Reviews of Recent Productions of Hedda Gabler

Tonight I'd like to start posting links to reviews of recent productions.  I'll begin with Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.  The 2009 production starring Mary Louise Parker has produced a number of striking images.  Let's see what the critics thought of the performance itself.

The New Yorker's John Lahr weighs in here:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2009/02/09/090209crth_theatre_lahr

The New York Times' Ben Brantley criticizes this production severely:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/theater/reviews/26bran.html

On the other hand, Brantley praises the touring production that starred Cate Blanchett:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/theater/reviews/03hedd.html

Here she is with Hugo Weaving (Judge Brack).


Hilton Als, however, is more skeptical, claiming that Blanchett is really playing 20th century actress Katherine Hepburn rather than Hedda.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/03/20/060320crth_theatre

Als preferred Glenda Jackson's Hedda.


For more about this film version, see this link:
http://lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2011/01/hedda-1975.html

Surprise!  Surprise!  The film was released in theaters.  Patrick Stewart played Hedda's former lover, Lovborg.

Let's look at some other recent productions.



In 2009, Chicago's Raven Theater's production received much praise:

http://chicagotheaterblog.com/2009/05/08/review_raven-theatre_hedda-gabler/

Adrian Noble directed this British production just last year:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/7397799/Hedda-Gabler-at-the-Theatre-Royal-Bath-review.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/mar/08/hedda-gabler-theatre-royal-review



German director Thomas Ostermeier tries to answer the question of why a contemporary Hedda doesn't just leave Tesman and start over:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/feb/29/theatre1

More locally, the always-intriguing Washington Shakespeare Theater Company has staged this play:

http://dctheatrescene.com/2008/02/16/hedda-gabler/

The Philadelphia-area Mauckingbird Theater Company has imagined Hedda as a lesbian:

http://www.broadstreetreview.com/index.php/main/article/mauckingbirds_lesbian_hedda_gabler




I'll finish with a link to a review of an interesting 2007 production from Pittsburgh:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07170/795181-325.stm


See the link below for the entry with the plethora of video clips, including the one pictured below!

Link

Hedda Gabler

Several different versions of Hedda Gabler are available at YouTube.

The first is a recent version by the Actors Ensemble of Berkeley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjqHQJe6Go8

Janet Suzman played Hedda in this 1972 BBC version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mp3R2gtNjo&playnext=1&list=PLE72E862928DB334E

Ingrid Bergman's 1963 performance is also from the BBC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKgcjssJgvY

Diana Rigg's Hedda dates from 1981:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABXsAXyuZ7U

Below are parts of various theatrical versions.  If you speak Spanish, you may be interested in this version from Uruguay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQCmgpRJYv0

Or this version from Spain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlQPu8XUWQY&feature=related

Britain's Broken Biscuit Theater has staged this version.  Its director is Marysia Kay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC9kVqTYByc

Mary Louise Parker has recently appeared as Hedda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsyD7sOzels&feature=fvwrel

This last "avant-garde" version is from the University of Central Florida:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfXosl5lojE&feature=fvsr

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Dr. Szlyk

Links for 4/14 -- Streetcar

These are a few scenes from the 1951 movie version with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_lToyPAUyE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1A0p0F_iH8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsVxmk9pq2Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxGN29njs3Q&feature=related

Let's look at a more recent version.  In 1995, Alec Baldwin and Jessica Lange played Stanley and Blanche for a TV movie of Streetcar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyxPgXyat1Y

Last summer the Guthrie Theater staged Streetcar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dljehZJhvbc

In 2005, Natasha Richardson played Blanche:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-cLKFynWwg

Cate Blanchett has also played Blanche, but this clip is of her interview with Charlie Rose:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gztnc_60h4k

Her picture is below.  Her production was a traveling one, and this was taken at the Kennedy Center production.

