Modernisations, what can I say. I love a good modernisation. Nothing illustrates the universality of the greatest plays quite like one—nor their enduring themes, nor the fact that life repeats itself in endless iterations. I am such a big fan.

But modernisations need to be done well. It is no small feat to take the words of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen or Chekhov and do them justice, or at least not do them harm. It takes even more to warrant keeping the original name of the play. At least when Alexander Zeldin drew inspiration from Antigone, he called the resulting work The other place; Anya Reiss had the audacity not to change titles, but to call her abomination The Seagull. As did Simon Stone with his rendition of Lady from the Sea, in which, yet again—like he did with Phaedra—he painfully reminded us that he does not have the intellectual prowess to mess with the greats. Maybe if he had called this Lady from the Swimming Pool, I would not have left the theatre quite so frustrated.

There are actually significant commonalities between Phaedra and Lady—both plays start off with very well scripted family scenes, full of great wit and superb energy. But as both progressed, the core tenets started coming apart at the seams and the plots no longer made sense. With Phaedra, I knew the story, so I felt that at the theatre; with Lady I had not, so I sat there thinking to myself—was Ibsen having a really bad day when he wrote this, or has Stone taken liberties that he really should not have? When I came home, I quickly read up on the original – and surprise, surprise, it was the latter, not the former.

These musings would be far too long were I to list out all the incongruent elements of the play, but for my peace of mind, I have to list out those that wound me up the most.

How is Wangel the villain?

From the moment we meet the good doctor, it is impossible not to warm to him. And this is not because it’s difficult to gaze upon Andrew Lincoln without glimpsing his love-struck character from Love Actually. Rather, it is because he plays an overwhelmingly sympathetic figure. He is empathetic towards his dying patient; he is an indulgent father—concerned about his daughters’ welfare but at the same time willing to be bossed and shooed about to go restock the wine they had consumed; he invites his wife’s ex into his family life, because he has the wife’s best interests at heart.

And the more we learn about him as the play goes on, the more it becomes impossible not to feel for him. His first wife committed suicide—he struggles to talk about this and the ensuing sense of abandonment but cherishes her memory and encourages his daughters to celebrate her birthday. He treats his second wife with tenderness and understanding and is unapologetically faithful to her, his very soul being ripped out at the thought of her going to another man. However, there is nothing possessive in the way he communicates this—rather a deep sense of disbelief at what seems like punishment for the love that he has given and continues to give.

And yet, with this backdrop, somehow, we are meant to see Wangel as the villain. Apparently, as we learn from the scene between the daughters that makes reference to ersatz wife and mother, he somehow leans too heavily on his older daughter for support. But this makes no sense—after all, it is Wangel we see in an apron, with BBQ tongs, taking note of the fact he needs to fry the vegetarian and non-vegetarian food separately. It is the daughters that emerge in the morning, very happy to indulge in the breakfast cooked by a dying man. It is Wangel willing to drop everything to support them wherever they may travel.

We are also told that Wangel’s sin is being a white father to his mixed-race Black daughters. By keeping them in the small village where their family home and his practice are, he is depriving them of access to their cultural roots. All they have is rap and Lyle, their step-mother’s Black ex. Lyle is a philandering womaniser. In his mid-forties he might still not ready to commit to a serious relationship, but he is nonetheless very happy to maintain a daily texting relationship with a seventeen-year-old and to admit to forays into the older sister’s OnlyFans page. These grooming vibes apparently make him the model man to take the younger daughter to the city to live with him and let her experience life and teach her the ways of the Black community.

This makes sense in the context of the actions of the equivalent characters in the original plot. But in this rewrite it is hard to suspend reason and pretend that this is not a very dark narrative indeed and get on board with castigating the father for feeling uncomfortable about what is being proposed.

Why does Ellida lose it so suddenly?

Early on, Ellida does lament swimming in a lake rather than the sea—but it’s not the sea’s vast expanse and boundless freedom she craves; it’s merely the sand between her toes. And that’s the full extent of her wistfulness: no deep longing for open waters, no sense of being trapped in her surroundings or shackled to a belligerent husband in a marriage she never truly wanted.

Quite the opposite. From the start, she comes across as witty and present, with a palpable tenderness in the exchanges with her husband that never feels contrived or tense. True, we later learn of a miscarriage and its lingering psychological toll, yet nothing in their rapport hints at a union born of convenience or coercion.

The script fails to take us on any journey of unravelling; there are no hints or glints of a darker past life in those early sunny moments, no shadows from her buried history. Small wonder, then, that Finn’s release from prison triggers a terror that feels utterly groundless. There’s no prior indication of him being violent, and we’re in no doubt he didn’t commit the murder. Nor is there any suggestion that her dread stems from fear he might expose her to the authorities—especially given the mutual assured destruction at play: she could just as readily see him locked up again for raping a minor.

Above all, though, against the backdrop of her warm, steadfast bond with such a supportive husband, her abrupt rejection of him rings profoundly false. Finn’s hold on her emotions is undeniable, forged in that traumatic past, but this isn’t a case of her enduring her marriage against her will while pining for the stranger who both rescued and ruined her. That tension worked in Ibsen’s original, where Ellida had little choice but to marry Wangel; here, it falls flat. No surprise, then, that Wangel’s ultimate concession—handing her the freedom to decide, echoing his readiness to sacrifice all for his daughters—comes off as cowardly capitulation – not as the realisation of the importance of agency in leading a fulfilled life.

There were of course other elements that either riled me or did not hold water, no pun intended (the most impressive thing about this production is that there is a full-on swimming pool—depicting the lake—created on stage with actors jumping in and splashing about), that I have to get off my chest.

Most troubling was the OnlyFans theme—seemingly presented in the light of Black female empowerment. There was also the attempt to put equivalence between a 33-year-old man seducing a 15-year-old; and a relationship in which the age gap is the same, but the woman is 30. And then there was the jealous rage when Wangel accuses Lyle of having slept with his deceased wife, having had absolutely no issue with him being his current wife’s ex.

It is hard to understand why Stone decided to take a play about female self-determination and agency and turn it into a mixture of daddy issues and criticism of mixed-race marriage. The one thing that did make sense was Wangel’s scream at the very end. Because, by dear God, this good man has been utterly destroyed by his wife, his friend and his daughters.

Nonetheless, as is often the case, I am glad I went to see this play. It definitely made me think. I also liked the manner in which parallel timelines were being portrayed in the second act, even though it was far too drawn out and failed to round off all the various strands in a cohesive manner. And of course, there was the swimming pool. I must say that the scene in which Ellida and Finn stand together in the centre of the stage, and water begins to rush around their feet as the platform sinks lower and lower, was extremely powerful. The idea to enact their attempt at lovemaking, in the midst of a storm harking back to the fateful night on the oil rig, is quite brilliant. The absolute lack of chemistry between them and the excessive hugging links very well into the daddy issue narrative. Because overall, the acting was great, with Lincoln, Vikander and Cowell creating compelling characters, provided you were able to separate the acting from the incongruent plot.