THEATRICAL COLLOQUIA 56 DOI 10.35218/tco.2022.12.1.05 Ibsen Face to Face with The New Stage Aesthetics. Radu Afrim and Andriy Zholdak Recreating The Lady From The Sea Diana NECHIT  Andrei C. ȘERBAN  Abstract: The classical repertoire and, especially, its stage rewritings define a thematic obsession for the great theatre creators of the moment. Just as each great director has their own aesthetic, so each of them has their own way of appropriating representative plays. Henrik Ibsen is one of the indispensable playwrights in the artistic portfolio of the most important names whose creations were performed on the Romanian stages. This article aims at a parallel analysis of two recent versions of the Ibsenian play The Lady from the Sea, directed by Radu Afrim (2014) and Andriy Zholdak (2022), respectively, in order to deepen the specific differences of two theatrical aesthetics decisive for understand the evolution of contemporary theatre. We also aim to question the possibilities that the readaptations, the rewritings of the great classical texts involve in the attempt of the creators to “contemporize” a play representative of the sensitivity of a past century. Keywords: Henrik Ibsen, The Lady from the Sea, Radu Afrim, Andriy Zholdak, readaptation If the classical repertoire is a requirement for directors of all times, so the transgression of the canon, its desecration, forcing the limits of the original dramatic nucleus through multiple and eclectic processes of rendering it contemporary has become some sort of norm for theatre directors since the second half of the last century. Hence, the work of contemporary post-dramatic directors becomes a kind of organic extension of the criterion imposed by theatrical criticism that captures the spearheads of an artistic generation, to constitute a universal canon. The theatrical text is, in fact, a permeable environment, generating new meanings, depending on the external intentions that shape it and give it stage concreteness. Its primordial, intrinsic meaning, seen as the result of the historical context in which it was produced, becomes only a starting point, one of the centres of the ellipse whose trajectory is defined, on the other hand, being the director’s intention, approaching the textual material with their own cultural, social, imaginary, etc. instruments. André Helbo convincingly captures this relationship between text and performance, suggesting the semantic potential of  Associate professor PhD habil., Department of Theatre Arts Faculty of Letters and Arts, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu  Lecturer PhD, Department of Theatre Arts Faculty of Letters and Arts, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu