speaks. Andrew Lincoln, back on stage after years of dealing with The Walking Dead, is equally compelling as the husband whose attempts to be easy-going and sensitive are tested to their limits.
Director and writer Simon Stone’s determination to place the play in the current day feels slightly heavy-handed. There are references to TikTok, Instagram, Spotify and OnlyFans. OK, we get it. The staging isn’t exactly subtle either. The set is white for the first act, black for the second, much of which takes place under torrential rain. There is, thanks to some hydraulic wizardry, a swimming pool and actual swimming. It’s all very aquatic. However, as Hilda says to Ellida at one point: “You don’t have to do things just because you can.” I feel the same way about rain and swimming on stage. And there’s an excruciating water-based sex scene in the second act, that goes on and on and on and on. Still, a trip to the Bridge Theatre is rarely a washout. The Lady from the Sea is an oddity, certainly, but an entertaining one.
The Lady From The Sea at bridgetheatre.co.uk runs until 8 November
The playtext of The Lady from the Sea is published by Methuen Drama, and available at www.bloomsbury.com
