State Theatre Company. Dunstan Playhouse. 30 Apr 2013
It's Ibsen. It's an 1800s Norwegian period piece. Why do companies always want to modernise such things? Reinterpret classics? It is tiresome. New audiences don't get to see period works in context when directors keep trying to put the mark of new on things.
These reflections crash home with an accompanying headache as State Theatre's Hedda Gabler opens in a deafening thunder of industrially-enhanced uber heartbeats. It is a viscerally noisy assault and it just won't stop. Then there's the set with its stark lights, and a vast interior which looks like a soulless parody of Frank Lloyd Wright designs. When the supposedly gorgeous, glamorous Hedda appears, she's in undies and t-shirt. She has no affluent Norwegian style, no allure at all. She's caustic and brittle.
The aggressive staging of this production takes quite some getting used to. It is just not likeable.
But, nor is Hedda.
She is one of the vile characters of the stage, a role coveted for the nuance of nasty. She's the spoiled daughter of a general. She recently has married a nice academic in the expectation that his career's upward trajectory is assured. When she discovers his forthcoming plum promotion may now be challenged by the somewhat dissolute rival who, ironically, is the man she really loves, jealousy drives her to put a spiteful spanner in the works.
Joanna Murray-Smith, Australia's most celebrated dramatist, has done this provocative and pithy, Hipster-fresh new Hedda Gabler adaptation for Geordie Brookman to direct. Brookman has rallied DJ Trip for the ghastly soundscape, Ailsa Paterson for the weirdly uninteresting costumes, Geoff Cobham for the harsh lights and the black trees and acclaimed Melbourne actress Alison Bell to play the self-interested bitch, Hedda.
With this combination of odds, Brookman has nailed it.
Rising to its denouement, it all comes together as a volcanic entity.
The cast is superb. Sinister and manipulative comes as easily to Bell as damned nice comes to Cameron Goodall who plays her kind, honourable and talented new husband, Jorgan Tessman. Terence Crawford beguiles as the smugly predatory lawyer friend, Brack, while Nathan O'Keefe claims the loser low ground as Lovborg, the pathetic genius with a drinking problem. The wonderful Carmel Johnson is the breath of traditional family constancy as dear old Aunt Julle. But it is young Kate Cheel who will be claiming the performance-to-remember prize for her voice, her emotional range, her physical speed and lightness... but not her costume. Like Hedda, her character of Loveborg's lovelorn stenographer, co-author of a luminous book which was set to knock Jorgan right off his pedestal, gets to flaunt very downmarket grey knickers.
The new trend of skipping intervals works brilliantly for Hedda Gabler. It allows uninterrupted involvement in its festering suspense. As the play unfolds, one finds Murray-Smith's reworking, complete with mobile phones and airline schedules, is spiked with bitter humour. The harsh illumination of the set with characters incessantly opening and closing the expanse of curtains serves to emphasise the darkness of that life in the long northern daylight. The rasping production elements underscore the tragic implosion of that world out there in its charred garden. The end comes with a gasp.
Applause, applause.
One may not have liked its parts but one loved its all.
And old theatre still holds surprises.
Samela Harris
When: 30 Apr to 18 May
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
