STAGE REVIEW : Inspired Look at 6 Heroines in ‘Women’

“Ibsen Women” emblazoned on a theater marquee on the Sunset Strip may not stop traffic. But Juni Dahr, the Norwegian actress performing solo inside the Tiffany Theatre, does cast a spell that animates the quest of some of the most powerful female characters written for the stage.

There’s something primal about Dahr’s inspiration. She says it came from playing Hjordis in Henrik Ibsen’s saga “Vikings of Helgeland.” Her show’s subtitle--”Put an Eagle in a Cage”--is a line from that mythic play: “Put an eagle in a cage and it will bite the bars whether they are of iron or gold.”

That is exactly what the caged women on stage here do as Dahr, who performed this show in Moscow the week of the Soviet coup, brings to life six of her Norwegian countryman’s heroines in assorted stages of flight from sterile tradition and uncomprehending men.

Conceived by Dahr and first performed at Yale in 1989, this is a crash course in Ibsenite freedom fighters.

What gives “Ibsen Women” lift is the economy of its pacing, Dahr’s mercurial shifts in tone, the seductive onstage piccolo musicianship of Chris Poole, and the modulated lighting design of Marianne Thallaug Wedset.

The only props are a rocking chair and a flowing, silken curtain. But it’s her costumes (selected with Inger Derlick) that subtly tell these women’s stories. The actress wears three outfits, one over the other, progressively peeling them off until Ibsen’s ghosts and choke collars are gone and she emerges as that ancient Viking--not in armor, but in diaphanous silk.

“Ibsen Women,” which ends Friday, plays in tandem with Dahr’s “Joan of Arc--Vision Through Fire,” performing Saturday and Sunday.

* Ibsen Women,” Tiffany Theatre, 8532 Sunset Blvd., today through Friday, 8 p.m. Ends Friday. $16.50-$18.50. (213) 289-2999. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.