Sydney Reviews

A portrait of a patriarch and a piano are pivotal to James Smithers’ set design for Secret House’s production of Hedda Gabler.

In this streamlined compression of Ibsen’s classic, writer director Anthony Skuse puts focus on the portrait and emphasis on the piano. From the audience, pianist Christie May enters the performance space, declaring the play’s title and original author, and begins playing her atmospheric score.

Cue George Tessman, Hedda’s husband, and his aunt, Juliana, for some expositionary banter before Hedda’s entrance in pyjamas. Tail end of her honeymoon, her engagement with her newly acquired husband and in-law is brittle and rude, a warning she’s become Electra, a privileged person deprived, incapable of screening her own sense of superiority.

There’s an unnerving state of desperation underlying the character, an icy sterility, flinty and malicious, to the point of murderous.

Hedda has spouse and suitors but none sit well, perhaps stirring a sado-masochistic streak. This seems intensified with the arrival of her perceived rival, Thea Elvstead.

The production is driven by Ella Prince in the title role, ice pick sharp, with short cropped blond hair, reminiscent perhaps of a perceived Hamlet, presenting as what might currently be called “on the spectrum”, unfiltered, flinty, frigid, perennially pining for Papa.

Christopher Tomkinson is lusciously louche as Judge Brack, the suave and debonair candidate for cicibeo status, while James Smithers is suitably donnish as George, the intellectual and physical cuckold of Lovborg, played by Jack Angwin.

Suzann James is solid as Aunt Juliana while Jane Angharad is sublime as Thea Elvstead emanating a quiet calm in counterpoint to hell bent Hedda.  

The emotional conflicts are well defined, the shifts and changes deftly controlled, however the pace of this production is glacial. Yet it elevates what could be termed a museum piece into a genuine theatrical experience.

It is interesting to note that there are two iterations of Ibsen’s work playing in Sydney at the moment, this condensation and WIFE, a variation on A Doll’s House at New Theatre. Interesting to compare and contrast and consider the playwright's enduring legacy.