Review: Hedda, Theatre Royal Bath – ‘An absolute masterclass’

This Hedda is gives us a modern monster, stunningly done. It will bring the house down night after night. Get your ticket while you can.

Matthew Dunster’s direction and exciting ‘reimagining’ of Ibsen’s script, and every cast member’s performance is exceptional. The ensemble is tight and the pace engages all the way. In the tiny Ustinov at Theatre Royal Bath, no flaw gets by unseen: it’s creatively brave and thrilling for the audience.

Ibsen would be proud of Lily Allen’s Hedda. In the 1890s, where the play was set, society trapped middle-class women because they couldn’t work. Today, that constraint won’t wash unless she’s married a prince. From the start, Dunster makes it clear: Hedda is scary, bullying, spoilt, and always ‘above’ everyone else. She tells her husband George, “You promised to provide for me, you promised me a Tesla…I will not work”.

Lily Allen and Tom Austen in Hedda

So while society hasn’t trapped this Hedda, like Ibsen’s original, she has trapped herself. The only way she can tick her illogical boxes (“that wasn’t what I wanted – it was what I asked for”), is through manipulation. She could escape her prison at any time by taking a job – a choice she won’t entertain and nobody really presents to her.

A quick story run-down: Hedda has just married George, a lovely academic raised by two aunts, one now dying. He bores her. She insisted on a five-month European honeymoon that burned his inheritance. They return with antique Norwegian pistols and a costly flat — funded partly by George’s aunts’ pensions – leaving everyone in debt.

Tom Austen in Hedda

Brack, Hedda’s MP godfather, helped arrange it and is circling her – she encourages him. Enter Jasper: a recovering addict, freshly back in town to rekindle an old flame. His acclaimed new book could win him the professorship George wants.

Smouldering passions, boredom, a looming lifetime of marriage, debt and a powerful man. Throw in a few well-meaning, manipulable innocents and some antique guns that should have been decommissioned (but weren’t): what could possibly go wrong?

Julia Chan

Dunster’s script is a star here: fresh, exciting, modern. He directed the outstanding 2:22: A Ghost Story that Bath enjoyed two years ago, so it’s a joy to see Theatre Royal Bath Productions work with him now.

Allen’s performance is nothing short of award-winning. Her Hedda is a monster from the outset, with belittling sneers and micro-aggressions. But she’s no panto-baddie; she’s the spoilt daddy’s girl who bullies women without a second thought, demands princess-treatment from men, and faces a lifetime of increasing disappointment.

Ciaran Owens and Imogen Stubbs

Allen is met by with top-of-their-game performances.

George is a complicit fool for marrying someone he knew didn’t love him. Ciarán Owens plays him with engaging power – not least when we see the darker side of his expectations of Hedda. Jasper could be a one-note hot-mess, but Tom Austen shows the man’s potential, his tender heart, and fragile confusion.

Julia Chan’s Taya is ‘that girl who can’t see the truth’ we all know – heart-rendingly played; never the bore. Dunster’s Brack is a stereotypical politician, yet Brendan Coyle gives us a throbbing threat, a ‘play nice and all will be well’ python of a man, hungry and preparing to pounce.

Lily Allen

Imogen Stubbs’ Aunt Julia makes you long for more. She’s kindly but not sickly – a woman willing to admit her feet might smell. Her pride in George ‘winning’ Hedda makes her complicit in his tragedy.

And far from least, George’s old nanny Danni – Hedda’s new housekeeper – is played by Najla Andrade. Lightly played, through her we see so much. She has the last words, which you’ll no doubt turn over again and again… Is Hedda a ‘poor woman’?

I can’t celebrate this production enough. It’s a masterclass. Go.

 

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Hedda is at Theatre Royal Bath until August 23. For ticket availability, check www.theatreroyal.org.uk.

All photos: Manuel Harlan

Read next:

• Review: Hedda, Tobacco Factory Theatres – ‘A compelling take on Ibsen’s classic’
• Review: The Merchant of Venice 1936, Theatre Royal Bath – ‘Superb, vital and utterly absorbing’
• Review: 2.22: A Ghost Story, Theatre Royal Bath – ‘Theatre of your dreams’