Time International August 2004
To the Limit: Cate Blanchett's Hedda pushes
the envelope.
Time International (South Pacific Edition);
8/9/2004; Fitzgerald, Michael
Byline: Michael Fitzgerald
For those unable to catch Cate Blanchett in the
Sydney Theatre Company's new production of Hedda
Gabler--and with only a handful of standing-room
tickets available each night for the remainder
of the season, that means most people--there is
a consolation: this Hedda is horrible, and
Blanchett's performance is terrible. Horrible in
the sense that, 114 years after it was written,
Henrik Ibsen's play, about the attempts of a
general's daughter to transcend her loveless
marriage to a feckless history professor, is as
misanthropic as ever. And terrible, in that
Blanchett's performance inspires awe from the
moment she first rises from her sofa to stretch,
as smooth and svelte as a leopard.
With an extended stage taking up nearly as much
space as the audience, director Robyn Nevin
gives the lithe film star room to prowl. A new
adaptation by Blanchett's husband, Andrew Upton,
which splices up Ibsen's acerbic dialogue as if
in a Robert Altman movie, keeps things brisk and
tense. And Blanchett plays Hedda--whose
dalliance with old flame Lovborg (Aden Young)
brings her under scrutiny by family friend Judge
Brack (Hugo Weaving)--as neither victim nor
villain, but rather as a kind of classy control
freak. This most un-neurotic of actresses makes
Hedda's animal instinct transparent. You can see
her thinking, How far can I go?
For a 19th century housewife with delusions of
grand passions, the answer is not far enough
before she is forced onto her treadmill of
self-destruction. This claustrophobic production
can knock the air out of you. But when Hedda
declares, "I can do what I want, and that is
never going to change," there is a thrill in
seeing an individual pitted so powerfully
against the limitations of her age--and the
feline grace of an actress at full stretch.
That's worth standing for. --By Michael
Fitzgerald
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