As gripping as an Agatha Christie thriller: Shooting Hedda Gabler, at the Rose Theatre, reviewed

The unlovely Rose Theatre in Kingston is a modest three-storey eyesore. The concrete foyer looks like an exercise area on a North Sea oil platform, and the auditorium itself is a whitewashed rotunda that resembles the chapel in a newly built prison. Yet this cheerless, functional space is perfect for a mischievous new satire, Shooting Hedda Gabler, about recent developments in the acting trade.

The central character, Hedda (Antonia Thomas), is a washed-up American starlet who wants to gain artistic credibility by taking the lead in a pretentious film version of Hedda directed by Henrik, a tyrannical Norwegian auteur. ‘There is no script,’ he announces on the opening day. But he’s lying. The script exists in his head and he barks out lines and stage directions which his cast must enact as he commands. And he films every moment of rehearsals so the actors get no chance to relax or to improvise on their own terms. Henrik sounds like an irritating swine but Christian Rubeck plays him as an interesting but unpredictable nutcase who might be fun to work with.

Thanks to the #MeToo movement, the set features an ‘intimacy co-ordinator’ who oversees all physical contact between cast members and makes certain that no inappropriate touching takes place. But Henrik constantly gropes and assaults Hedda with complete impunity because his intimacy co-ordinator is on the pay roll, and she feels obliged to do his bidding. The same applies to the on-set therapist (amusingly played by the same actress) who uses her scientific authority to give Henrik a free hand and to let him do whatever he likes. The safety inspector, who happens to be Henrik’s assistant director, also rubber stamps his decisions and fills in the paperwork to suit his wishes. This illustrates a truth that many of us had half-suspected: the type of person who works as an ‘intimacy co-ordinator’ is a spineless busybody whose loyalties can easily be coerced.