It’s not often that this reviewer feels moved to begin his report with an empirical statement but I’ll make an exception in this case: OVO Theatre’s Hedda Gabler is the best production of this play to have been seen in Britain in the last ten years. There have been many more lavish, (plenty) more ‘radical’ and several with starrier names, but for sheer engagement with the text, original insight and sense of ensemble, this modest mounting performed in a studio setting on the second floor of a shopping centre, sits at the top of the pile.
Unusually (and mercifully) for 2021, director Janet Podd chooses to set the play roughly in period (circa 1890, though the costumes are not always entirely congruent with that date): the Tesman drawing room, scene of all the action, is rendered sparely with only the necessary furniture and props (chaise longue, armchair, table, stove) and windows represented by freestanding transparent flats. Lighting is nicely calibrated with the action and there is an atmospheric and specially composed piano score to underline scene changes played live by its composer David Podd.
It’s clear from the start that director Podd has a sure touch when it comes to the play’s (few) weaknesses: the somewhat creaky expositional scene between Bertha and Aunt Julie, which has killed many a production at birth, is here taken at a fair lick and with plenty of interesting character detail; and when Lyle Fulton enters, immediately impressing as a dynamic rather than a mousy Tesman, the production moves up a gear. Arguably the most difficult role in the play, and certainly the most demoralising, Fulton’s portrayal neatly sidesteps all the cliches to present a self-confident and thrusting ‘career academic’, who has probably made his way in the world as much by his amenability as by any scholastic prowess. This was one of the very rare occasions when the relationship between Tesman and Hedda convinced: normally it’s impossible to suspend disbelief that two such contrasted people could have married, let alone conceived a child together, but here we accept it as an imperfect union, often affectionate and sometimes believably amorous (and full marks for correctly observing the ‘Brenner Pass moment’).
As Hedda, Faith Turner galvanises the production with a performance that impresses with its attention to detail and quicksilver, but convincing, changes of pace. Fending off Aunt Julie’s coy enquiries about her shape by thrusting her fists into the pockets of her dressing gown like a beleaguered CEO facing a hostile morning takeover bid, Turner reminds us of something too often forgotten: Hedda is a ‘fun girl’ with an underestimated sense of humour and a rare ability to laugh at herself that matches her delight in mocking others. This is a high definition rendering, wonderfully physical and reclaiming the role from the tendency to view it as a suburban Lady Macbeth or female Hamlet (a fundamental mistake, in that the Danish Prince never stops explaining himself, while Hedda barely starts). But in the final moments, when all her scheming has come to naught, we believe in Hedda’s desolation and so, for once, her suicide makes dramatic sense.
The rest of the cast is similarly distinguished: Marc Ozall makes a sleek and somewhat ‘Prussian’ Judge Brack, youthful enough to convince as a predatory threat to Hedda and Diljohn Singh’s Lovborg is a transparently vulnerable academic outsider who almost begs for his own destruction. Jane Withers’ Thea, Tesman’s ‘old flame’, is clearly someone who always lands on her feet.
It’s worth travelling a long way to catch this production - even if you have to brave roadworks and town centre closures. It’s unlikely you’ll see a better (or truer) Hedda Gabler anywhere else for the foreseeable future.
Reviewer - Paul Ashcroft
on - 16.11.21
Amazing review for our Hedda Gabler
ReplyDeleteI, too, found this production tremendous. I concur with much in this review and would go further and state that more traditional performances like this, as long as the director and cast have a good handle on the spirit of the play, are more informative than tiresome, patronising attempts to 'bring the action up to date for today's audiences'. I, too, travelled some way to see this having been encouraged by OVO's Vinegar Tom, which had a similar commitment to the spirit and the letter of the script. I'll be looking out for OVO's future efforts. The only real weak point of the production, in my opinion, was the opening silent unscripted scene which seemed to copy Ruth Wilson's rampage at the start of Ivo van Hove's self-indulgent mess of a production.
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