(Ruth
Wilson – pic courtesy
of www.nationaltheatre.org.uk)
National Theatre Live offers us a filmed
presentation of the production. (Report by Patrick Compton)
Ruth Wilson is the darling of English
theatre critics after her performance as Hedda Gabler in Henrik Ibsen’s famous
play at the National Theatre. From tomorrow (Saturday), Durban audiences can
judge for themselves as National Theatre Live offers us a filmed presentation
of the production.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a preview for
Durban critics, but this offering from London’s Time Out magazine is typical of
the kind of reception the critics gave the production.
“Starring an incandescent Ruth Wilson, Ivo
van Hove’s modern-dress production of Ibsen’s ‘Hedda Gabler’ rejects the usual,
comforting, proto-feminist reading wherein its heroine does the terrible things
she does because she is a victim.
“Here, Wilson’s Hedda is rarely oppressed
by men per se. Certainly you can sympathise with her boredom at affable
lecturer husband George Tesman (Kyle Soller, whose all-American pizzazz brings
an enjoyable flavour), and even her annoyance that her former wild-child lover
Eilert Lovborg (Chukwudi Iwuji) has sobered up and written a brilliant thesis
with her old school mate Mrs Elvsted (Sinead Matthews).
“But the scale of her reprisal is difficult
to see as reasonable or justified. And yet – in this year of all years – it’s
at least familiar. This Hedda destroys not because she is a woman or oppressed,
but because she feels alienated by the smug academics and their dry
certainties. She wants to take back control.
“In her first stage role in yonks, Wilson
is phenomenal: her Hedda is part sneering hipster, part destructive zealot. We
always second-guess her – sometimes she says something funny and normal
(Patrick Marber’s adaptation brings a fair number of chuckles) and it feels
like a relief, but we’re always nervous about what she’ll do next. Her
behaviour is that of a terrorist, and while her ideology often seems twisted,
there is a purity to it. When she’s cornered by lunkish alpha-male Judge Brack
(Rafe Spall) over her destruction of Lovborg, her final act of defiance is, at
least, impressively ballsy.
“She is a terrorist, a revolutionary, a
demagogue, a priest, a gun, a bomb. She sees the smug, educated, complacent
male order, sees that she has no place in it and she destroys. It is horrible
and magnificent.
“Making his National Theatre debut, van
Hove’s production is ravishingly, chillingly atmospheric. The large, bare, chic
room of Hedda and Tesman’s house is slowly bleached and drained by Jan
Versweyveld’s extraordinary lighting, and befuddled by the nagging ersatz
electro of Tom Gibbons’s sound design. The only relief is the ironically
deployed strains of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ that delineate each scene. There is
a sense of great separation and disorientation, the production wandering ever
further into Hedda’s isolation.
“The production is a triumph for Wilson and
a reaffirmation of van Hove’s greatness.”
Hedda
Gabler screens at Gateway Commercial (note that the
Cinema Nouveau site has closed) on April 1, April 5 and April 6 at 19h30. There
is an afternoon screening (14h30) on April 2. – Patrick Compton
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