A performance presented by the Marin Sorescu National Theater, Craiova

Recommended age: 18+

Warning! This performance uses strobe lights.

The play The Lady from the Sea (Fruen fra havet) was written in 1888 in Germany, and its world premiere took place at the Christiania Theater on February 12, 1889. Haunted by a complicated romantic past, Ellida, the central character, doubts that humanity was meant to live on land. She is in love with the ocean, fascinated by its boundlessness and the demonic energy in which she senses an expression of the forces of life. This character of the sea is embodied in her former lover, the Stranger, who exerts a remarkable hypnotic power over her.

“My Ellida is alive today, I often meet her in different cities and countries where I travel. (...) This Ellida is in a state of titanic shift, from “herself” of present day to the “not herself” of tomorrow. As it happens with the reflection of a face in the water, when the wind blows the water, the reflection trembles and changes proportions, it is no longer the same as the original. (...) This Ellida knows about Kolima and Auschwitz, she knows that God has left, she is preparing herself for the “travel”, “the flight”, “the emigration”, “the leg-bail” from us all and to somewhere, that Sonia from Chekov’s “Uncle Vania” described as where one can “… see the Angels.. see heaven shining like a jewel”. (Andriy Zholdak)

Andriy Zholdak, Ukrainian theatre and opera director, born in Kyiv, studied Theatre directing in Moscow, under the guidance of Anatoli Vasiliev. He has staged performances and operas in Ukraine, France, Russia, Romania, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Macedonia, Belgium, Poland, Montenegro. His lectures dealing with “The Actor of the Future“ and “Quantum Theatre” and his special workshops dissecting the Art of Acting have been held in Brazil, Japan, Italy, Spain. He received the Prize UNESCO for performing arts in 2004, and the prize The Golden Mask for best Opera and Directing for his staging of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin for Mikhailovski Theatre in St Petersburg (2014) and Best Ensemble for Chekhov’s Three Sisters at Alexandrinski Theatre (2016). His staging of Tchaikovsky’s opera The Enchantress at Lyon Opera was declared best performance of 2019 at OPER Awards in Germany and nominated as best production at the World OPER Awards in 2020. His most recent staging was Bartok’s opera “Blue Beard’s Castel” for the Lyon Opera in spring 2021

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Photo credit Cristian Floriganță