Hedda Gabler

Published Friday 9 November 2007 at 15:10 by Natasha Tripney

Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, in theory, should be an ideal choice for a venue as compact as Greenwich Playhouse.

The space limitations should enhance the sense of claustrophobia, and lend weight to the idea of a woman driven into a stifling situation by society’s pressure and her own misjudged choices. And, up to a point, it works.

Unfortunately Bruce Jamieson’s production continually undermines itself. The actors look uncomfortable and there are some very stiffly delivered lines.

Alice de Sousa, who also produces, is suitably intense as Hedda, but she never digs down to the heart of the character. Buttoned up in a series of superbly voluminous dresses designed by Kate Kenward, she too often resorts to grimacing and hand-waving, but she is better in Hedda’s more contemplative moments. William Ludwig seems most at home with the needs of the material as the melancholic Eilert Loevborg.

The set is fittingly simple, just a couple of chairs and a dresser where the pistol case could be kept, but the use of sweeping cinematic music played at deafening levels between scenes is counter-productive, drowning out what subtlety there is in what becomes a frustratingly uneven evening of theatre.