Show: HEDDA GABLER
Society: OVO
Venue: The Maltings Theatre. Level 2, Maltings Shopping Centre, 28 Victoria Street, St Albans AL1 3HL
Credits: by Henrik Ibsen. Directed by: Janet Podd
Type: Sardines
Author: Susan Elkin
Performance Date: 18/11/2021
Hedda Gabler
Susan Elkin | 19 Nov 2021 16:47pm
HEDDA GABLER at the Maltings Theatre. Photo: Pavel Gonevski
This is an outstanding production of Hedda Gabler for three main reasons. First, it uses a naturalistic new translation by Richard Eyre which succinctly brings it in at just two hours including interval. It uses modern English but sets the play in period which is a well judged balance. Second, Janet Plodd’s intelligent direction makes imaginative use of the Maltings’s intimate in-the-round space so that every inch is employed and every audience member engaged. Third, the central performance by Faith Turner is hauntingly, disturbingly powerful.
I have seen this play many times before and had completely forgotten once, at college, writing an essay (it got top marks!) about the importance of the servants in Ibsen. I was instantly reminded as soon as Julie Blunt appeared as Berthe – treated as a member of the family by everyone except disdainful, lofty, bored, troubled, dangerous Hedda so the servant is part of the characterisation and there is much in Blunt’s pained bearing to bring this out.
Hedda and George Tessman have returned from a long honeymoon to their native town where he expects to take an academic post. Hedda is pregnant but refusing to acknowledge it as Ibsen (and Eyre) pile layer upon layer of subtext and we learn from, and through, various visitors about Hedda’s past relationships and her brooding personality. She is not in love with her earnest, well meaning husband (Lyle Fulton – good performance) and, even if you’re new to this play, you know from the outset that it can’t end well. The autumn leaves strewn on the stage are deeply symbolic.
Annette Holland is strong as the fussy, but lovably decent Aunt Ju Ju who evinces warmth and occasionally wisdom even when she’s treated with dreadful unkindness by Hedda. I liked Marc Ozall’s self-interested smooth sliminess as Judge Brack and Diljohn Singh brings all the right pained vulnerability and passion to Eijert Lovburg, so hideously manipulated by Hedda. And Jane Withers brings an interesting awareness to Thea Elvsted as she gradually realises that maybe she can salvage something for herself out of all this. It’s subtly done.
But the unforgettable thing about this production is Faith Turner – who turns bitchiness, flirtatiousness, anger, distress, amusement, capriciousness and misery on and off like a tap. She conveys the totally believable volatility of a deeply unhappy woman stirring up trouble for others as a means of assuaging her own despair.
Hedda is supposed to be a pianist and there’s a piano on set in the living room where the action takes place. In this production David Plodd, out of sight on grand piano in a corner, accompanies the action with appropriate music of his own composition. It helps to create an appropriately uneasy atmosphere for what is certainly the most thoughtful production of Hedda Gabler for some time.