ROBERT WILSON

“We don’t think it’s strange that we belong to the land. How did that happen? Why have we come to belong to the dry land? Why not to the air? Why not to the sea?
The longing to possess wings. The strange dreams that one can fly and without being surprised at it - - doesn’t that suggest something?
And so there are people who think they belong to the sea.”
Susan Sontag
Lady from the Sea (excerpt)

Susan Sontag wrote the adaptation of Ibsen’s classic play for Robert Wilson, a modern exploration of this story of Ellida, a woman whose early life had been one of great personal freedom living by the wild Norwegian sea with her father, who, after his death, marries an older widower with two daughters and finds herself trapped, far from the sea.

Michael Galasso’s music is the base for a soundscape that unites adaptations of traditional Scandanavian folk songs, his own unique violin, and sounds of the sea, the cries of gulls.

Six actors play in this adaptation of a story written a century ago in Norway that has proved accessible to modern audiences all over Europe. It was remounted in Korea with a company of Korean actors where it proved the surprise hit of the Seoul Theatre Festival, the first work by Mr. Wilson to be seen in Korea. Now it is restaged at the Teatr Dramatyczny Warsaw with a new cast of Polish actors.

With costumes by Giorgio Armani that reflect the many colors of the sea, and a simple, elegant wooden set that is reminiscent of the deck of a ship, where shifts of scene are indicated only with the addition of a sail-like cloth and changes of the light, Mr. Wilson has created a work that fills the theatre with Ellida’s longing for the sea.

PRODUCTION DATES
Ferrara, Italy, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara, 5 – 10 May 1998
Istanbul, Turkey, Istanbul International Theatre Festival
30 – 31 May 1998
Italy Tour 1999, Reggio Emilia, Brescia, Bologna, Genova, Pistoia, Cesena, Jesi, Palermo, Salerno
Maubeuge, France, Maubeuge Festival, March 1999
Créteil, France, Maison des Artes
March 1999
Seoul, Korea, Seoul Theatre Festival, 27 August – 3 September 2000
Warsaw, Poland, Teatr Dramatyczny Warsaw, première 28 October 2005; next dates 4 - 9 April 2006
Malaga, Spain, Teatro Cervantes, Festival de Teatro de Malaga, 21 - 22 January 2006
Oslo, Norway, Nationaltheatret, Ibsenfestival, 28 - 29 August 2006
Sevilla, Spain, Teatro Lope de Vega, 12 - 15 March 2008
Madrid, Spain, Matadero,
27 March - 27 April 2008