February 26, 2025Theater Mirror

By Shelley A. Sackett

In ‘Hedda Gabbler,’ Ibsen dramatizes the miserable life of his title character, the iconically unclassifiable Hedda Gabbler. The pampered daughter of a wealthy general, Hedda recently married the mild-mannered, decidedly middle-class George Tesman. Fearing her years of youthful abandon might be behind her, she snagged the first – and only – bird that actually landed in her hand. “I can’t think of anything ridiculous about him,” she explains when asked by a former suitor why she had settled for George. He is also respectable, conscientious about his research work, and intent, under any circumstances, to look after her.

What George is not, however, is dangerous, sexy or aggressive, three traits Hedda admires, embodies and craves.

Director Danielle Fauteux Jacques cleverly arranges for the actors and audience to settle simultaneously. As the theater seats fill, actors stroll across the comfortable set, moving furniture, placing flowers, even repositioning a piano. The spacious, tastefully furnished drawing room is decorated in dark colors and lit by tiers of candles. Solo piano music enhances the mood, and Elizabeth Rocha’s costumes reflect the play’s end-of-19^th-century time period.

The Tesmans, we learn from the maid Berta (Ann Carpenter) and Aunt Julia (a splendid (Paola Ferrer), have just returned to Christiana (Oslo) from a whirlwind six-month European honeymoon. George (played by a suitably understated, good-natured, if somewhat clueless, Conall Sahler) is enthralled by both their new wife, Hedda, and the ancient manuscripts he unearthed. He and Aunt Julia (the maiden aunt who raised him) are in the midst of reconnecting over George’s boyhood slippers when Hedda stomps onto the stage, barefoot and with a head full of steam explainable only by her having been interrupted either in the middle of brawl or while on the prowl to start one.

Unlike George, Hedda (played with almost relentless malice and moue by Parker Jennings) has returned bored, disappointed, and generally pissed off. She doesn’t like the house; she insults Aunt Julia’s new hat, and most of all, she doesn’t like being married to George. Like a freshly caught wild animal suddenly caged and on display, she paces. She is trapped but not tamed.

Disengaged from her own life, Hedda is in desperate need of a diversion. When Judge Brack (a smarmy Christhian Mancinas-García) comes to call, he and Hedda have the opportunity to reconnect in private. It’s clear the two share both a sexual backstory and many of the same values. “I get these impulses,” Hedda confesses to Brack. “I have no talent for life.” He seems to know exactly what she means.

Brack offers a polyamorous triangular relationship as a solution, but Hedda’s boredom is not that easily assuaged. What she needs, she declares, is to manipulate another’s life, to control them completely through her power and her will. As if on cue, her girlhood schoolmate, Thea (a credibly solid, earnest Kimberly Blaise MacCormack), arrives with all the ingredients to set Hedda’s plan in motion.

George’s academic rival, Eilert Løvborg (an outstanding Joshua Lee Robinson), has resurfaced. An alcoholic, Løvborg was mired in scandal and poverty after squandering the family fortune on debauchery. Recovered and renewed, Løvborg wrote a book that was received with thunderous acclaim. The bestseller is in the same field as George’s, and George worries that Løvborg’s success could put a damper on his chances of securing the professorship he was financially banking on when he married Hedda and went into hock to buy her a house (which she hates) and take her on the extravagant honeymoon she expected and abhorred.

Thea’s agenda has nothing to do with the Tesmans. She and her husband, Sheriff Elvsted, took Løvborg in when he was down and out to tutor Thea’s stepchildren. While her husband was away on business, she worked closely with Løvborg on his newest manuscript and developed a great love for him. She worries that his fragile rehabilitation is in jeopardy now that he is back in the city with a pocketful of royalties money. She has packed a bag, left her disastrous marriage, and is now trying to locate Løvborg so they can pick up where they left off.

Knowing that he and George were university chums, she has come to ask George to write a letter asking Løvborg to visit him. She tells the Tesmans that her husband sent her, but Hedda has a nose for deception (being the Queen herself) and sniffs out the juicier tale.

