Hedda Gabler

There are few plays that I have seen so often or know so well as Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. When I saw Catherine Eaton in the Irish Classical Theatre rendition of the play last weekend, it was my second Hedda this month, having just seen the Roundabout Theatre production on Broadway, starring Mary Louise Parker. Interestingly, as I only know the play as performed in translation from the original Norwegian, I have never seen the same script twice. As a consequence, while every moment of Hedda Gabler is vivid in my mind, the exact phrasings used in several different productions resound in my memory, word for word.

Vincent O'Neill and Catherine Eaton in the Irish Classical's Hedda Gabler

At the opening night of the Irish Classical Theatre Company production, it was the 1978 version, adapted by Stuart Vaughan, founding artistic director of the New York Shakespeare Festival, that ran through my head. Vaughan’s New Globe Theatre production was swift-paced, used a comfortably elegant American vernacular, and featured Sharon Laughlin, an actress of uncommon dignity and diction in the title role.

Since then, I have seen many Hedda Gablers, from Glenda Jackson (on film) to Kate Burton (on Broadway). Still, I find that Laughlin’s expressions of Ibsen’s immortal thoughts, brilliantly rephrased by Stuart Vaughan, are indelibly emblazoned in my memory, even 30 years later. I did not see divine Claire Bloom’s Hedda, but I have often wondered if Vaughan had her in mind when he cast Miss Laughlin, whose speech was sensuous and whose tragedy was palpable, aided by Vaughan’s superior adaptation.

In the play, Hedda and her husband, George Tesman, have just returned from their wedding trip. During their absence of nearly a year, the furnishings for their lavish new home have been arranged by Judge Brack according to Hedda’s extravagant desires. The couple is precariously in debt and their future prosperity is dependent upon a university appointment that bookish Tesman has yet to acquire. Hedda has chosen Tesman from a large roster of suitors precisely because of his social prospects, but when Eilert Lovborg, her husband’s intellectual rival and her former lover, unexpectedly returns to town, she realizes that she has made an error. Everyone had assumed that Lovborg’s moral failings would limit his social prospects and his career, but during the past year, Lovborg has become sober and moderate. Indeed, he has finished two brilliant manuscripts. Hedda is further dismayed to learn that the inspiration for Lovborg’s reformation is another woman, Thea Elvsted, a nonentity from her days at school.

For the Irish Classical Theatre production, director Derek Campbell has used Australian playwright and director Andrew Upton’s version of the script. Upton is, with his wife, actress Cate Blanchett, the co-artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company and has made adaptations of modern classics a central element of his career. His Hedda Gabler takes a very fresh and contemporary look at the play, and locks onto the comedy implicit in the piece with a vengeance. At times this is wonderfully engaging, particularly in the wit with which he endows Hedda herself. At other times, however, it reduces the piece, hijacking the proceedings into a whole different genre. At several key moments, for example, most notably the play’s opening scene, Upton’s apparent affection for Tesman’s Aunt Juliana threatens to drag the play either to a halt or into the realm of domestic comedy. The old woman’s eagerness for her nephew to begin a family, originally rendered with a few deft lines, here becomes a nearly farcical obsession. There are times, as well, when Upton’s willfully unsubtle adaptation influences director Campbell to careen into irregularly modulated unlikelihood. Hedda is, for instance, so openly aggressive at times that it seems impossible that anyone would fail to see that she is recklessly dangerous. She all but slaps Mrs. Elvsted, who comes to the Tesman home urging the couple to offer support to their mutual friend, Eilert Lovborg, in a manner that would logically send the woman screaming from the house. It is a testament to the unaffected naturalism of actress Kristen Tripp Kelley that her character does not come across as a total simpleton.

And then, of course, Ibsen himself comes to the rescue.

I have never seen an actress fail to nail Hedda’s beautifully structured first entrance. Having just awakened from her first night in her marital home, Hedda irritably enters her drawing room and is immediately confronted by the husband to whom she already has an aversion, and his beloved aunt with whom she has no patience. Ibsen derives cynical comedy from Hedda’s transparently restrained disgust, which will soon be undercut by the tragedy that is to follow.

Catherine Eaton seizes the moment and begins to build a performance that will, despite some erratically calibrated sequences in the production, arise memorably as a most affecting Hedda. While I did compare and contrast this performance to those I have seen before, I quickly knew that I was seeing something original, insightful, and satisfying.

Eaton’s Hedda is energetic, even muscular. She is driven by an unconventional impulse while, at the same time, she is petrified by the opinion of strangers. She is the daughter of a warrior, trapped in the life of a wife. As played by Eaton, Hedda’s obvious and irrepressible will to live is, ironically, what ultimately motivates her to die.

