When We Dead Awaken
Coronet Theatre, London

IBSEN’S When We Dead Awaken is — as Michael Billington once quipped _ a portrait of the artist as an old man (apologies to James Joyce!)

In the play, successful sculptor Rubek returns to Norway with his young, dissatisfied wife, Maia, only to reconnect with the woman who was the life model for his most successful work and whom he immortalised, albeit in stone.

Through this muse and soul-accomplice Irena, we see how life with its vanities and aspirations, over time, disavows the heart and defeats all inner truths. Only with Irena can Rubek resurrect the soul that he has all but killed.

From this, his final play, Ibsen’s unique, note-perfect voice shines like a diamond as he takes us to places of such profundity that we are forced to reassess our lives and all life’s meaning, retaining the question: what, in the end, have we nourished and sustained in our life that is of worth?

The play is performed by the Norwegian Ibsen Company at the splendidly stylish Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill — spoken mainly in Norwegian with English translation projected subtly on to the set, the production offers a great chance to hear this rarely performed work in its original language.

The words ring out with power and clarity and are made easier for a London audience when the wild force of nature that is Ulfheim, the faun-like man who tempts Maia from her prosaic marriage, speaks in English with Irish overtones.   

But the meaning of the words in this production is all, and little attention is given to Ibsen’s fiercely prescriptive stage directions about geography and environment and the awesome power of nature over the human psyche.  

Instead, director Kjetil Bang-Hansen and designer Mayou Trikerioti bring us an ambiguous set that speaks more of the concrete world than of soaring mountain peaks and fjords; more of marital chaos than of the meandering paths of our imagination.

And the playwright’s final all-consuming avalanche is ditched in favour of quiet straight-talking on a stage.

Andrea Braein captures beautifully the frustrated slip of a girl who is Rubek’s restless and unhappy wife Maia, while Oystein Roger brings to Rubek himself a deep, considered stillness that enables the words to ring out with truth and clarity.

Ragnhild Margrethe Gudbrandsen is a deeply earthy presence as the Reubenesque muse Irene and James Browne is suitably satyr-like as the primeval male Ulfhejm.

Altogether it’s a work of genius but on a less ambitious scale in this production than you feel would do it justice.

It’s clever, respectful and delivered with simplicity by this wonderful troupe of Ibsen experts. Nevertheless, it cries out for wild dramatic excess alongside the vivid words. It is, after all, an exploration of the soul and the sum total of a life.  

Runs until April 2 2022. Box office (020) 3642-6606, www.thecoronettheatre.com.

Mary Conway