Taking on a role played by her late sister Natasha and their mother Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson's choice is courageous - and feels apt.
She has concentrated recently on film and TV: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Nip/Tuck, Anonymous.
Here, after a long absence from the British stage, she is the mysterious, restless Ellida Wangel, married to a good-natured doctor but haunted by memories of another man. Ibsen's play swells with emotion, and her performance combines the ethereal and passionate. It's full of nervous little fidgets and expansive gestures. Physically she's luminous, yet she reveals the character's morbid qualities: Ellida appears condemned to a life of hollow repetitions, and an air of the otherworldly clings to her.
Sam Crane is excellent as talkative invalid Lyngstrand, who intrigues Dr Wangel's energetic daughter Hilde (Alexandra Moen), and Malcolm Storry has a slab-like solidity as the doctor.
Stephen Unwin's production, which uses his own new, colloquial version of the text, is efficient rather than compelling. Some exposition is far from fluent. A more delicate touch is needed with the moments of slippery comedy.
Ibsen delights in the sea's dramatic possibilities: although at first Ellida thinks of the sea as representing freedom, she learns this freedom must be matched by responsibility.
Richardson plausibly articulates the battle between the two.
* The Lady From The Sea, Rose Theatre, High Street, Kingston KT1 1HL
