Compelling concept gets dull interpretation

Hedda Gabler, playwright Henrik Ibsen's titular female heroine who torpedoes the lives of those around her before turning on herself, maybe one of theatre's most polarizing characters.

- JOSHUA CHONG

From her first entrance, Sara Topham sensibly conveys her character's lingering restlessness in "Hedda Gabler" at the Stratford Festival.

When the Norwegian playwright's tragedy premiered in 1891, Hedda disgusted conservative critics, who saw her as nothing more than an evil and selfish hedonist. Today, with our historical hindsight, many audiences now deeply sympathize with Ibsen's anti-hero, viewing her not as the play's villain but rather as its flawed protagonist, a woman trapped in a confined society in which she does not belong Loathe or admire her, however, she's a character that should elicit a strong reaction. But the Stratford Festival's deflating new production of "Hedda Gabbler," now running at the Tom Patterson Theatre, commits a cardinal sin: for me, at least, it elicited nothing but apathy.

That's certainly not the fault of Broadway veteran Sara Topham, who delivers a convincing performance in the role often described as "the female Hamlet." From Hedda's first entrance, Topham sensibly conveys her character's lingering restlessness. She paces listlessly, arms swinging beside her torso, like a ship's masts bobbing aimlessly in a barren sea.

In the rare moments when she's alone, Topham's Hedda wears a blank expression, as if the remaining life within her is slowly being eaten away by her loveless marriage. In the company of others, she sports a fake avatar of conformity.