A minimalist adaptation of the classic Ibsen play places the focus on how toxic the thirst for control can be
Director Mya Kelln’s new adaptation of Ibsen’s classic play reimagines Hedda Gabler in a stark, minimalist style. Like much of Ibsen’s work, this 1891 play explores in lurid detail how people can damage one another, as the bored and disenfranchised newlywed Hedda causes waves of destruction in each of her relationships.
With a small cast and a sparse production design, this adaptation aims to place the focus on the play’s (slightly modernised) text. Some of the most successful elements of the production stem from the creative use of minimalism; even the occasionally-crowded small stage helps heighten the atmosphere of anxiety and claustrophobia central to the plot. Kelln has added excerpts of Scandinavian poetry and strains of blues music to the soundscape of the play; these are well-chosen and offer a chance to explore some of the play’s imagery of bodies and nature through other texts. The play’s colour scheme of white, black, and red helps emphasise the importance of the few props that are used; red bottles and blood stand out starkly against white tables and dresses. One of the central themes of the play is highlighted by the absence of a usually-central prop, as characters create pistols using their hands. In keeping with the sleek design of the set, this choice also implies that the characters themselves are the weapons of destruction in these relationships. In the absence of set changes, Jacob Hirschkorn’s lighting design helps create contrasting settings and moods, such as when a focused light shifts to a broader wash as an intimate conversation gets interrupted.
The stylised setting even adds a few fresh moments of humour to the show, such as when Jack Aldridge as Jörgen Tesman glances around his ‘new apartment’ and drily remarks “I love it… It’s huge!” The cast often deliver their lines facing away from each other, and while this sometimes helps evoke stilted 19th-century social interactions, at other times it defuses the intensity of connection or tension between the characters. There were also moments in which this group of emerging artists feel slightly too innocent for the ennui and self-destructive tendencies of characters who believe they are past their prime. From this angle, Aldridge’s distractedly academic Tesman and Lani Blossom Perry’s earnest Thea Elvstead feel the most natural, as they are two of the less cynical characters. Nevertheless, Eliza Cameron as Hedda Gabler, Bede Hodgkinson as Ejlert Løvborg, and Olsen Elezi as Judge Brack create a compellingly toxic dynamic onstage. As the product of the newly-formed 13th Night Theatre Company, this production is a promising start.
Notes: This play explores themes of alcohol and drug usage, suicide, miscarriage, and domestic violence. This production includes a sequence of intense strobe lighting. Hedda Gabler is running until 13 July at the Bread & Roses Theatre in Clapham.