Hedda Gabler - Ibsen
Adaptation - Patrick Marber
Director - Ivo van Hove
National Theatre
Showing until 21.03.17
★★★★★
Adaptation - Patrick Marber
Director - Ivo van Hove
National Theatre
Showing until 21.03.17
★★★★★
Patrick Marber has worked wonders with this adaptation of Ibsen's classic. The original nineteenth century text with corsets and tailcoats has been discarded, and instead we are presented with a modern, revitalized translation of the script. Hedda Gabler tells the story of a woman who is rapidly losing all sense of purpose and self-worth. Having recently returned from a honeymoon with her husband, an aspiring academic, Hedda struggles with the mundanity of marriage. She searches for signals telling her how to be a good wife, but this quickly unravels to become a search for a reason to live. The themes of wealth, reputation, respect and femininity that Ibsen wanted to express are so purposefully and accurately molded by Marber to reflect the social issues of today's society. The clear emphasis on the relevance of marriage in the twenty-first century, the trust built in a relationship and the severity of being a bystander to mental illness, I'm sure chimed true with many members of the audience.
Ruth Wilson is truly extraordinary as she takes on the lead as Hedda. Whilst she is initially an unlikable woman, full of bitterness and skepticism, we as audience members learn to care for her evident vulnerability and need for help. Never leaving the stage for the duration of the play, we begin to understand the severity of her being imprisoned in her own home. Hedda believes she has two roles. The first is to be a faithful wife to a man she does not love, and the second is to be an object of desire. She is not content with either and Wilson manages to embody this woman's confusion and pain with such impressive depth.
Ivo van Hove's direction of the cast is mesmerizing. He manages to create beauty out of the simplest of movements. The visual images the actors create with their bodies and the symbolic use of guns, fire and light, also add an extra dimension to the production. Brack, played intelligibly by Rafe Spall, first appears as the charming seducer but gradually becomes the perpetrator, a man who is calculated, forceful and focused on exercising his power over Hedda. The character of the maid, Berte, seems to represent the helpless witness. The subtlety of Éva Magyar's performance unveils a woman who sees everything that occurs in the Tesman household but is unable to help, drawing parallel to us as members of the audience.
The sterile white-box set, clinical and barren, creates a blank canvas onto which Hedda can project her frustrations and anger. The piano takes its place centre stage, Hedda being drawn to it as a form of comfort and release. The other pieces of furniture in this newly bought apartment are scattered around the edges of the vast set, causing the proxemics between the actors to be stretched, indicative of the growing gulf between Hedda and Tesman. The beautifully crafted sound by Tom Gibbons, is lightly dabbled throughout the play. The motif of Joni Mitchell's Blue and the repeated few notes on the piano, provide the melancholy, stiff atmosphere that are injected throughout the play. The light in Hedda's apartment gradually diminishes as her derailment progresses. Her incessant need to be surrounded by dark, to close the blinds and cover her eyes indicates Hedda's fatalistic desire for a permanent blackness.
This production of Hedda Gabler draws you in from the start and captivates until the end. Despite the show being sold out until the end of the run, the National offers day tickets and the Friday Rush scheme, as well as the odd returns and an NT Live screening on 09.03.17 .
Ruth Wilson is truly extraordinary as she takes on the lead as Hedda. Whilst she is initially an unlikable woman, full of bitterness and skepticism, we as audience members learn to care for her evident vulnerability and need for help. Never leaving the stage for the duration of the play, we begin to understand the severity of her being imprisoned in her own home. Hedda believes she has two roles. The first is to be a faithful wife to a man she does not love, and the second is to be an object of desire. She is not content with either and Wilson manages to embody this woman's confusion and pain with such impressive depth.
Ivo van Hove's direction of the cast is mesmerizing. He manages to create beauty out of the simplest of movements. The visual images the actors create with their bodies and the symbolic use of guns, fire and light, also add an extra dimension to the production. Brack, played intelligibly by Rafe Spall, first appears as the charming seducer but gradually becomes the perpetrator, a man who is calculated, forceful and focused on exercising his power over Hedda. The character of the maid, Berte, seems to represent the helpless witness. The subtlety of Éva Magyar's performance unveils a woman who sees everything that occurs in the Tesman household but is unable to help, drawing parallel to us as members of the audience.
The sterile white-box set, clinical and barren, creates a blank canvas onto which Hedda can project her frustrations and anger. The piano takes its place centre stage, Hedda being drawn to it as a form of comfort and release. The other pieces of furniture in this newly bought apartment are scattered around the edges of the vast set, causing the proxemics between the actors to be stretched, indicative of the growing gulf between Hedda and Tesman. The beautifully crafted sound by Tom Gibbons, is lightly dabbled throughout the play. The motif of Joni Mitchell's Blue and the repeated few notes on the piano, provide the melancholy, stiff atmosphere that are injected throughout the play. The light in Hedda's apartment gradually diminishes as her derailment progresses. Her incessant need to be surrounded by dark, to close the blinds and cover her eyes indicates Hedda's fatalistic desire for a permanent blackness.
This production of Hedda Gabler draws you in from the start and captivates until the end. Despite the show being sold out until the end of the run, the National offers day tickets and the Friday Rush scheme, as well as the odd returns and an NT Live screening on 09.03.17 .