HEDDA GABLER Reviews

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 1:09am

It's Sunday, January 25, 2009.

Let us welcome Roundabout's HEDDA GABLER.

Post the reviews here. Please 'n' Thank You.

My best to all involved.

Updated On: 1/25/09 at 01:09 AM

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:07pm

Bumping in Progress.

[frogs_fan85]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:14pm

I don't think this is going to be pretty.

[MarkK]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:25pm

The Associated Press - NEGATIVE

The problems start with Mary-Louise Parker's hyper-neurotic performance of the title character. The actress is feverishly upset from the get-go, giving her little room to ratchet up the resentment over the course of the play, which opened Sunday at Broadway's American Airlines Theatre.

Though Parker looks sensational in designer Ann Roth's fetching dresses and usually is adept at portraying little-girl-lost desperation, she delivers an idiosyncratic, yet one-note portrait of self-absorption, a woman not caring whom she hurts. Hedda's observations are often cruel, sneering, for example, at the scholarly ruminations of Tesman, her good-natured husband, played by Michael Cerveris with an excess of moist sincerity.


AP Updated On: 1/25/09 at 07:25 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:31pm

I think we'll be seeing a lot of reviews like that tonight...even though I actually didn't hate this production.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:31pm

"moist sincerity" ????????????????

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:37pm

played by Michael Cerveris with an excess of moist sincerity.
Funny, that's the closest thing I can think of to satisfactorily describing what's always slightly bothered me about his voice, both speaking and singing.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:40pm

The "moistness" or the "sincerity"?

[Dollypop]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:42pm

How could anyone possibly have a "moist" voice?

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:42pm

Both! Sort of teary and phlegm-y at the same time, like there's always a catch at the back of his throat. Yeah, the article phrased it in a really clumsy, awkward sort of way, but I think I know what they're trying to get at.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:44pm

"The Moist Voice". It sounds like the title of some sort of critical essay.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:45pm

Or some "Deep Throat"-esque artistic porno...

Updated On: 1/25/09 at 08:45 PM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:47pm

Right now I'm envisioning a "Moist Voice Choir" singing in a shower.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:48pm

I'm laughing out loud imagining a sort of cross between Gay Men's Chorus and a wet t-shirt contest... starring Michael Cerveris.

[Tom-497]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:51pm

Variety - NEGATIVE


Theater insiders often claim that admiration for and understanding of the works of Ibsen and Chekhov are mutually exclusive. If there's any truth in that, it's perhaps not such a shock that former Royal Court a.d. Ian Rickson -- a director primarily associated with new plays -- should succeed so resoundingly this season with "The Seagull" but stumble with "Hedda Gabler."
Variety

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 8:54pm

Cerveris plays more effectively against type, damping down his charisma and menace to play a ponderous, fawning dolt
There's another 'wet' word to describe MC again...

[Dollypop]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 9:01pm

I've started a "moist voice" thread. Let's continue our soggy discussion there and leave this thread to the HEDDA reviews.

[Tom-497]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 9:18pm

USA Today - ** out of ****

There was reason to expect more from Mary-Louise Parker, the latest A-list actress to tackle a character who, like Macbeth or Mama Rose, seems destined to pop up on Broadway every few years. But Parker's intelligence and range are wasted on this performance, which reduces Hedda to a petulant, if glamorous, brat.
USA Today

[Tom-497]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 9:30pm

Theatermania - Mixed to Positive

Parker's "bracing portrayal of this fascinating anti-heroine is the raison d'etre of the Roundabout Theatre Company's semi-successful revival of Hedda Gabler, directed by Ian Rickson and featuring a new, contemporary translation by Christopher Shinn."

Theatermania

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 9:51pm

Backstage is NEGATIVE:

"While it's great fun to watch Mary-Louise Parker chew the scenery like an intergalactic villainess on an episode of Doctor Who in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of Hedda Gabler, Ian Rickson's overheated production does not deliver Ibsen's intent: to portray a huge-spirited woman perverted by the provincialism of her time. As he did with his recent production of The Seagull, a hit in London and New York, Rickson has dusted off a familiar classic, sexed it up, and given his leading lady the opportunity to grab the spotlight with a flashy performance. Though Kristin Scott Thomas in The Seagull added humor, joy, childishness, charm, and narcissism to Arkadina, Parker's Hedda is like Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond plopped down in 19th-century Norway. Don't get me wrong: Parker is one of our finest actors, and there are moments of passionate fire in her portrayal. But she is altogether too contemporary for this role, and she's been directed to pitch herself to the edge of high camp."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003934184

Updated On: 1/25/09 at 09:51 PM

[MarkK]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 10:12pm

AM New York - NEGATIVE

1.5 out of 4 Stars


Mary-Louise Parker plays Hedda in a stubbornly flat style as a drugged-up zombie. While you do believe that her Hedda is bored and eccentric, she ignores the character’s arrogance, malice and desperation. If not much else, she gains laughs through her dry, deadpan delivery.

Michael Cerveris is pretty miscast in the secondary role of Hedda’s hapless husband Tesman. Though he successfully portrays Tesman’s sincerity and insecurity, Cerveris overacts in what might be viewed as an attempt to compensate for Mary-Louise Parker’s performance. And in the oddest touch of all, he suddenly turns against Hedda at the very end.

AM NEW YORK

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 10:23pm

Aaaaaahhhhhhh...

Ben Brantley: "I would so love to be able to make a case — any case — for this “Hedda Gabler.” I have only deep admiration for many of those involved in this whacked-out rendering of Ibsen’s landmark portrait of a woman suffocated by societal constraints and her own neuroses. (Yes, that is what the play’s about, but it’s not relevant to what we’re discussing here.) The director of this “Hedda” is Ian Rickson, who this season delivered a nigh-perfect “Seagull” on Broadway, one of the best revivals I have ever, ever seen. That he is now responsible for one of the worst revivals I have ever, ever seen has me flummoxed. Mr. Rickson’s “Seagull” was a fluidly integrated production in which everyone seemed to exist in the same moment and in the same universe. With this “Hedda” it’s not just that everyone is bad. It’s that they’re all bad in their own, different ways."

(link to come)

[April Saul]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 10:31pm

Is there any chance this production will actually close as the result of these horrible reviews? Or does the Roundabout subscription base insure that it will go on, even if it's as bad as they all seem to say...this seems to be the worst-reviewed play they've put on in ages!

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 10:35pm

Ouch. Big ouch.

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 10:36pm

It will continue most likely. It's surprising how few people actually read reviews before they see a show. Want to go in with an open mind. Also, a lot of people think two things about seeing MLP's name: either 1) "OMG, it's Mary-Louise Parker!" or 2) "She's one of the best theatre actresses out there." With that, they don't even second guess buying a ticket.

EDIT: I would like to add that I love MLP and still look forward to seeing this production regardless.
Updated On: 1/25/09 at 10:36 PM