"The Lady from the Sea" gets a brand new production in São Paulo.

The negation or affirmation of desire? This is one of the great debates in "The Lady from the Sea," a play that premieres this Saturday (June 30, 2012) at the Nair Bello Theater, in the Frei Caneca Shopping Mall, in São Paulo. The classic text by Norwegian Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) receives an unprecedented staging in São Paulo by the award-winning director Sérgio Ferrara ("Poor Superman," "Pororoca," "The Suspicious Marriage," among others) and translated by Valderez Cardoso Gomes. Written in 1888 and initially titled "The Mermaid," "The Lady from the Sea" (The Lady from the SeaThis belongs to Ibsen's symbolist phase and is considered one of his most poetic texts.

"The Lady from the Sea" revolves around the drama of Élida Wangel, a woman who married a widowed doctor, father of two daughters, and moved to a small town. Dr. Wangel loves her deeply, but she doesn't know how to love him because she is tormented by the memory of the stranger (a sailor) who promised to come and get her one day to marry her. When she was young, she had a brief and intense romance with this man, almost a stranger to her. He joined his ring with hers and threw them into the sea, assuming it was a lifelong engagement and that he would return one day to get her. Childless, idle, and dependent, she had only one son, who died at birth; her only joy is diving into the sea. Élida's attraction to the sea symbolizes her search for and renunciation of personal freedom. The plot shows Élida's debate between resignation to domestic, bourgeois life alongside an obscure village doctor, and the adventure with a stranger, unknown, but who perhaps signifies freedom.

"The Lady from the Sea" concludes the trilogy of this symbolist phase of Ibsen's work staged by Sergio Ferrara. In 2007, Ferrara directed "An Enemy of the People," in commemoration of the centenary of the playwright's death. In 2008, he staged an unpublished text by Ibsen, "The Emperor and Galileo," which featured Caco Ciocler in the cast. "The composition of 'The Lady from the Sea' pleases me with its lightness, not only in the thought and description of the images and scenes, but in the composition of each phrase. What most caught my attention in Elida was the understanding that there was a need for independence to assert her free choice. To renounce marriage, to ask for a divorce in order to truly choose freely. That is the greatness of Elida. It matters little what she will choose," explains director Sergio Ferrara.

For the staging, Ferrara also sought to make symbolic choices. The set design and costumes are by JC Serroni. The emphasis is on the color white. In the center of the stage, there is a cyclorama inserted into a wooden platform. It acts as a bridge leading to the sea, to infinity. The stage space seeks to work with the sensation of infinity and immateriality that the color white suggests, highlighting this drama from Ibsen's symbolist phase. The costumes are based on the work of the Norwegian painter Peter Severin Kroyer (1851-1909) and are realistic, to contrast with the poetry of the work.  

Service:

The Lady from the Sea, by Henrik Ibsen. Directed by Sérgio Ferrara.

Season: June 30th to September 2nd, 2012, Fridays at 9:30 PM, Saturdays at 9 PM, and Sundays at 6 PM.

Location: Nair Bello Theater – Frei Caneca Shopping Mall – Rua Frei Caneca, 569 – 3rd Floor

Tickets: 50 reais

Censorship: 16 years

Capacity: 200 seats – with accessibility (access ramp, restrooms and elevators)

Duration: minute 90

Genre: Drama

Information: 11 3472-2414