Hedda Gabler - she needs to give herself a good talking-to

The walk this morning was the typical, and beautiful, autumn variety.
The subject - last night's preview performance of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.

It is clear from the start that this is to be a modern interpretation. The set is modern Scandinavian - sparse, with only sofa, desk and chair, several shelves and the packing boxes to suggest the newly-weds' recent arrival. The garden beyond the window lurks a little gloomily, as demanded in the stage directions but the room is insufficiently 'claustrophobic' - something that I believe is important in the text. Missing, too, is the portrait of General (here 'Major') Gabler, that Ibsen intended to hold a dominant place in the confined setting.

Obviously the language has been changed significantly to reflect the 21st instead of the 19th century but in the end, Hedda's (and for that matter, Thea's) predicament just isn't so dreadfully and inescapably dire when presented in the contemporary setting.

Thea's "I don't know where I can go or what I can do" attitude would be more sympathetically received in an age where women who left their husbands were ostracised, unable to remarry, hardly able to find respectable work and rarely able to operate a bank account or own property. Modern Thea simply seems a little weak minded.

Hedda, too, is mostly just unpleasant. Difficult to understand why she hasn't something useful to do when there are clearly none of the restrictions that her 1870s incarnation would have had to suffer. The shortage of money and the threat to her husband's 'prospects' aren't sufficiently convincing.

Similarly, the 'wild life' she has experienced before her marriage has obviously been a life of excess and, as she and Lovborg admit, 'partying' but it certainly hasn't been shocking, or highly inappropriate, as were the vicarious (and occasionally actual) experiences of the young and rather boisterous 19th century Hedda.

Ibsen's original Hedda was unpleasant too, but clearly felt trapped in the persona of the young woman who must marry when her 'time was up'. She lost the glamorous status of being General Gabler's daughter and slipped out of the limelight. She found herself inescapably married to a dull man and was too afraid of scandal, when it came to the point, to do anything but 'bore herself to death'. When 'Ms Modern' Hedda claims these things - and with all the independence, confidence and cutting verbal ability that we can expect - we shake our heads and believe rather more in her own claim that she is just lazy.

What we certainly don't believe in this production is that a modern woman can be so threatened by 'scandal' and being 'in someone's power' that she will kill herself. So many other things she can do. Even the original Hedda - a bit of a drama queen - overreacted a little. In the modern setting, it is definitely over the top. Better to have played her as a little more unhinged, perhaps.

So the judgement is that while it was a well-executed performance, the modern reading hasn't really been thought through quite carefully enough.


26 Apr – 18 May, Dunstan Playhouse
Presented by State Theatre Company of South Australia
By Henrik Ibsen and adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith

Late Bloomers ... too little and too late

On this morning's walk I was mulling over the DVD I saw last evening...
Late Bloomers directed by Julie Gavras and starring Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt

When the film began, I thought that there was a technical difficulty. Then I realised that the lighting was, I think, designed to create ultra-realism - highlighting wrinkles, blotches and blemishes. The result, with the often too-white backgrounds, was sometimes hard to watch. I was most disappointed, though, with the poor dialogue. It was stilted, self-conscious and blatantly aimed at making statements (cliched ones) about ageing. It was all too sterotypical... and I felt at times as though it were a film made a quarter of a century ago.

While Rossellini and Hurt were OK, the actors who played their adult children were quite awful. The script they had to work with was awkward but their attempts to convey anything like human emotion and behaviour were disastrously unsuccesssful.  Leslie Phillips made one of his embarassingly predictable cameo appearances as one of a gaggle of (again) sterotyped senior citizens.

Finally the score .... It was heavy-handed and obvious in its apparent intention of 'mood-matching'  and unfortunately there was much "mismatching". It was also so loud and repetitive that it intruded unpleasantly. Pity.

Overall, it was an idea that could have been executed well but, apart from eliciting a few laughs, simply resulted in a film that went nowhere.

The walk was good.

Yes, in fact ... at the same time

It's officially autumn - and on this morning's walk it felt like it.

I crossed a windy park and it was great to feel the cooler air and see the swirling leaves.

Walking time is thinking time. Sometime it's the only time to focus on just one thing - well two, perhaps.

Because yes, we can walk and chew ideas at the same time ....