Doom, but no gloom, as this Hedda can hold her head high

The Patrick Marber, National Theatre version of Hedda Gabler (Gaiety, HHHHH) directed by the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, was generally an imaginative take on one of Ibsen’s greatest works about principle, cowardice and convention.

The doom was everywhere, but not the gloom or the concealed undercurrents that are a feature of Ibsen’s dialogue. Even the single huge room with featureless white walls spelt out the chilling emptiness of the new marriage of Hedda and Tesman. But the design ultimately affected a more dramatic finale. The miserable, vengeful Hedda, seething with frustration and self-hate, wandered around like a caged animal, spewing sarcasm, and occasional black humour, especially at the poverty and emotional deadness of her husband Tesman, an academic nonentity. Hedda (Lizzy Watts) dressed flimsily, deported herself like a woman flaunting her sexuality, yet keeping commitment away.

There was a strong hint that her former love, Lovborg, had abused her as a young woman. ‘I was a child,’ she spits out at him. And there was nothing concealed about the recurrent unpleasant behaviour: Hedda’s sadistic manipulation of Lovborg; Judge Brack’s equally sadistic blackmail of Hedda; Hedda’s and Lovborg’s exploitation of the unfortunate Thea.

The placing of the pistols was a dramatic giveaway, and the use of Joni Mitchell’s Blue was overdone, but the biggest flaw was the clumsy staging of Hedda’s eventual renunciation of convention. The original stage directions provide more impressive possibilities. Ran until Saturday March 10.