Hedda Garbler

Hedda Gabler is one of the most influential plays ever written. It not merely illuminated an injustice, the enslavement of women within marriage, it fomented the revolutionary achievements of feminism. It deserves to be done as Ibsen intended. This updated version from Ivo van Hove locates Hedda in one of those posh urban dream homes that resemble an art gallery. Stage left, buckets filled with flowers. Centre, an abandoned plinky-plonk piano. At the rear, a lamp the size of a traffic bollard. Scruffy off-white masterpieces deck the walls. Everything looks chic and scaled-up. Tesman is a penniless American academic married to tetchy Hedda who pads about barefoot, in her nightie, grousing. Effortful gestures abound. To express her frustration Hedda picks all of the flowers from their buckets, beats them up thoroughly, and nails the stems to the walls with a staple gun.

The harder she asserts her rage the harder it is to care about it. Oddities multiply. Why does yuppie Hedda not have a job, a car, a smartphone, a circle of friends? Is she unaware that displaying loaded pistols in an unlocked case is illegal? Why has Lovborg written his masterpiece by hand, in ink, and then decided to keep the unique copy in a flimsy envelope? He’s a genius but he hasn’t heard of ‘backing up’. Nonsense piles on nonsense. Hedda’s burning of Lovborg’s script is one of the most shocking moments in all drama but in a centrally heated flat there’s a snag: no fireplace. Cue a mopey maid who toddles on at the right moment and holds a taper to a grille concealed beneath a rug. Whoosh! Tongues of flame leap into the air. Which explains why Hedda and Tesman are skint.