AISLE SAY New York
HEDDA
GABLER
by Henrik Ibsen
New Adaptation by Christopher Shinn
Directed by Ian Rickson
Starring Mary-Louise Parker
The Roundabout Theatre Company
at the American Airlines Theatre
www.roundabouttheatre.org
Wheras
Broadway’s last Hedda Gabler
(in 2001) seemed to rescue the Ibsen warhorse from the mothballs of
well-made schema, with a rousing new
adaptation by Jon Robin Baitz, the current revival, courtesy of The
Roundabout at the American
Airlines Theatre, seems
determined to return it whence it came. (Which seems like a knock on
Ibsen, but
I don’t mean it so; only to say that for all the innovations he
introduced to
narrative structure, time has not been kind to the original texts,
which almost
always risk seeming stilted and schematic unless handled with as much
courage
as care.) Not being a learned Ibsen-ite, I can’t say how much Christopher
Shinn’s new adaptation
may be at
fault, but certainly director Ian Rickson and his cast have used it as a vehicle
for presenting broad character
tropes rather than sharply defined individuals.
Taking
the central triumvirate alone: Mary-Louise Parker’s Hedda is less pathological than
petulant, less
emotionally reckless than simply destructive and almost nakedly
disdainful.
There’s no “poker face” in Ms. Parker’s manipulations, her Hedda is
full of
tells, the most frequent being to immediately make a face of impatience
at the
naivete or impending encroachment of those who feel a social burden to
her, the
minute their gaze turns from her
face. One of those is her husband, interpreted by Michael Cerveris as so naïve as to be simple-minded.
While the
scheming judge of Peter Stormare does
everything short of twirl a non-existent villainous mustache (though he
does
actually sport a stove pipe hat). Perhaps the intent is modernist—or
populist—but the effect is cartoonist. Seriously, with not a lot more
pushing these characterizations would be perfect for Jay Ward.
Weirdly,
none of this makes the experience dull or bad so much as negligible.
The
behavior is so lacking in reality that it never takes root, and the
experience
seems to evaporate behind each new line. In several weeks’ time, I will
have
forgotten most of it. Fortunately, those of you who’ve not attended,
won’t need
nearly so much time to forget about it…
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