{"id":1291,"date":"2016-12-14T12:53:31","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T12:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/?p=1291"},"modified":"2016-12-14T12:53:32","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T12:53:32","slug":"hedda-gabler-monster-or-philosopher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/2016\/12\/hedda-gabler-monster-or-philosopher.html","title":{"rendered":"Hedda Gabler: monster or philosopher?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hedda_header_1200x650\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ruth Wilson as Hedda<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My colleagues among the London critics are divided by Ivo van Hove\u2019s new National Theatre production of Hedda <\/em>Gabler, in an un-gimmicky, plain new version by Patrick Marber \u2013 except that they all agree in their high praise of Ruth Wilson\u2019s performance in the title role. In fact, the cast is uniformly excellent, but this is Hedda\u2019s show.<\/p>\n

When I first read Hedda Gabler<\/em> at school, I\u2019m sure I didn\u2019t get it at all, and thought Ibsen\u2019s 1891 heroine was meant to be a philosophical egoist like Howard Roark in Ayn Rand\u2019s The Fountainhead <\/em>(my own late-adolescent obsession). Now that I\u2019m senior enough to have seen a good many productions, I think that my juvenile musings might have had a tiny grain of sense in them. At least, that reading shields the character from the accusation of being evil<\/em> (as claims her academic husband, Tesler, played with a full-on American accent by Kyle Soller); perverse<\/em> (as the blackmailing Judge Brack, a tall, lascivious Rafe Spall thinks); an unbearable tease<\/em> (as her ex-, Lovborg, played with a gorgeous Byronic profile by Chukwudi Iwuji, implies); or as a control freak who has lost all power<\/em> (as Ruth Wilson\u2019s Hedda says explicitly).<\/p>\n

To this catalogue of flaws too gross to be tragic, we have to add that of the title of Olivia Laing\u2019s NT programme essay, \u2018Nasty Women,\u2019 of whom Hedda is one of literature\u2019s prime examples. Laing rates her as \u2018repulsive,\u2019 \u2018petty,\u2019 a \u2018drawing-room nihilist, a post-punk princess,\u2019 \u2018too ravenous and angular for the world in which she finds herself.\u2019 But I wonder if Ivo van Hove is not, as well, thinking of Coleridge\u2019s view of Iago as an unmotivated evil character \u2013 \u00a0more like Melville\u2019s Claggart than like Flaubert\u2019s Emma Bovary? What explains Hedda leading \u2013 forcing \u2013 Lovborg to suicide with her father\u2019s second pistol? She says her concern is that Lovborg\u2019s suicide should be \u2018beautiful.\u2019 How is it possible to urge someone else to destroy himself as an aesthetic act? What\u2019s more, Hedda bullies Lovborg into killing himself. To say Hedda is amoral is a lunatic understatement.<\/p>\n

This effective modern-dress production\u2019s too-expensive-for-the-Tesler-budget loft-like flat is designed and lit by Jan Versweyveld. I stared at Hedda, costumed permanently in her neglig\u00e9e, and thought: if only there was any indication that she\u2019d ever read anything at all, I\u2019d say she\u2019d been reading too much Sartre, Gide and Camus. Advanced as Existentialism was for 1891, now, more than a century later, Hedda yearns for herself \u2013 and others \u2013 to commit actes gratuits<\/em>, to demonstrate that they are free beings by performing completely unmotivated actions. Drama queens that they were, the French Existentialist writers usually conceived these \u2018un-caused,\u2019 freely chosen actions as being either murder or suicide, seldom anything so simple as theft or incurring a parking fine.<\/p>\n

Ruth Wilson\u2019s Hedda is definitely the spoiled child of privilege, and this wilfulness complements her upbringing perfectly. Is her privileging of the aesthetic over the ethical a reflection of her father\u2019s aristocratic position? Perhaps.<\/p>\n

The puzzle is that Hedda seems to be engaged with momentous philosophical issues without having been educated. In fact, there\u2019s little evidence in the play that she is capable of thinking much at all, let alone deeply. \u00a0She feels<\/em>, rather than thinks. Most of what she feels is suffering. But why should we care? Apart from her physical beauty, what can we find attractive or sympathetic about this (literally) vicious character?<\/p>\n

Okay, we know Ibsen generally thought men bore a lot of blame for women turning out this way; but despite what at least one silly critic has said about this production, it\u2019s not misogynistic. It\u2019s not a comment on all<\/em> women, or on gender. It\u2019s a portrait of one individual, particular woman, which is exactly why Ruth Wilson is so good: she presents us with a full, if warped human being; not a very intelligible person (we\u2019re still stumped, as we\u2019re meant to be, by her intentions); and very much not a nice or agreeable member of our species. This Hedda is a horror: the modern dress and the songs \u2013 Joni Mitchell\u2019s \u2018Blue\u2019 and Jeff Buckley covering Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u2018Hallelujah\u2019 \u2013 make it a bit easier for our contemporary sensibilities not to think all the abnormal pathology we are witnessing is either a case study, or confined entirely to Hedda. Judge Brack is a snake; and poor Lovborg a recovering addict, whom it is all too easy to goad into drinking again. Is the Marber\/van Hove production definitive, then?<\/p>\n

I looked up my last review of a production of Hedda<\/em>, the Old Vic\u2019s 2012 version by Brian Friel. It gave the male roles unusual prominence, which was interesting, but I now think wrong. Hedda Gabler is a Gorgon, a Medusa, a Lamia. Not a victim, but a perpetrator.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ruth Wilson as Hedda   My colleagues among the London critics are divided by Ivo van Hove\u2019s new National Theatre production of Hedda Gabler, in an un-gimmicky, plain new version by Patrick Marber \u2013 except that they all agree in their high praise of Ruth Wilson\u2019s performance in the title role. In fact, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blogroll-2","7":"category-elsewhere","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"entry","10":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-kP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1295,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions\/1295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}