The Lady from the Sea at Bridge Theatre
”All of us will survive buildings, places and possessions, and they’ll survive us,” one character muses in Simon Stone’s reimagining of Ibsen’s 1888 classic drama The Lady from the Sea. Transporting the drama from a small Norwegian town to the posh English countryside, Stone also strips away the mystical elements of Ibsen’s original. Staying faithful, however, to its psychological nuance, his audacious update carries modern urgency between Beyoncé sing-alongs and climate crisis anxieties.
Andrew Lincoln and Alicia Vikander lead the production in the pivotal roles of Edward and Ellida. Edward is a well-off neurosurgeon who lives with his mixed-race daughters from his first marriage: the quick-witted Asa (Gracie Oddie-James) and her fiery younger sister Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike). Set for the most part in the back garden of their home, their circle is completed by the easy-going Lyle (John Macmillan), a long-time friend of the couple and a kind of uncle figure to the girls, and Heath (Joe Alwyn), a sculptor and a distant relative under Edward’s neurological care.
Amid this settled family unit, and with the painful memory of Edward’s late wife still palpable in the home, Ellida feels awkwardly sandwiched between them all, constantly missing the mark with her stepdaughters despite her best efforts to bond. Between sprawled monologues and ghostly hallucinations, she feels divided not just from Edward but from herself too, yearning for the sea and the deep malaise it stirs within her. A desire dormant until a dark incident from her climate activist past resurfaces with the arrival of her former lover, Finn (Brendan Cowell), a figure who holds a psychological, and clearly predatory, sway over her.
Performances are exceptional all around. Vikander is mesmerising in her portrayal of a woman snapped into a sharp awakening of her own agency. Lincoln’s Edward is a ticking time bomb – an overprotective family man whose crippling fear of abandonment tests his ability to let go. Cowell is met with stiffened shoulders as the unnerving Finn, while Macmillan brings a quirky charm to Lyle, the aforementioned Beyoncé fan. Oddie-James and Akuwudike are scene-stealing as sisters suffocated by the racial isolation of their white-majority neighbourhood and the inescapable gossip surrounding their mother’s death. Joe Alwyn is tragic as Heath, who grows to accept his terminal diagnosis with a stoic’s resolve, but with so little stage time, his character feels forcefully wedged in.
Suffice to say, the play often feels overstuffed with subplots that aren’t given room to fully flesh out. While comedy massively anchors this modernised revision, several jokes do the disservice of taking us out of devastating moments, while references to OnlyFans, ChatGPT and Brooklyn Beckham land more like performative displays of pop culture knowledge.
Set designer Lizzie Clachan’s stunning transitions are the production’s crowning moments. The pristine white garden furniture of the first act is replicated in black after the interval – on the nose, yes, but a welcome signalling of the play’s move towards darker psychological terrain. A rainstorm proves distracting only due to worry over on-stage accidents – a worry confirmed when a performer actually slips but cleverly plays it off in character. Then the stage descends to reveal the collected water now forming a swimming pool, an inventive materialisation of Ibsen’s sea symbolism.
Also noteworthy are Stefan Gregory’s sound design and Nick Schlieper’s lighting, which work in tandem to externalise Edward’s unravelling psyche. In between being hurled from one tense interaction to the next, the stage jolts with a split-second glitch that knocks him backwards, as if in pain, before snapping back to normal.
While the script could certainly benefit from some stripping back for clarity, this water-drenched production sensitively deals with trauma, grief and the strength it takes to move through and beyond it.
Ruweyda Sheik Ali
Photos: Johan Persson
The Lady from the Sea is at the Bridge Theatre from 10th September until 8th November 2025. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.
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