Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 410 Brockley Road, London SE 4 to 14th October 2023.

3***: William Russell.

Kelsey Short gives an impassioned performance as Hedda in this straight through production of Ibsen’s four act play directed by Scott James. It is one of the great roles – what Hamlet is to male actors Hedda is to female actors – and one open to all sorts of interpretations. I do have reservations about the production – just why Eilert Lovborg’s precious manuscript for the work of genius Hedda buns should be contained in a tiny notebook is one, as is the costume River Norris, who plays him, gets to wear. Hedda belongs to 1891, the year the play was first staged, but he seems to have strayed from some fashion shoot circa today. Michael Martin delivers a suitably odious Judge Brack, the local lecher with designs on Hedda, and Michael Flanagan is splendidly dim as George Tesman the husband she cannot stand and by whom, after a six month honeymoon trip touring Europe, which he cannot really afford, she is now pregnant. Hedda is in turmoil. She is horrified to meet Mrs Elvsted, who has left her husband and followed Lovborg whose amanuensis on the great work of scholarship he has apparently produced she has become. His return and the book threaten the chances Tesman has of getting a professorship at the local university. The house he has acquired, which she hates, the fact that Lovborg, for whom she still harbours passion and dreams of days with vine leaves in his hair, has sobered up and suddenly seems mundane, as well as Tesman’s silly old aunt who keeps drawing attention to the fact that something is on the way, send her literally out of her mind. As the daughter of a general Hedda treasures his guns and sure enough she eventually uses them and it all ends very bleakly indeed – for her and Lovborg. At times things get a bit too operatic and Short tends to emphasise lines rather strangely at times. One also does miss the burning of the manuscript as no stove features in the simple but effective set – one of the great breathtaking moments in the theatre - but the play survives. Hedda is a victim of her time, a woman condemned to marriage and unwanted motherhood who should have been allowed out into the real world of work and freedom to follow her dreams.

Cast

Kelsey Short – Hedda Gabler.

Megan McGery – Mrs Elvsted.

River North – Eilert Lovborg.

Michael Flanagan – George Tesman.

Michael Martin – Judge Brack.

Caroline Edwards – Juliana Tesman.

Jackie Mitchell – Berta.

Creatives

Director – Scott James.

Movement Director – Mcihael Flanagan.

Lighting Designer – Charlie Hills.

Technical Operator – Matthew Handley.

Scenic Art – Hasan Uzun.