Watery family drama floats my boat

Bridge Theatre

⭑⭑⭑⭑

Simon Stone brought us Yerma with Billie Piper, one of the finest productions I have ever seen, and Phaedra with Janet McTeer which was pretty good too. He likes to take a classic, tear it apart, get down to its basics, and rebuild it for the modern world. So did he pull it off with Henrik Ibsen, father of theatrical realism, and stars Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln? The answer is, yes, with style. It is an entertaining, amusing, gripping, unique piece of theatre.

The evening starts (and continues) with much would-be witty repartee of the kind that you find in fiction rather than real life, except this production often presents it as  crass or cringeworthy, and characters talk over one another, and mock one another. Ibsen was an early proselytiser of theatrical realism which meant believable conversations featuring middle class families that middle class theatre audiences could identify with, as opposed to the previous focus on royalty and gods. This play, with a script developed by the actors in conjunction with writer director Simon Stone, pays full homage to Ibsen with its realistic dialogue.

The subject matter is serious but this version is also very funny. One of exchanges that made me laugh, given the title of the play, was when someone said to Ellida: ‘You must be the lady of the house’ and she responded: ‘Did he just call me a lady?’

The play is set in the modern day in the Lake District, which makes a change from the Cotswolds, and is sprinkled with contemporary references, to OnlyFans and Just Stop Oil and the like, but the themes of love, loss and the effect of the past on the present are eternal and universal.

Edward and his second wife Ellida seem happy. Although his daughters from his first marriage are rebellious and rude, the couple are able to shrug it off. Then a former lover appears and Ellie must make a choice between an unfinished relationship and her current love.

Death hangs over the narrative: there are suicides, one by Edward’s first wife; Edward and Ellida have lost a child through miscarriage; a visiting young sculptor has a terminal illness. While the presence of death in their lives messes up some of the characters’ lives, it also acts as a reminder that life is short and unpredictable, and needs to be lived, not postponed.  Dramatic choices and revelations continue to the end.

The acting is uniformly excellent but none better than the two leads- Andrew Lincoln is totally convincing as a man lacking confidence, despite being a leading neurologist. This is revealed to be the result of a cold father. Events test Edward’s  liberal attitudes to breaking point. He, like the script, is funny, angry and anguished.

Alicia Vikander is a more subdued presence playing a quietly confident mature woman, with a slightly flat, stuttering delivery that made all the more powerful her passion, when it came out. At that point, she seemed to revert to the nervous, vulnerable youngster from twenty years earlier, who made decisions that would shape her life.

The young people- two teenage daughters planning the first stages of adulthood, and the dying sculptor- remind us of the turbulence of life as a young person. I loved Isobel Akuwudike and Gracie Oddie-James as the stroppy but ultimately caring daughters, and Joe Alwyn is wonderfully neurotic as the sculptor. John Macmillan is spot-on as the blunt, faithful family friend Lyle. Brendan Cowell is suitably charismatic as Finn, the lover from the past.

Lizzie Clachan’s magnificent set isn’t in keeping with ideas of realism. It is pure theatre. The show is set in the round, bringing the audience close to the actors in this intimate family drama. There are minimal props- a table and chairs in one corner and a sun lounger opposite. (Avoid seats near the right corner as you enter the auditorium and the opposite corner on the far side, as these bits of furniture will sometimes obscure your view.)

During the interval, the entire set, both the floor and the small number of props are changed from completely white to totally black. Straightaway, you feel there will trouble ahead! The beginnings of scenes increasingly overlap with the ends of the previous ones, as the tension increases- as if we can’t wait to see what happens next.

Much of the baggage Ellida carries is weighed down by events at sea, so , in an eye-popping moment in the second act, water appears, first as heavy rain, then as shallow water when part of the stage drops. Two lovers make out in it with echoes of From Here To Eternity, before it becomes a swimming pool. It may not be an immersive production from the audience’s point of view but some of the actors are fully immersed in the pool. It could only happen in theatre. But, far from being gloomy, the water- like the play itself- is ultimately cleansing.

This is an intense piece of theatre I wouldn’t have wanted to miss.

The Lady From The Sea can be seen at The Bridge until 8 November 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre

Paul purchased his ticket.

Click here to watch a video of this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven