Ibsen’s Lady Inger is a powerful play. Partly based on a true story in 1500s Norway, Ibsen’s five-act drama charts a series of difficult decisions taken by a woman who is forced into the shoes of her recently deceased husband. A widow living in an isolated castle off the coast of Trondheim is the last remaining vestige of Norway’s national identity. With the weight of expectation on her and chauvinist attitudes of those in support of her, she must calculate what gambles she is willing to take for her family and her nation.
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Ottisdotter’s adaptation of the text streamlines this play written when Henrik Ibsen was only 27 years old and charts, even more intensely, the dramatic decisions that Lady Inger must take to save herself, her people and Norway.
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Ibsen’s Lady Inger is an excellent exposition of female leadership, and women in power. The central character provides early formations of Ibsen’s later Hedda Gabler, Nora Helmer and Rebecca West. Will Lady Inger overcome the odds and defeat the men set dead against her?
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Lady Inger returns to the UK stage for only the fifth time in 120 years at The Space Theatre, London, whose patron is Sir Ian McKellen.
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Our run was from 27 JUNE - 8 JULY 2023 with a live streamed performance available around the world on the 6 July.
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