Ibsen's Hedda Gabbler @ Hill Street Theatre

Hedda Gabbler, like many of Ibsen’s plays, is a play that works exceptionally well on paper. It is an excellent play to read and a superb play to study, which it often is. I have read it before and written essays on it before, but I have never seen it performed. The play script and stage directions are so crammed with psychological information that the ways it can be performed are endless - is Hedda a villain, is she fighting against society or the restrictions of womanhood? All of this could make for a confused performance, or a precisely focussed one.

Palindrome Theatre blends the extremes in Hedda Gabbler, and the portrayal of Hedda herself, is quite balanced. Hedda is cruel, yes, and her ultimate desire is gaining the control over another’s destiny, particularly her ex-lover Eilert. She is also society’s victim, trapped in a marriage she is unsuited for. Hedda can’t be Hedda Tesman, wife of George, because of her pride in her own identity and its unassailability, the identity that she inherited through her father, General Gabbler.

The play is extremely well paced, the action moving swiftly and the movement of the actors dynamic: the whole play takes place in essentially one room, yet the actors use all the space available. Even the corners of the stage are utilised to show off-stage action - characters sleeping, finding papers, and working – whilst the main scene is being enacted. They also employ various staging effects, such as leaking rain, thunder effects, flashing lighting etc. which increase the sense of isolation that Hedda feels.

Robin Grace Thompson, the actress who plays Hedda, employs in her dialogue a quick-fire style, and her scenes with Judge Brack resonate with stichomythia, the rapid exchanges of biting witticisms that define her character’s sharp cruelty. All of these facilitate, what is quite a weighty play, to maintain its intensity and feeling of immediacy as the domestic tragedy unravels.