31 October 2017

The Lady from the Sea at Donmar Warehouse was clinical and cold


I keep going to see Ibsen plays in the hope that I will understand what the magic is and start to appreciate them more but it has been a mixed journey so far and while some productions have been reasonable none have been exceptional and others have been disappointing. This was one of the reasonable ones.

It was a late decision to go and see it. I had a free evening, had seen decent reviews (I do appreciate that theatres only share the good ones) and there was a lone free seat in the middle of the Circle (A37) so I forked out £30. It was a good seat, even if the woman next to me spent the whole evening trying to eat sweets quietly and failing.

This was a new version of The Lady from the Sea and the biggest change was moving the Norwegian characters with their Norwegian names to the Caribbean. Not sure why. I had only seen the play once before so I did not expect to catch many of the differences.

The Lady herself was played with much aplomb by Nikki Amuka-Bird and the rest of the cast did a fine job too. I particularly enjoyed Ellie Bamber as Hilde, the Lady's younger step-daughter, and that have been because as the young cynic she was the most believable character.

I liked the set too with it's simplicity and its quirky water tank that contained a model of an island with a submerged boat and houses.

The acting and production were unable to rescue a play in which the characters are not believable and the story does nothing. In the best part of two uninterrupted hours there were no wow moments and there were no characters that I cared for, except (possibly) the eldest step-daughter and the play was not about her.

The Lady from the Sea was well constructed but lacked any emotion. It was clinical and cold. I admired the professionalism of the production and enjoyed the story but it left no last impression.

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