Hedda Gabler: "I wanted to know everything I was forbidden to know"
4 Aug 2024 - Photos by David Hou

It would be wonderful to see a Hedda Gabler that was spoiler-free. I doubt that anyone attends without foreknowledge of the shocking finale, so the tension arises from the foreshadowing. This adaptation by Patrick Marber is blunt, fast and laced full of portents and sexual tension. All the clues and motivations are laid out, either blatantly or obliquely, and when Hedda commits her final act, we understand. Hedda has clearly told us that her marriage is loveless, that she feels stifled, that "I wanted to know everything I was forbidden to know." Sara Topman as Hedda begins icy cold, the only pleasure available to her being manipulation and torturing Mrs Elvsted (Joella Crichton) and Aunt Juliana (Bola Aiyeola). Initially Hedda seems brittle and bitchy but as it is revealed just how oppressed she is because of her sex, the reason for her simmering rage becomes clear. When the men head out for general debauchery, she mourns having to stay home, excluded. When asked what she does with her time, she snaps that she is an expert in dying of boredom.

The only things that Hedda still treasures are her horse and her father's pistols. But a proper married woman does not horseback ride and, when her new husband Tesman (Gordon S Miller) is rendered a pauper, the horse is going to have to go in any case. The idea of bearing children, of even touching Tesman, seems abhorrent, so Hedda is left with little to do but devolve into her machinations and futile attempts at revenge. This production underlines the spoiler we all know is coming dramatically. When Hedda exclaims that all she has left is "My pistols. General Gabler's pistols," the lights become lightning then film noir etchings, while ominous piano chords crash and resound. Hedda strikes a pose and is both a vengeful villain and a fragile woman being brave in the darkness. For a brief moment, it seemed that the production was going to explode into camp but, alas, naturalism is quickly restored after a brief peek inside Hedda's psyche. Would Ibsen played for comedy be effective? 

Hedda apparently got around in her pre-marriage days. The recovering alcoholic author Lovborg, Brad Hodder (The Virgin Trial), is a former paramour as well as current competitor for Tesman's dream job and literary ambitions. Hedda seems to revere his hedonistic tendencies more than his intellectual abilities, and delights in cockteasing him under Tesman's nose. There is also history with the lecherous and ambitious Judge Brack, Tom McCamus (King Lear, Queen Goneril), who she initially flirts with outrageously. However she is driven to despair when he gains the upper hand and blackmails her into sexual subservience. It is the last straw and, thanks to foreshadowing in the text, we understand why Hedda is driven to a "beautiful" act. Brack scoffs when Hedda says she would rather die than submit, saying "We all say that, we don't mean it." It is a complicated plot of multiple occurrences and happenstances leading to an inevitable but horrible conclusion. In a modern context, Hedda's history could be used as justification for mass murder of the men involved. But in Hedda's time, before podcasts, that was not a choice, was unthinkable, so, reduced to being a supporting player in her own life, she takes the only option she sees open to her.

Played on a near empty stage, furnishing their new house would be something that Hedda would get to do if only they had any money, with a glowing, and highly metaphorical harbinger of  a fireplace dominating, the actors become the focus. Following the explosive pistols preview, they have a dangerous balancing act of delivering the witticisms without toppling into satirical comedy. Topham is a marvel as her cold and nasty exterior melts under the heat of her righteous internal anger. Like Hedda herself, we never know what to expect as she swerves from withering insults to dubious deep empathy. We are as off balance as are Hedda's attempts to react effectively. Miller is a hapless nerd radiating the joy of his conquest, with horrible shadows of doubt crossing his features as Hedda spurns him or attacks. As he realizes his trophy wife is beyond his control. Crichton is suitably vulnerable but finds embers of heat of her own with both Lovborg and then, to Hedda's anger, Tesman. But it is McCamus that has the most fun. The louche Judge Brack turns his shoulder to lean on into a dissolute and casually depraved sexual transaction. Hedda is, like the audience, both repelled and oddly attracted.

Aside from Hedda's struggle against the oppression of her sex, this Hedda Gabler has some intriguing thematic concerns about creativity. It is strongly implied that Lovberg's brilliance is a direct result of his dissolution. And Hedda mourns his demise, not because of the loss, but because of its inelegance and what she sees as tackiness. That she is implicated, while horrifying in terms of scandal and repercussions, is subordinate to the lack of "beauty," the one thing that Hedda has been able to retain. Lovberg's new book, that Tesman desperately envies and covets, is about the future. And is brilliant. Hedda torches the future without any qualms and despises Tesman for his ability to collate, research and reconstruct. There is no creativity in that. No beauty. Director Molly Atkinson takes her cues from the concise and clear adaptation, keeping the staging simple (except for the sturm und drung moment mentioned earlier) and leaving the showiness to the actors and the text. While it works beautifully as an elucidation of Ibsen's play, the denouement is somehow muted, neither shocking nor cathartic. However Hedda would be pleased at how beautiful it is.