She dispatches George to write the letter and ruthlessly grills Thea until the poor girl divulges her secret to her new and trusted confidante. Hedda assures Thea she will take care of everything, but as she breaks the fourth wall and treats the audience to a Snidley Whiplash wink, we know all will not end well for anyone.

Løvborg gets the message and comes to the Tesman house in a tizzy. From the first hello, it is clear he and Hedda also shared a romantic past. In their scenes together, Hedda comes as close as she does in the play to displaying genuine compassion and vulnerability. Jennings and Robinson have real chemistry in the scenes when they sneak embraces as George comes in and out of the room. Hedda’s evil side doesn’t need the hammering Parker sometimes gives it; her words make her unlikeable enough. But these tiny glimpses of her inner humanity soften her character just enough to make her believable and less of a melodramatic stereotype. A very little could go a very long way.

In any case, Hedda will be damned if she lets Thea’s influence over Løvborg eclipse her own. No matter what it takes, she vows to smash their liaison.

To George’s relief, Løvborg has no intention of competing with him for the coveted professorship but has his hopes pinned on the masterpiece sequel he has written, the only copy of which he totes about in a brown paper envelope. Thea shows up, and Hedda immediately breaks her promise of confidentiality, telling Løvborg that Thea followed him to the city because she feared he would relapse. Løvborg reacts poorly, and Hedda delights when he goes off the wagon in front of her. She convinces him to accompany George and Brack to a party where she knows there will much drinking and carousing, assuring him she and Thea will be fine dining alone.

Predictably, Løvborg falls hard, failing to show up at the Tesmans the next morning. George returned earlier with the coveted manuscript, which Løvborg lost during the evening. When he is called away to his dying Aunt Rima’s bedside, he instructs Hedda to safeguard it.

Løvborg does eventually show up, a messy aftermath of a nasty night. He lies to Thea and Hedda, telling them he destroyed his manuscript. Thea is bereft; that work was their love child, a validation of her worth and his reform. Hedda does nothing to contradict Løvborg or reassure Thea. Distressed and disappointed, Thea leaves the former lovers alone.

Løvborg confesses that he actually lost the “child,” an act infinitely more unforgivable than destroying it. Hedda convinces him that the only recourse is for him to end his life with “vine leaves in your hair.” (Vine leaves in the hair are a symbol of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and tragic insight). She gives him one of her father’s pistols and happily sends him away with one command: that if he chooses to do this, he do it beautifully.

The moment he leaves, she retrieves the manuscript and, one page at a time, ceremoniously burns it in its entirety, her face aglow from the flames and her own inner satisfaction. “One is not always mistress of one’s thought,” she will later muse.

It would be unforgivable to spoil the rest of the plot, but suffice it to say that Hedda’s plan goes awry, and she gets a healthy dose of her own medicine. Fauteux Jacques takes directorial liberties and adds elements that translate what passed for shock in 1891 into terms that resonate more in 2025 (I refer to one of the final scenes between Hedda and Brack). Kudos to Fauteux Jacques for this bold and stirring move.

Yet, despite inspired staging and acting, Ibsen’s starchy, dusty “Hedda Gabbler” is a difficult piece to access. Hedda is neither rational nor irrational in the usual sense of being random and unaccountable. Her logic is personal and unique. What she desires is critical to her happiness, yet it represents what “normal” society would reject as unacceptable. Hedda’s interior is as complicated as her exterior, which is razor-focused. Jennings does an excellent job of trying to carry this intricate character from beginning to end, but it is a real challenge to make believable why Hedda would command the attention of the men in her life, much less that of her audience.

‘Hedda Gabbler’ — Written by Henrik Ibsen. Adapted by the company from the translation by Edmund Grosse and William Archer. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques; Scenic and Sound Design by Joseph Lark-Riley; Costume Design by Elizabeth Rocha; Lighting Design by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Presented by Allpoinnaire Theatre Company at Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet Street, Chelsea, through March 16.

For more information and to buy tickets, go to www.apollinairetheatre.com