Hedda Gabler and Other Plays Book

I have hated Ibsen for the last 15 years of my life. I was a grad student in an acting program and had to read "Ghosts." I found it melodramatic, heavy handed and just plain ludicrous. It reminded me of a creaky old mansion lousy with mould and damp. Even acting in the "Lady from the Sea"(which I liked)could not make me change my negative opinion of this master of sturm und drung. But being a student of the theatre in general and great playwrights in particular I knew I would one day have to read some more Ibsen.

Whenever I am engaged in the act of playwriting (like I am now) I like to immerse myself in dramatic literature. To read the work of others allays my fears that playwriting is simply impossible. For the last few months I've been reading Pinter, Stephen Adly Giurgis, Nicky Silver, Chekov and a bunch of others. One day last week I picked up my much neglected "Ibsen: Four Major Plays" and set to work.

I skipped over "A Doll's House," which I had read in college and dived right into "Hedda Gabler." What a feast of delights this play proved to be! It contains one of the most complex portraits of a lady outside of Shakespeare. In fact, Hedda reminds me of Shakespeare's Cleopatra in that it feels like it would take four actresses acting all at the same time to deliver a performance as nuanced and multifaceted as Ibsen's writing.

Hedda is a willfully perverse, angry, manipulative and miserable woman choked by the banalaties she finds all around her. She suffers the tragic consequences of getting exactly what she wanted out of life. Hedda has a healthy regard for social standing and conventions but needs to strike out against these valued ideals just the same. She is a big fat spider trapping and playing games with the poor flies who buzz into her path. Unfortunately for her right before the final curtain she finds herself trapped in the same webs she has so silkily spun. All this unfolds with such inevitability that one never senses Ibsen's vice like grip of plot and character until the very end.

The Rolf Fjelde translation left me a bit tepid. I thought it could have had been spicier at points. It comes off a bit starchy and more suited to the study than the stage. However this is a relatively tiny complaint. Fjelde's work never got in the way of my enjoying this glittering gem of a play. Highly recommended.