In the 2008 Batman movie The Dark Knight, Alfred Pennyworth remarks: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
And so it is with Hedda Gabler. Henrik Ibsen’s notorious anti-heroine — one of the great characters of the stage — is almost a proto-punk-rocker, demolishing people’s lives with nihilistic zeal. She sees a strange gloriousness in her path of destruction. At one point, goading a former lover to suicide, Hedda openly gloats about the possibility of a “beautiful death”.
Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre has just opened a well-directed, entertaining revival of Hedda Gabler — one that bristles with dynamism and life.
Hedda Gabler, the story of a woman crushed by the oppressiveness and hypocrisy of bourgeois society, premiered in 1891. Director Brian Richmond has modernized it with his new adaptation, employing what he calls “period 91原创” language. Performed by a uniformly strong cast, this Hedda Gabler — reset in post-First World War — is like experiencing a masterpiece artfully restored. The show is whip-smart, immediate, and every bit as shocking as it would have been for 19th-century audiences.
The role of Hedda Gabler is among theatre’s most challenging. The character is a bewildering mass of contradictions: intelligent, frustrated, nasty, rebellious, jealous, bitter — sociopathic in her heartlessness.
Stratford Festival veteran Amanda Lisman proves herself equal to the task. An intelligent and hard-working actor, Lisman — auburn-haired with bright red lipstick — makes Hedda an absolute train-wreck of a human being. Her Hedda is whip-smart, tortured and brittle. It’s evident in the emotions that flicker through Lisman’s eyes as her character endeavours to manipulate those around her. At the same time, there are hints of wistfulness. The audience understands Hedda is a doomed romantic beaten down by a patriarchal society.
We see Hedda’s nastiness immediately when she pretends a new hat belonging to Aunt Juliana (Rosemary Elizabeth Jeffery) is a tawdry eyesore belonging to a maid. Hedda is scornful of her new husband George Tesman, well played by Trevor Hinton as a likeable but doltish academic. George’s mediocrity is on display as he rhapsodizes over his beloved bedroom slippers, much to his wife’s disgust.
Hedda reveals her marital boredom to Judge Brack, a debauched libertine nicely played by Jacob Richmond. They’re birds of a feather, gossiping with feral intensity and distain for societal convention. Richmond imbues Brack with a welcome note of menace. During Wednesday’s preview, when Brack explained to Hedda no else can enter their “love triangle, ” the actor spat out his lines with a staccato cadence, almost machine-gun-like, that was both frightening and thrilling.
Equally as strong is Lindsay Robinson as Eilert Lovborg, a brilliant but tortured writer. Hedda browbeats Eilert, who’s a reformed alcoholic, into drinking — thus ensuring a Dionysian descent into hell. Robinson captured Eilert’s passion and authenticity of character. Also convincing is Laura-Jane Tresidder as Thea Elvsted, seemingly a wide-eyed innocent, but, like Hedda, determined to achieve her ambitions vicariously through men.
In Ibsen’s play Hedda’s father, a general, is seen in a portrait on the wall. In this production the painting comes spookily to life via Jason King’s excellent video projections while Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows plays in the background. Blurry black-and-white images of both the general and Hedda riding a horse are as menacing and disturbing as any horror movie. A huge backdrop of a tree’s black silhouette dominating Teresa Przybylski’s set suggests Hedda’s spiritual deadness.
It may all sound rather bleak and despairing. Don’t be put off. This is vigorous and exhilarating theatre, not to be missed.
