At the start of Court Theatre’s production of the rarely produced Henrik Ibsen play “The Lady from the Sea,” director Shana Cooper and her design team deliver one of the more exquisite images you’ll see on stage. Behind a set of sliding glass doors, we see the actress Chaon Cross appearing to float on her side as if she were a sea creature, a mermaid. Her movement feels fluid, her body relaxed. It’s a vision of someone at peace with her surroundings. It’s a most alluring illusion, a brief but memorable bit of theatrical magic.
The character is Ellida, the title character, a lady who “belongs” to the sea even while she lives on land. In our own idiomatic terms, she’s a fish out of water.
