I was delighted to be invited to review the new play on at Richmond Theatre last night. I was given two “press” tickets which made me feel hugely important. Of course, this morning showing them to my children brought me back down to earth with a bump – “mum you are SUCH a loser” type remarks emanated across the kitchen. Oh well. They’re just jealous.
The play I saw was “Hedda Gabler”, written by Henrik Ibsen and first published in 1890. Today, Ibsen is considered to be one of the father’s of modern drama and I can imagine that when the play was first staged in England the following year, it must have provoked outrage. Victorian moral standards wouldn’t have coped at all with a female character like Hedda Gabler and yet today many of the moral, social and political issues raised remain valid.
Anthony Ward’s open plan set of a drawing-room still manages to give the impression that Hedda is trapped and constrained by her life in general. She is a complex character and the story that centres around her provides a fascinating and penetrating psychological drama. She finds herself stuck in a marriage of convenience to a man she has little respect for. Rosamund Pike plays her character beautifully. She is passionate and oozes frustrated sexual tension. She looked completely gorgeous and I wanted all the dresses she wore. She fluctuates between presenting herself as a victim of circumstance, trapped in a marriage to a man she does not love and a woman who thinks she is in control of her life, manipulating all those around her like puppets on a string. She is both preoccupied with thoughts of respectablity and propriety and yet isolated and desperate to escape. She manages to make the men surrounding her appear weak and foolish. Rosamund Pike successfully portrays Hedda Gabler as a woman enjoying the game to a degree – a deceitful ice-maiden with a desperately flawed, confused and somewhat hopeless interior. She presents the troubled, deceitful character with a stripped down simplicity and strength that worked extremely well.
Ibsen, when writing notes for the play wrote “It is a great delusion that one only loves one person. Women aren’t all created to be mothers. They all have a leaning towards sensuality, but are afraid of the scandal. They realise that life holds a purpose for them, but they cannot find that purpose”. Rosamund Pike portrays these different sides of her character beautifully. Hedda wants to shape a man’s destiny by taking control and yet once she has done just that she begins to despise him.
Tim McInnerney plays the judge and Robert Glenister plays her husband.
I loved it.
Admiral Hook
March 16, 2010Hedda Gabler at Richmond…I was captivated by the performance. Rosamund Pike was thoroughly convincing as a conniving and manipulative ice maiden who was in the end, quite literally, bored to death. She stole the show not just with her powerful character but with her stunning beauty. It was a dark story but with humourous moments. Highly recommended.
She reminded me of an ex-wife…
Dumdad
March 16, 2010That was an excellent cast: Tim McInnerney (sublime in Blackadder) and Robert Glenister (wonderfully funny in Hustle) and Rosamund Pike (lovely and smart).
I went to the Richmond Theatre many moons ago (see post http://wwwtheothersideofparis.blogspot.com/search?q=richmond).
P.S. It’s Rosamund, not Rosamind!
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