Tesman is, in most productions, the most thankless role in Hedda Gabler. Even Berte the maid is handed more clearly defined complexity. Christian Brandjes, ordinarily a most charismatic actor, falls into the Tesman trap, rendering a total milksop of a husband for Hedda. He does manage to imbue his character with distain for his own ineffectuality, balancing the hollow puffing up of his meager accomplishments with the enormous darkness of his jealousies. It’s not always enough.

Kristen Tripp Kelley is a marvelous actress and her performance as Mrs. Elvsted is a deftly constructed character. She avoids making the woman insipid, despite a production that stacks the deck unfairly against her. One worries that Miss Kelley seems to play one repressed supporting character after another—for her next acting assignment, she should insist upon playing a leading lady, preferably a strumpet on a bender, a Sally Bowles or Sadie Thompson kind of gal.

Ever-reliable Kathleen Betsko Yale is endearing as overwritten Aunt Juliana, and it is difficult to identify the source of Matthew Semler’s awkward failings in his melodramatic rendering of Eilert Lovborg. Beth Donohue is a fretful but steady presence as Berte, the loyal family maid.

In a critically important role, Vincent O’Neill is splendid as Judge Brack, the character who unwittingly pushes Hedda over the edge by overestimating her capacity to sacrifice self-determination for the sake of appearances. He matches Hedda for wit and cunning, oiling his way stealthily into the Tesman home. His final undoing by Hedda’s surprising final shot is undercut by Upton’s adaptation, which tampers with the final line of the play (as does the current Broadway version adapted by Christopher Shinn), perhaps in an effort to attain freshness in the adaptation whatever the cost. The price exacted here is an out-and-out distortion, as Judge Brack is not even allowed to finish his thought.

Handsomely designed for the round by Ron Schwartz to mostly successful effect, with costumes by Kate E. Palamé that attractively evoke period and character, this Hedda Gabler still manages to be successful on many counts, and gains as it goes along. The risky decision to stage Hedda’s final moment in full view of the audience succeeds thanks to the sound design by Tom Makar.

(On a final side note, the most laughable Hedda Gabler I ever saw was a Buffalo production of several years ago, starring an actress who shall remain nameless, who assayed the role like a tormented Olive Oyl, and whose pistol failed to fire at the critical climactic moment—an unforgettable night of theater for all the wrong reasons).

Sunday In The Park With George

I will always remember exactly how I spent New Year’s Eve 1984, because I had a standing room ticket to see Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George at the Booth Theatre on Broadway. The show had already won the Tony Award as Best Musical; the Pulitzer was in its future, and for me the big attractions were Sondheim, Bernadette Peters, and Tony Straiges’ inventive set, which recreated Georges Seurat’s most famous painting, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Told as two related one-act stories, the first half tells the fictional story of Georges Seurat and his relationship to the figures in his iconic painting—most notably his model and mistress Dot, who James Lapine fantasizes to have posed for the dominant figure, the woman wearing a bustle. In this act, George doggedly pursues his art and ignores his personal relationships. In the climactic moment, George moves the conflicted characters into position, creating the composition for his painting and perfect harmony.

Act Two begins with precisely the same stage picture, but now the characters are trapped in the frozen pose of the painting. Quickly, we meet the great grandson of Dot and Seurat, who is also named George, and who is also an artist—a very successful one, on the verge of burnout.

My memories of the performance remain distinct. Bernadette Peters was marvelous. (Her co-star, Mandy Patinkin, over-emoted to the point of being grotesque.) The Act One set was thrilling, as was the music. Act Two seemed like something tossed together in a hurry.

When I saw last year’s revival with high-tech video sets, the result paled by comparison. High-tech sets seemed far less magical than their handmade predecessors, though Daniel Evans was superior as George and Jenna Russell provided a refreshing reinterpretation of Dot, the Bernadette Peters role.

Between the two, the current MusicalFare production of Sunday in the Park with George more closely resembles the original 1984 production, albeit in far more modest form. So much of the art of musical theater seems to be a task of recreation rather than invention, and here Jenn Stafford and Paschal Frisina III do frequently approximate the vocal interpretations of Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin (a much more winning strategy for her than for him in my book). Like the more lavish original, the wonderful set by Chris Schenk has the wonderful feel of having come from the imagination of an artist and from the hands of craftsmen. Costumes by Loraine O’Donnell and Olivia Ebsary successfully evoke the important recreation of Seurat’s master work.

Alas, little can be done to rescue James Lapine’s Act Two, which still feels like something tossed together, though the talented and enthusiastic MusicalFare company, under the direction of Randall Kramer and the musical direction of Eric Alsford, give it a passionate go, and it is here that Frisina does his most appealing work, even holding his own with Miss Stafford, who between Acts One and Two goes from adorable to irresistible.

