"Hedda" is hot.
Henrik Ibsen's 111-year-old drama, "Hedda Gabler," has been revived (or is about to be) by some of the biggest regional theater companies in the country.
In March of 1999, the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, Calif., mounted an acclaimed production starring Annette Bening in the title role.
Reed Johnson of the Los Angeles Daily News called Hedda "the original angry chick with a gun. Before Jackie Brown, before La Femme Nikita, even before Bonnie Parker, there was Hedda Gabler."
On the other side of the country, the Williamstown Theater Festival's recent production could be headed for Broadway; maybe this spring, if a theater becomes available. Such other esteemed companies as the Guthrie, Chicago's Steppenwolf and Washington, D.C.'s Shakespeare Theater have also piled onto the Hedda bandwagon.
So it's not too surprising that the Salt Lake-based Emily Company, which has already given local theatergoers excellent productions of "The Belle of Amherst" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Wit," is about to launch its 2001 season with Ibsen's classic "drawing-room drama" with a three-week run at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. Broadway.
Katherine Clark Reilly, producing artistic director and founder of the Emily Company, will be featured as the headstrong, manipulative Hedda.
Don Garner, who previously directed both "Wit" and "Amherst," is back in town to direct "Hedda Gabler." Garner makes his home in St. Louis, Mo., where he spent 20 years as acting instructor and director at Fontbonne College.
"There are certain roles in an actress' career that she wants to one day have a go at, if you will. For men, I suppose, some of them would be one of the Shakespearean roles, such as Hamlet or Richard III. For women, Hedda Gabler is at the top of the list, next to Lady MacBeth and one of the great Tennessee Williams women," says Reilly.
"Hedda is, without question, the most difficult role imaginable," adds Reilly. "She is endlessly intriguing and curiously conflicted. She is a powerful creature who is completely void of understanding or even recognizing her own power. I suppose that fact alone, recognizing one's own power, is what is relevant for women today.
"By our very nature, we are wonderfully fascinating creatures, if I can say this on behalf of my gender, but sometimes we don't recognize our own capabilities, or give ourselves the credit due. Hedda is an example of a woman who, for whatever reason you choose, was a misguided force. It is difficult for us to understand how confined she must have felt and difficult for us to witness a woman who feels she is without options or ideas about how to be her own guiding light."
Adds Reilly, "When I began the process of studying Hedda, I couldn't see myself playing such a character (the play was chosen by Garner). You really have to find something about the character you are playing that you like! At first glance, Hedda is not sympathetic, but that becomes the challenge. What is under that oftentimes lovely and then explosive exterior that drives her internally? How can I feel for her in her circumstances?
"It does seem, though, no matter what choices an actress makes about playing Hedda, the audience is always intrigued by her. She is so larger-than-life. We can't help but be interested in that kind of woman," said Reilly.
In addition to Reilly, the cast includes several well-known local performers, plus a few newcomers.
Jeffrey Owen plays George Tesman, Hedda's husband, an amiable, intelligent young scholar who does not realize how his wife is manipulating him; Mark Gollaher is Eilert Lovborg, a genius and recovered alcoholic who once shared a close relationship with Hedda; Mary Parker Williams is Thea Elvsted, a meek but passionate woman who once hired Eilert to tutor her children, then later became his personal secretary; and Margaret Crowell plays George's Aunt Julia, a well-meaning woman who constantly hints that George and Hedda should have a baby.
Also in the cast are Craig Dudley, a New York actor who has appeared at regional theaters throughout the country, as Judge Brack, a worldly and cynical man who enjoys meddling in other people's affairs, and Barbara Bellows Terra-Nova as Berta, the Tesmans' servant.
From props to costumes to music, Reilly and Garner are shepherding an attention-to-detail Victorian production.
Garner and his sound team, Larry L. Holt and Garth Steck, have been researching the most appropriate music passages for underscoring segments of the drama. There will be bits of music by Grieg (a contemporary and acquaintance of Ibsen's), Mahler, Sibelius and Nielsen.
Reilly notes that a recording of the adagio movement of Mahler's 10th Symphony by the Utah Symphony, conducted by the late Maurice Abravanel, will be used in the production.
Period costumes are being designed by Candida Nichols, who also designed the costumes for the Hale Centre Theatre production of "Jane Eyre: The Musical," and scenery is being designed by Kit Karson Anderton.
Originally, in the same time slot, Reilly had planned to produce "The Notebook of Trigorin," Tennessee Williams' version of Chekhov's "The Wild Duck."
But Garner noted that the latter requires a very large cast and, technically, is very difficult to stage. He suggested opening the "Emily Company at the Rose" season with "Hedda Gabler" instead.
Garner read dozens of translations and variations of Ibsen's work before settling on an edition by the late Lee C. Elser.
"With the permission of her estate, I have doctored it," he said — but not much.
He noted that Reilly, on a recent trip to New York, came across an old typewritten version in the Shubert archives, which contains explicit stage directions.
"We've also used that as a guide," he said.
"Ibsen is terribly difficult to trim, but I have risked trimming some. I had to," Garner said.
"Hedda Gabler" was written with four acts.
"The first act is the longest, and we'll have a short break between Act One and Act Two," he said. Then there will be a regular intermission, followed by the third and fourth acts running together.
Garner is also pleased with his sound team.
"We've found the sounds of steamboat whistles and seagulls, since this takes place on the coast. Besides, this is Salt Lake City, of course we need to have seagulls here," he said.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE — Discounted preview performances will be Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Feb. 14-16, at 8 p.m., with all seats priced at $17.
Opening night tickets, which will include a sit-down, post-show dinner at Christopher's (just east of the Rose Wagner Center), are $65 each, with 50 percent of the proceeds benefiting the American Heart Association. The opening night performance begins at 7 p.m., with dinner at 9.
Regular performances will be 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays through March 4 (with an option of extending to March 11). There will also be one Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. on Feb. 24. Tickets for these performances are $22 per person, or $15 for members of Actors Equity Association and $10 for "student rush" tickets, available after 7 p.m. nightly at the Rose Wagner box office for any remaining seats for that performance. Group rates, for 10 or more, are $17 each.
Tickets may be purchased in advance from any ArtTix outlet, including the Rose Wagner Center, Abravanel Hall and the Capitol Theatre, or by calling 355-2787 or 888-451-2787.
E-MAIL: ivan@desnews.com