Theatre
Hedda Gabler, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Neil Cooper
Three stars
There's an over-riding sense of languor at the start of Amanda Gaughan's revival of Henrik Ibsen's nineteenth century Freudian tragedy, seen here in a version by Richard Eyre. As the maid Berthe removes dust-sheets from the furniture of newly-weds George and Hedda Tesman's new house, off-white curtains waft in the breeze to far off piano patterns. Nicola Daley's similarly shimmering Hedda seems to sleepwalk her way onto the chaise longue where she lays hot and clearly bothered before unveiling a portrait of her stern-looking father that perches in the corner watching everything that follows.
All this is shot to pieces once Hedda has put on her well-practised rictus grin and, in the face of a hopelessly devoted husband, his well-meaning fuss-budget aunt Julia and his highly strung ex Thea, she looks every inch the thoroughly modern woman who has it all. When Benny Young's horny Judge Brack and Jack Tarleton's tormented Loevborg come calling, Hedda seems to be playing the older men off each other to ease the boredom of her lot and convince herself she's in charge of her own destiny as much as her illicit suitors.
Such is Ibsen's mix of high manners and extreme taboo-busting that it's hard to avoid melodrama. Yet as Hedda's mask slips from vivaciousness to hormonally driven self-destructive grand gestures, her pistol-packing, book burning neuroses look closer to 1990s in-yer-face theatre than anything. If at times a sense of mass uptightness borders on a shrillness that threatens to undermine this tale of ordinary madness, when the lights go out as Hedda takes her final shot, the lack of a body denies her the immortality she craves.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article