Actually, for all the activity on the Buffalo musical theater scene, it is fantastically refreshing to see a proper book musical by a master practitioner, even a minorly flawed one, as opposed to just another disposable revue. In so many ways MusicalFare’s Sunday in the Park with George is an unmitigated delight, and Kramer has populated the piece with superb supporting performers. Nicole Marrale Cimato gives two perfect contrasting performances as Nurse in Act One and as composer Naomi Eisen in Act Two. Louis Colaiaovo creates an unforgettable character in Dennis, the stressed technician who is prone to tears in Act Two. Robert J. Cooke, Steve Copps, Jeffrey Coyle, Doug Crane, Amy Jakiel, Kelly Jakiel, Kevin R. Kennedy, the marvelous Sheila McCarthy, Debbie Pappas, Anne Roaldi, Leah Russo, each is vivid and specific and wonderful.

Richard Foreman’s Bridge to Buffalo

Richard Foreman is universally regarded as one of the great pioneers of the American theater. His two-week visit to Buffalo (March 16-29) with his collaborator, Sophie Haviland can, therefore, be seen as something historic. During their residency at the University at Buffalo, Foreman and Haviland will conduct an intensive theater/film workshop for students in the UB departments of Media Study and Theatre and Dance as part of “The Bridge: An International Art Initiative.” The general public will have an opportunity to see Foreman at an event on March 23.

Known for his non-narrative theater projects, Foreman has been recognized with numerous honors, including multiple Obie Awards (five for Best Play of the Year), and is the director and designer of more than 50 plays.

Begun in 2004, the Bridge Project promotes international art exchange through a collaborative process. Reached by telephone in New York City, Foreman described the Bridge Project as a kind of artistic sharing.

“My collaborator, Sophie Haviland and I, have taken the Bridge Project to nine different countries,” says Foreman. “Buffalo will be the first American city to host the project. We will work with a group of performers and technicians provided by the University. Each participant will create independently shot film in the style of the project, and we hope that they will then use this material to create their own original works, their own short films. The interesting part is that all of the participants will have access to all the footage shot by other participants, so the Buffalo participants will have access to film shot in Portugal, or Australia, or Japan, and so on.”

I ask Foreman to describe “the style of the project.”

“That’s very difficult to say,” he answers candidly. “I’d say it has a quality of ‘presentation,’ of performers looking into the camera. And in every image, a sense that something is about to appear or occur, a strange sense of expectancy.”

Much of Foreman’s work has been done at his own “Ontological-Hysteric Theater,” which he founded in 1968. According to its web site, OHT exists “with the aim of stripping the theater bare of everything but the singular and essential impulse to stage the static tension of interpersonal relations in space. The OHT seeks to produce works that balance a primitive and minimal style with extremely complex and theatrical themes.”

In Buffalo, OHT certainly will find kindred artistic spirits. Most prominent among them is probably Dan Shanahan, founder and artistic director of Torn Space Theatre, who happily acknowledges Foreman’s influence on his own work. Shanahan has made his reputation for large non-narrative theatrical presentations as the Adam Mickiewicz Dramatic Circle, the old Central Terminal, and the Ukrainian center on Broadway.

“I think Foreman’s biggest influence on me has been in the way he uses theatrical time in his productions,” says Shanahan. “He analyzes time while he manipulates time, fracturing it, going backward, repeating it. I used it in Architect the most, and also in Area, because in both instances the production confined the characters and took away their autonomy. The production, itself, was an outside force that the characters were living in.”

Shanahan thinks that bringing the Bridge Project to Buffalo makes perfect sense.

“There is plenty of experimental work going on here; we have a lot of well-informed people who are connected to the larger theater world. I think the upcoming production of WoyUbu is an example. There’s Alt Theatre, and what’s being done there. There is a lot happening.”

The Foreman piece that resonates most vividly in Shanahan’s memory is My Head Was a Sledgehammer, which he saw at St. Mark’s Church in New York City. In describing the piece, Ben Brantley of the New York Times wrote, “the most recent offering of Mr. Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, is to be swept into a dazzlingly self-contained, thoroughly exhilarating universe that seems in the viewing—as does the best of Mr. Foreman’s work—logical, rational and disturbing in the way that individual dreams can be. It is a testament to Mr. Foreman’s hypnotic artistic control that only afterward do you scratch your head and wonder what it was all about.”

The same is often said of Dan Shanahan.

The general public will have an opportunity to interact with Foreman on March 23 at 7pm, when the University at Buffalo Center for the Moving Image (CMI) directed by Emmy Award-winning arts filmmaker Elliot Caplan, UB professor of media study, will host “An Evening with Richard Foreman,” free to the public, in the Market Arcade Theater. Foreman will discuss his work and screen material selected from 25 years of his plays, as well as his last film production in Japan and the UK.

More information on Foreman can be found at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater site: www.ontological.com. Additional information on the Bridge Project is available at www.bridgefilm.com.