LA GRANDE FINALE OF HEDDA GABLER ON BROADWAY MARCH 29 2009
The time has come for Hedda Gabler to "put her feet in the ground" as we say here in Sweden.
I was there for the last two shows. The play by the norwegian, Henrik Ibsen, is rather heavy.. normally that is. It is about a woman captured in a marriage with a man with whom she seems to have absolutely nothing in common. She is absolutely BORED and fed up with her life, yet it was her own choice to marry him - noone forced her into the relationship.
The play starts with Hedda (Mary-Louise Parker) laying down on a sofa.. in the background you hear ominous music that forebodes the coming catastrophe.. very colorful... great effect. The music actually adds some spice throughout the play, because whenenver you feel the catastrophe is getting closer you hear the music.
You get the picture really soon, when her husbands aunt, Juliane Tesman (Helen Carey) is entering the stage Hedda hides in the backroom... she has absolutely no inclination to see her. When Tesman, her husband, (Micael Cerveris) enters the room you have some laughs. If you have seen the play before, you are used to see a Tesman, that is rahter dull and and stuffy.. an old man with certain rules and principles, only living for his books.
Michael Cerveris Tesman is more like a little boy that gets overly entusiastic talking about his latest project, who gets delisriously happy when his aunt picks up a package that contains his old slippers, which she kept for him. He is rather amusing, more like a muddle-headed professor with Asperger syndrom than a dull academic, and you can´t help feeling as though you want to take care of him like a mother.
When Judge Brack (Peter) enters the scene you understand that he and Hedda has much more in common than she has with her husband. They are two-of-a-kind. Apparently they have had talks before, which they both seem to enjoy, and they seem to have an understanding beetween them. You don´t get the idea that they have been involved, but he is definitely interested in getting closer to her, and she is playing along, at least to start with. She seems to enjoy a witty conversation and a worthy opponent, unlike her husband. In many ways she seems superior to her husband - he does not understand her, nor does he understand her yearning to live her life to the fullest. Judge Brack on the other hand does.
Peter´s Judge Brack is very charismatic - even sexy - and also funny.
There is one scene in particular, when the guys are going to a party, and plays "train" like little children that is hilariously funny. I wish you could have seen that.
Another scene is when he enters from the garden and Hedda is shooting at him - very funny too when you see him lurking behind the curtain and then runs like hell - you know how Peter can make those special expressions with his face - he seems to enjoy being shot at at the same time he is not really sure she is playing with him. You get some good laughs all over the play when The Judge enters the scene.
You who know Peter from film and TV: think of a character that is something beetween the sly, greasingly sexy Abruzzi from Prison Break and a gentleman from the 19th century and you get the picture!
The character Judge Brack I have seen in other versions is a very sleasy person.. you immediately dislike him and sees him more like a vulture, who revolves around his victim, just waiting to pick her bones. Peter´s Judge does not give that impression. He adds a flair of ease into the situation.. like he has the perfect solution for Hedda... for all of them. If she lets him into her life on a more common basis, then they can all benefit from it - it will be good for all of the parties in the "triangle" as he puts it.
What he wants is of course a relationship with Hedda behind the back of her husband, but the way he puts it you almost think of it as something good, and you don´t get the impression he wants to hurt her or her husband, he just wants to make her life a bit less dull...!
You almost want to participate in their threesome after hearing him trying to convince Hedda.
Both Hedda and Judge Brack are rather manipulative persons. They want to rule other peoples lives. But Hedda feels she is out of control, and therefore she plays nasty little pranks on others to amuse herself. She knows she is on the road to destruction, but she is planning on going there with style! The Judge on the other hand, is working thoroughly to get to his goal, that is to have a hold on her, so he can get what he wants from her. And he almost reaches it in the end.
Two more characters in the play enters the scene.
One is a former lover of Hedda´s, Eijlert Lövborg (Paul Sparks) and the other is Mrs Thea Elvsted (Ana Reeder), a former younger friend (or rival)from school. When Mrs Elvsted arrives, you immediately get the picture: She is in love with Eijlert Lövborg, and she is unhappy in her marriage to a much older man, and has now left him to be with Lövborg. Of course Hedda picks up those vibes immediately and in her manipulative way befriends her to get all the information she wants about Lövborg.(Mrs Elvsted is also a former crush of Hedda´s husband, which complicates the picture even more.)
As the play proceeds, Hedda and Lövborg has a hot encounter while the Judge and her husband is in the other room. When Mrs Elvsted arrives, the tension is increasing, and you can feel the jealousy and rivalry in the air. Lövborg also has feelings for Mrs Elvsted, which of course makes Hedda jealous! She feels like she has no power over him no more.
The tension increases as the play proceeds. You can see Hedda is on the edge of breaking apart, and Mary-Louise Parker does a good job in letting Heddas nerves be seen on the outside. You know this play will end with death, one way or the other.
And it does. First Lövborg loses the manuscript for his new book in a party when he gets drunk. Heddas husband finds it and confides in her. She now sees her chance of getting rid of it and of Mrs Elvsted, who "inspired" him to write the book for good, and in anger she tosses the manuscript into the fire saying: "I´m burning your child", thinking Mrs Elvsted now will have no more power over him.
Lövborg then comes to her in despair thinking all is lost, and she convinces him that the best thing for him to do now is to kill himself to keep his honour, she even gives him one of her fathers pistols to do the job. Later they all hear that he has been in an "accident" and is deadly wounded. Mrs Elvsted is of course very sad when he dies, but to Hedda´s vexation she has kept all the notes while she worked with Lövborg, and she and Tesman immediately starts to work to restore the manuscript.
Hedda is now up against the wall. Judge Brack knows that the pistol that killed Lövborg is hers, he tells her he recognizes it, but says he will keep quiet,letting her understand that she needs to do him some favours in return though. She now feels superflous and completely trapped, and sees no other solution than to shoot herself.
It is a dark play of manipulation, people trapped in unhappy relationships and desire to live, but I didn´t feel the darkness so much because of the actors also who made the characters easy and funny. The dialogue felt contemporary and it was easy to identify with the feelings of the characters.
I really liked the play.
ME & THE STORM BACKSTAGE AFTER THE LAST PERFORMANCE OF HEDDA GABLER MARCH 29 2009
NEW MUSIC BASED ON THE PLAY CAN BE HEARD ON BLONDE FROM FARGO´S STREETTEAMS´S MYSPACE:
Gedda Habler´s Final Concert NYC March 29 2009
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giggly
good
chipper
crazy
excited
determined
artistic
curious
thoughtful
indescribable
