Together at last: Henrik Ibsen and Joni
Mitchell. Ivo van Hove’s production of Ibsen’s
Hedda Gabler for the National
Theatre includes several excerpts of Mitchell’s “Blue” (as well as Jeff
Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” and Nina Simone’s of “Wild Is The
Wind”) to emphasise the focus on relationships rather than individual
personalities. This is not a production about Hedda’s character, her
impulses and flaws, but about her interaction with everyone else.
Ruth Wilson’s Hedda is not the familiar fiery, uncontrollable figure of
arrogance; on the contrary, she spends a lot of the time buttoned up.
One can see the bitterness and discontent, but also a sense of
circumscription and confinement which is almost a natural process.
Patrick Marber’s precise, deliberate version has her describe her
marriage to the uninteresting Tesman thus: “I needed to settle [down];
I settled for him.” Kyle Soller’s Tesman, too, is far from the usual
tweedy nerd; he’s simply fundamentally insufficient for Hedda. And as
for Judge Brack, normally portrayed as a middle-aged sexual opportunist
who takes an opportunity too many... here Rafe Spall is an exact
contemporary of the Tesmans, and is moreover sinister and repeatedly
physically abusive. In van Hove’s vision, it is not Hedda’s
over-involvement with her old flame Eilert Lovborg (the underrated
Chukwudi Iwuji) that propels her downfall, but Brack’s uncaring
predations.
Jan Versweyfeld’s set is his characteristic blend of minimalism and
detail: a stark loft-style apartment with virtually no furniture (save
an upright piano to link with the Mitchell song’s arrangement and
occasional discrete notes heard at other times) but several buckets of
flowers for the newly returned Tesman, flowers which Hedda later flings
around the stage and even staples to the walls. There are no doors in
the set; characters enter and exit through the fourth wall. Crucially,
this means that at the close of the play, Hedda cannot viably retreat
offstage for her final breakdown and suicide, and so it occurs onstage
almost in a blind spot between the other characters’ gazes. Van Hove
may overdo the Brack-is-to-blame perspective, but his stripped-down
approach, with a baseline of near-screen naturalism until particular
intensity is required, works beautifully at reinvigorating Ibsen.
Written for the Financial
Times.