Hedda ★★★★★

Just like London buses, you wait for a while, and then two modern takes based on Henrik Ibsen’s drama Hedda Gabler come along at once. The first is a heavily publicised, big-budget film dropping this week on Amazon Prime Video. The second, also titled simply Hedda, is a play with a more modest budget starting its run at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London. So why is this Scandinavian classic still giving life to new adaptations by playwrights and screenwriters nearly two centuries on? Is there any more to be explored around its themes of female self-determination, obfuscation and manipulation? The Orange Tree’s programme promises “an urgent and original new play with one eye on the past and one firmly on the present day”, and it certainly delivers.

Writer Tanika Gupta‘s courageous retelling draws its inspiration from Ibsen’s play, as well as the fascinating real-life story of Anglo-Indian film actress Merle Oberon. Ms Oberon tried to deny her heritage for most of her life and always wanted to be portrayed as a British white actress by the press, despite being born in India to a mother with Sinhalese and Maori ancestry. Gupta takes elements of Oberon’s story to give her adaptation extra layers of race and skin colour on top of blackmail, secrecy and power. It is her skill in interlacing these central themes that helps the audience to have empathy and understanding of what drives this Hedda to its ultimate conclusion. Her dialogue is absorbing but also sometimes surprisingly witty for a tragedy.

The play is set in 1948, not far from the Orange Tree Theatre, in a room in Chelsea, southwest London. India has achieved its independence from Britain. Gupta’s Hedda was once a Hollywood star and is now married to film director George Tesman. She has retired from public view but is still haunted by the secrets she feels she had to keep during her career. Newly returned from honeymoon, Hedda is already bored and dissatisfied with this new life and wishing to be back in the movies. She has brought Shona, her Indian maid, with her, and Shona knows her secret. George, dull but well-connected, remains blissfully unaware of it. Into this room comes a series of characters and props, each carefully hinting at or underlining Hedda’s fear of being exposed. The characters reveal themselves, some using inferences and others more shocking and outdated references to appearance. Each prop has its part to play in Hedda’s undoing. The play twists and keeps its audience guessing about how far Hedda will go to keep her secret.

The audience is placed on all four sides of an enormous square rug, adding to the menace. Set designer Simon Kenny, lighting designer Ben Ormerod and sound designer Pouya Ehsaei have all echoed the sense of pressure and claustrophobia that builds during this drama, as well as cleverly using a black and white palette for the Scandinavian furniture, reflecting the key motif. The audience are immediately immersed in the dark, constructed world of Hedda’s making even before Pearl Chanda (I May Destroy You, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, INK) appears on stage in the eponymous role. Chanda is an extraordinary presence in this enclosed space. She is contained one minute and then explosive in the next. She conveys the unspoken fear of being uncovered so sympathetically. She plays bored but is never boring. She grapples for control but ultimately loses it. She plays schemer and victim with equal measure. Rina Fatania (The Buddha of Suburbia, Crazy For You) gives a confident and knowing performance as Shona. Joe Bannister (Lockerbie, The Da Vinci Code) offers a sensitive but self-regarding husband. Meanwhile, Milo Twomey (Patience, Four Lives) as John Brack provides a sinister presence in the Tesman’s home and makes an exceedingly good blackmailer. He oozes nastiness and entitlement. Bebe Cave (The Audience, The Screen Test) plays innocent Alice Smith and is deeply affecting as the old acquaintance who drops back into Hedda’s social sphere and who naively sets off a chain of tragic events. Ms Cave is the least experienced actor in the cast, but she provides a little extra to every scene she is in. Jake Mann (Cymbeline, Richard II, King Lear) gives a tortured portrayal of Leonard, Hedda’s childhood friend who is also instrumental in her downfall.

Director Hettie Macdonald brings a wealth of experience from across stage and screen. She has skilfully and thoughtfully directed her performers so that every detail can be seen and heard from wherever you sit in the audience. She has introduced light and shade to the compelling narrative, and the play is full of movement and has to power to grip from start to finish.

Gupta and Macdonald’s thrilling collaboration proves that there is still much to unearth in Ibsen’s complex heroine. This Hedda manages to be both timeless and timely — a compelling exploration of identity, secrecy, and power that lingers long after the lights fade.