Two views of HEDDA (To 27 September) - 2.
London
HEDDA
by Henrik Ibsen adapted by Lucy Kirkwood from a literal translation by Anne & Karin Bamborough.
Gate Theatre 11 Pembridge Road W11 3HQ To 27 September 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 3pm
Runs 2hr No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7229 0706.
www.gatetheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 30 August.
A modern Hedda can’t avoid her death-sentence.
All’s cool and everyone’s young in this Hedda, relocated to contemporary West London. Even George Tesman’s Aunt Julie becomes his 34-year old sister; the hat Ibsen’s Hedda insults is a colourful scarf Julie’s bought to try and keep up with her sister-in-law’s stylishness.
Cool solicitor Tobes is more threatening in his eventual trapping of Hedda’s body and spirit than a conventionally whiskery Judge Brack, being among the Hedda generation’s social world. It’s no accident he’s Black. And that this isn’t mentioned. It’s not an issue in this freemasonry of thirty-something professionals.
Holly Waddington’s split-level set might have, as estate agents are claimed to claim, potential. It looks half-finished. Micro-minded pedant George (an innocently smiling Tom Mison), thinks it’s fine. He would. Hedda thinks it’s awful. She would. Brack agrees. He’s right. Hedda didn’t want to live here anyway, she just said she did for something to say. That’s her. George bought it for her, though he couldn’t afford it. That’s him. They weren’t made for each other.
Yet buying the place (even if it’s not the stand-out building of Ibsen’s play) was an act of unaccustomed rashness from George, showing real love for Hedda. Emotional engagement makes for simplicity in this play. Other uncool people showing it are Julia and Hedda’s former school companion Thea (Alice Patten), her long fair hair and open expression contrasting the brooding dark of Cara Horgan’s Hedda.
What is this woman for? Loping her young body, freighted with ennui, round the home she doesn’t want, smiling with broad mouth and dead eyes at her husband’s family, only a sense of challenge wakes her eyes and tenses her physique. But she’s no good at that. Her attempt to drive Eli Longford’s brilliant career soon skids - Adrian Bower’s forceful figure for once justifies the build-up Eli/Eilert is given - and she loses hands down to Toby Brack.
It’s a starkly modern response; not a definitive reinterpretation but a wake-up-and-think reworking, up to the end of Carrie Cracknell’s alert production which, unlike Lucy Kirkwood’s original script, denies Hedda’s death any consideration by those who’ve been around her.
Julia Tesman: Cath Whitefield.
George Tesman: Tom Mison.
Hedda Gabler: Cara Horgan.
Thea Eldridge: Alice Patten.
Toby Brack: Christopher Obi.
Eli Longford: Adrian Bower.
Director: Carrie Cracknell.
Designer: Holly Waddington.
Lighting: Katharine Williams.
Sound: Edward Lewis.
Choreographer: Temitope Ajose-Cutting.
Assistant director: Alice Butler.
Assistant designer: Ninns Dugin-Vuori.
2008-09-04 11:48:23