Blue Bridge Theatre, under the artistic directorship of Brian Richmond, has tackled many 19th and 20th century classic plays; over the past 14 years we’ve seen solid productions of Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie, Our Town, and even Ibsen’s The Master Builder. Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, first performed in 1891 in Munich, is arguably his greatest play, offering a Hamlet-like role for the actress playing the title role. In what is Richmond’s final production as AD of Blue Bridge, he offers a strong production with local Amanda Lisman as Hedda. She is a tough role to play, to say the least; great actors such as Glenda Jackson, Maggie Smith, Fiona Shaw, Harriet Walter and Cate Blanchett have played the role to great acclaim. I was not sure what to expect from Lisman, worried that perhaps her reach would exceed her grasp. But she offers an excellent Hedda; terminally bored, terrified of scandal, but deluded by the possibility of changing someone’s fate. It all spells trouble, which is exactly what unfolds.

A brief synopsis: Gabler and her husband, academic George Tesman, have just returned to their new home after a six month honeymoon. Hedda is the daughter of a general, which explains her fondness for pistols. We find out that she has not married for love, that the couple is up to their necks in debt to a local Judge, named Brack, and that she longs for some excitement in her life. Her doting husband bores her, as does everyone else she encounters, save her former lover Eilert Løvborg (Lindsay Robinson). She finds out that he is back in Oslo, having just published a book with critical success. She meets a former schoolmate, Thea (Laura Jane Tressider) who has left her husband to be with Løvborg, and has collaborated with him in writing this book and his next one. Hedda schemes to ensure that Løvborg falls off the wagon (he’s an alcoholic), then sends him off to a party that ends in the home of a courtesan. Tesman returns home from the party in the early morning to reveal to Hedda that Løvborg has lost his precious book manuscript, but he has recovered it and plans to return it to Løvborg. Hedda meets with Løvborg, who is consumed with shame and self-disgust at slipping back into his old ways. Hedda convinces him that he must make the ultimate sacrifice of suicide, insisting that it be “beautiful”. She gives him one of her pistols then burns his book. She claims to her husband that she’s done this for him, to ensure that he will receive a coveted professorship. We also learn that Hedda is pregnant, much to her dismay. We then hear that Løvborg has shot himself at the courtesan’s home and has died, but not the beautiful death Hedda wanted; rather a messy and sordid one. Judge Brack, who is trying to seduce Hedda, says he knows the pistol is hers and blackmails her to agree to his proposal of an affair. She leaves the room and shoots herself, with Judge Brack given the famous final line, “People don’t do such things!”

Lisman’s portrayal is of a woman definitely on the edge of a nervous breakdown; she twitches uncontrollably at times, her hands trembling and her face contorting into grimaces of anxiety and disgust. In this pre-feminist world, she feels trapped, and sees no way to free herself. She is an anti-hero, and difficult to like, but we can’t help but build an understanding of her anger and bitterness; life is not offering her much. Lisman commands attention in every scene, and her performance builds in power over the course of the nearly three hour long play. By its inevitable conclusion, I did feel some empathy for this woman who wants so much more than her world can give. Lisman is well-supported by the rest of the cast, with Trevor Hinton playing the naive George very well, so unaware of his wife’s unhappiness, and Lindsay Robinson playing Løvborg with an effective blend of ego and despair. Laura Jane Tressider plays Thea Elvsted with the appropriate nervous energy, although her swift recovery from hearing about her lover’s death is tricky to navigate. Jacob Richmond plays the villainous Judge Brack with oily pleasure, a bit wobbly with his lines on opening night, but convincing in his agenda to have Hedda all to himself.

The production features a very good set design by Teresa Przybylski (a wonderful designer whose work I know well from years living in Toronto, as well as here), that features skeletal trees painted in black on white backdrops. The minimal furnishings indicate the front room of the Tesmans’ home, although the sofa cushion protruding beyond the edge of the sofa drove me to distraction. Costume designs by Yi Misty Buxton, a recent grad from the UVic Theatre Department, are effective, particularly on Lisman. And I liked the spare occasional piano music underscoring certain key moments, performed by Lindsay Robinson. But I wasn’t crazy about Richmond’s decision to move the action from the 1890s to the 1920s. The flapper look on the women suggests a postwar era of more freedom for women, who were finally out of corsets after many centuries. In my view, the play works best in its own historical context, a time when women chafed against the restrictions society placed on them, including literally becoming their husband’s property, lacking the freedom to vote and being held down by domesticity. I see Hedda much as she appears in this poster from a Russian 1907 production; a product of her time, fighting against the current, yet destined for despair, and ultimately death.