Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen in a new version by Kyle Goeken. The Etcetera Theatre, 265, Camden High Street, London NW1 until 25 May 2024, 3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.
Photo Credit: Bryony Lock.
Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen in a new version by Kyle Goeken. The Etcetera Theatre, 265 Camden High Street, London NW1 until 25 May 2024,
3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.
“Impressive, slimmed down.”
For daring this really deserves four of those stars, but this slimmed down version of Ibsen's before its time play about Hedda and her obsession with vine leaves in the hair of the man she really love directed by Charlie Froy is well worth seeing. For a start it has an impressive scarlet haired trouser clad Hedda in Pia Litzmann. The problems? Well the Etcetera is a small space and not all the cast were achieving that target all actors should aim at – hitting the back wall of the Gods. It is an initimate space, the concept places events in but the words still all need to be heard. There is a stripped back stage, a chair, and somewhere for those pistol's belonging to her soldier father that Hedda is obsessed with to rest. The cast are mostly in trousers and white shirts although Mrs Elsted, played by Alissa Finn, the woman who has usurped the role Hedda wants to have played is elegantly dressed, proves an effective foe. Not sure Moke Benley quite caught the nastiness of Judge Brack but Karl Noble as GeorgeTesman was certainly the husband from hell, which is how Hedda sees him, Sara Odeen-Isbister fluttered perfectly as his aunt Julie, while as Eilert Lovborg, the man Hedda loves and in whose hair she dreams of those vine leaves, Jordan Bourke managed to make him worth her obsession while still being a masterly ditherer. Everything depends on the university job Tesman expects to get, but which it looks as if Lovborg will get and on the machinations of Judge Brack who is intent on getting Hedda as his mistress. The thing is that the play worked and that is what matters.
Cast
Pia Litzmann – Hedda Gabler
Alissa Finn – Thea Elvsted
Moke Benley – Judge Brack
Jordan Bourke – Eilert Lovborg
Sara-Odeen-Isbister – Julie Tesman
Bryony Lock – Berte
Creatives
Director – Charlie Froy
Designer – Elsa Pahl
