THEATRE 
REVIEWS
Hedda Gabler
West Yorkshire Playhouse
Leeds
ENGLAND
Time travelled
You expect things from Ibsen, but you do not get them here. This production of Hedda Gabler directed by Matthew Lloyd lacked a sense of the time and place. The place was set hard and fast in a very nice piece of set design by Ruari Murchison, but the players never gave the impression that they were in that time, but in the present day. What came over was a story of a very stupid woman, attractive to men, who had got to an age where she needed to be married and took the best prospect on offer. Sound like a soap?
Gillian Kearney is elswhere
Gillian Kearney played Hedda as a women of today, not at all what a woman of the time would have been like. She had taken as her man Jorgen Tesman, played by Tom Smith, an aspiring academic lacking in confidence, who admired another academic Ejlert Lovborg, played by Daniel Weyman, who had produced a work of some standing. Add Judge Brack, played by Jasper Britton, who leads them astray and you have the catalist for a lively story.
Do not expect an evening of high drama although you will get pistol shots. It will give you a pleasant evening at the theatre, but you will not have experienced Ibson at his best. © BA
“Hedda Gabler” is in Leeds on the 17th February until the 17t March, 2006. Council car parking charge £1 from 5.30pm until 10pm. This is now a No Smoking theatre.
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