Theater/art

In Henrik Ibsen's 1888 play The Lady From the Sea, a painter describes a work-in-progress to another character: "She has wandered hither from the sea, and can't find her way out again. And so, you see, she lies there dying in the brackish water." The figure, a mermaid, rises from a real canvas, too: painter Edvard Munch's 1896 Mermaid.

Norwegians Munch and Ibsen worked in the same intellectual circles and were mutually influential. This relationship, and the arts of Norway in general, is the focus of a collaboration between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Lantern Theater Company. Lantern is giving Ibsen's feminist-minded drama Lady its Philadelphia premiere, while the PMA unveils Mermaid, a recent acquisition never before shown in public.

"When the museum was preparing for Munch they wanted to find a theater to do the show, since Ibsen and Munch were contemporaries," says Karyn Lyman, managing director of Lantern Theater. "Ibsen's play was source material and inspiration for the painting." Indeed, PMA curator John Zarobell notes that the painting was originally sold under the title The Lady from the Sea, and that Munch regularly designed theater sets for Ibsen.

Like Munch's bathing beauty, who lingers halfway between sea and land, Ibsen's protagonist Ellida is caught between two worlds — the one she married into, and the romantic, mysterious one she left behind. The two organizations hope to draw these connections out with a series of cross-promotional events (including reciprocal half-price admissions). On Oct. 23 at 4:30 p.m., Zarobell and fellow curator Shelly Langdale will join the president of the Ibsen Society of America, Joan Templeton, for "To See Inwards: Symbolism and Experience in the Works of Norway's Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch," a discussion to be moderated by Lady's director, Kathyrn C. Nocero. And while Yards is about as Scandinavian as ravioli, it'll do just fine for the Meet and Greet Norwegian Happy Hour at 6:30 on Oct. 26, right before that evening's performance of Lady. SkŒl!

The Lady From the Sea, Sept. 30-Oct. 30, Lantern Theater at St. Stephen's Theater, 10th and Ludlow sts., 215-829-9002; "Edvard Munch's Mermaid," through Dec. 31, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. and the Parkway, 215-763-8100.