HEDDA GABLER. To 15 April.
Leeds/Liverpool
HEDDA GABLER
by Henrik Ibsen adapted by Mike Poulton
West Yorkshire Playhouse (Quarry Theatre) To 11 March
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 9 March 1.30pm, 11 March 2pm
BSL Signed 7 March
Captioned 9 March 7.30pm
then Liverpool Playhouse 23 March-15 April 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 30 March, 6 April 1.30pm 1, 15 April 2pm
Audio-described 7 April
BSL Signed 12 April
Post-show discussion 27 March
Runs 2hr 20min One interval
TICKETS: 0113 213 7700
www.wyp.org.uk (Leeds)
0151 709 4776
www.everymanplayhouse.com (Liverpool)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 March
A light manner and brooding setting combine successfully for Hedda.
Matthew Lloyd created a decent Doll’s House at short notice last year in Leeds. With a full run at Hedda Gabler he’s triumphed. And Mike Poulton’s English script catches what a character calls “the spirit of the thing”. There’s a lightness to Lloyd’s production, offsetting the prison-like gloom of the big house Hedda always wanted. Her late military father’s portrait hangs at the back, red-draped curtains fronting it like a proscenium. When she finally retreats to the family piano, closing those curtains, it’s as if she’s entombing herself with her past.
Which emphasises her pointless existence. It’s easy to imagine Hedda the happy child, left adrift when her father died. Without a military career, and its glory, to shape her existence, she lives, like many Ibsen characters, on illusions. Gillian Kearney conveys the boredom and fatigue, and the fastidiousness of a self-appointed untouchable. When her arm crosses her stomach, the sense of slight pain on her face shows what she thinks of being pregnant.
Sitting as far as possible from her despised husband and his aunt, she looks further away from them. Any potentially welcoming words are glazed over by her icy voice and agonised smile. Contrasting this is her flowingly artful conversation with Judge Brack (Jasper Britton a suitably well-judged mix of smiling elegance and threat, closing in on her physically as he suspects then learns enough to blackmail her).
Jane Lowe shows Aunt Juli’s essential kindness within a ramrod-backed 19th-century figure; even her reprimand to a family servant sounds affectionate. As that servant, Imogen Bain makes a good impression by actually working in the opening conversation; polishing the leather sofa on which Hedda will languidly recline.
Polly Maberley’s Thea is a positive contrast to Hedda’s negativity, her lighter-coloured dress setting-off Hedda’s increasingly dark, increasingly encasing clothes. Tom Smith, forever awkward in whatever he wears, doesn’t overplay Tesman’s ridiculous side. Daniel Weyman is as good as many Lovborgs, but it’s a difficult role, demanding the daemonic and a darting intelligence under temporary control.
With Richard Taylor’s score adding its sustained, oppressive sounds, this Poulton/Lloyd Hedda is a penetrating production.
Aunt Juli: Jane Lowe
Berte: Imogen Bain
Jorgen Tesman: Tom Smith
Hedda Gabler: Gillian Kearney
Thea Elvsted: Polly Maberly
Judge Brack: Jasper Britton
Ejlert Lovborg: Daniel Weyman
Director: Matthew Lloyd
Designer: Ruari Murchison
Lighting: Charles Balfour
Sound: Mic Pool
Composer: Richard Taylor
2006-03-07 00:18:03