Radical reworking of Ibsen’s drama confronts pertinent contemporary themes of power, submission and the exploitation of women
Boldly reframing Henrik Ibsen’s drama of passion, jealousy and festering malice, Nina Segal’s darkly insightful play-within-a-play offers an incisive deconstruction of the classic drama. Segal’s clever piece illuminates Ibsen’s text, faithfully recreating the plot’s main beats while exploring its themes through a timely new story that is every bit as complex and compelling as the original. Produced alongside the Norwegian Ibsen Company and directed by Jeff James, this shrewd update depicts a film crew going off the rails while recording a daring new adaptation of the famous work.
Antonia Thomas, star of ABC drama The Good Doctor, gives a ferocious performance as a washed-up American actor who finds herself at the centre of a whirlpool of clashing personalities and obsessive behaviours. Only ever referred to as Hedda, she slowly unravels as she struggles to find the emotional truth in the character she’s committed to playing – a bored socialite trapped by convention, cruelly lashing out at everyone around her. Thomas makes the character’s paralysing claustrophobia feel horribly present as she slips from assertive self-possession towards helpless vulnerability, drawn inevitably towards self-destruction.
Guiding this harrowing process is toxic auteur-director Henrik – played by a predatory, plausibly intimidating Christian Rubeck. Capable of charm and savagery, he drives each of his performers to cross their personal boundaries in a narcissistic pursuit of what he calls truth, but which amounts only to suffering. Elsewhere, Matilda Bailes plays younger actor Thea, moonlighting as the chaotic production’s on-set therapist and intimacy coordinator. Bailes’ thoughtful performance gives subtle hints of the naivety hidden under her character’s seeming self-assurance.
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James directs with verve and precision, building a tense, pressure-cooker atmosphere leavened with appealingly bleak humour. There’s a restless, relentless intensity to the staging – performers pace frantically, lounge around the set or watch from the sidelines, ensuring that Hedda never finds a moment alone – which only serves to make her feel more profoundly isolated. The spacious set by Rosanna Vize sites the action inside a cavernous, concrete living space overlooked from a mezzanine. Leaf-green panels and a scarlet vinyl sofa offer the only splashes of colour in the coldly austere chamber, at least until a breathtaking, elegantly achieved effect late in the production utterly transforms the setting.
Hansjörg Schmidt’s lighting is understated but impactful, picking out the performers with a focused beam of light, which narrows and expands as the pressure on stage rises and falls. When the cameras roll, the stage is briefly lit by a hot, dusty orange glow, which snaps away again as soon as Henrik bellows “cut”, underlining the unhealthy level of power he exerts over his performers, their careers and even their perceptions of reality.