Links for Miss Julie

The picture above is from 1906, but the most recent film version of Miss Julie is from 2009:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e4uRonQWtU



The BBC's TV movie dates from 1987.  We watched parts 1, 2, & 7.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FbSU5n1ckI

Helen Mirren played Miss Julie in 1972:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFdbliZubCA&feature=related

Patrick Marber rewrote Strindberg's play as After Miss Julie, a play set in 1945 (post-WWII) England.  See the link below for some of this play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GnEDKHZuA0

Victor Sobchak of Act Provocateur Internationale has restaged Strindberg's play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SNJJAn48uc

See the link below for an article about Sobchak's theater and its influences:

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/may-2006/html/kapsaskimay06.html

FreeFall Theater in St. Petersburg, FL has also staged Miss Julie recently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSb8DH8ovGI

These versions are in Icelandic and Swedish respectively:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3XopoA4UME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywcnxQ-ZCgE&feature=related


Oh yes, and here are the links to Upstairs Downstairs and Sarah's attempts to live by her wits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mZnjBdB1CM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hz4nm37xvg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGDHrijR_M

Another episode, "The Mistress and the Maids" is also worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4KJ6suuH70

I thought you'd like to see Sandra Bullock's interaction with her housekeeper and "friend":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfV74PM7UVQ

Links for 3/31 -- Pygmalion

Here is a link to the 1938 version of Pygmalion starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmdPj_XbF30

Just a year later Leslie Howard played Ashley Wilkes, Scarlett O'Hara's crush in Gone with the Wind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCWsCtKZ2B0&feature=related

Here are some scenes from the 1964 movie My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.  The first is the trailer with "The Rain in Spain."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVmU3iANbgk&feature=related

Next is "Just You Wait," a song that voices Eliza's frustration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwNKyTktDIE

Then we have the scene at the races.  The dialogue is taken from Act 3 and Mrs. Higgins' "at home."  The races at Ascot probably make for a more cinematic venue than one woman's drawing room, no matter how tastefully decorated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYMSvyqHHwA

Eliza's father comes in here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Sj9o7DWJU&feature=related

We'll conclude with the last scenes of My Fair Lady where Higgins realizes he loves Eliza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HroAq_E075Y

Rex Harrison said that he was playing Leslie Howard playing Henry Higgins. 

As I mentioned, Audrey Hepburn lip-synched the songs in My Fair Lady.  The singing voice you hear was Marni Nixon's.  Julie Andrews played Eliza on Broadway earlier, and whose voice could compete with hers?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJqBaA0CqOo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpn0aQ1fyzs

Here are some modern versions of Pygmalion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qR9TY1nvQE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFXfrNv_tio


Claire Danes has recently played Eliza in Pygmalion:

http://www.observer.com/2007/we-ve-grown-accustomed-musical-pygmalion-shaw-little-out-whack


Oh yes, and here are the links to Upstairs Downstairs and Sarah's attempts to live by her wits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mZnjBdB1CM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hz4nm37xvg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGDHrijR_M

Subjective Midterm in EN 230

I thought that you might like to see a picture from the Forum Theater's version of Angels in America.  Above Harper is touring Antarctica while Mr. Lies the travel agent looks on.  (Mr. Lies is played by the same actor who plays the nurse Belize.)

Below are the prompts for your take home part of the midterm.  Please choose one prompt and use the questions to create an essay with an introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs, and conclusion.  This essay may be from two to five pages.

Question #1:

Consider the plays that we've read and seen so far this semester (including Living Out and "Soul Gone Home").  What do they tell us about modern and contemporary drama?  (Modern drama includes "Soul Gone Home," Death of a Salesman, and The Good Person of Szechuan.  Contemporary drama includes Fences, Angels in America, M. Butterfly, and Living Out.)  What do these plays have in common?  How are they distinct from other, earlier plays such as Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare's plays, or Ibsen's plays?  (Note that Ibsen *is* modern.)  Consider performance as well as the text of plays.

Question #2:

What does performance add to the plays that we've read?  How does performance limit these plays?  How have watching the various clips helped you understand our plays?  Discuss the differences between film/TV and stage versions.  Can a play still be worth reading if it is never performed?  Why?  Why not?  Consider the argument made in the following 2007 essay from the City Paper:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34341/test-case-scenarios

Question #3:

Discuss the depiction of men and women in the plays we have read and seen.  Does it make a difference when a play was written?  Or whether a play is written by a man, a woman, or someone who is from a minority group?  Consider the role that history, culture, and even genre (comedy, tragedy) play in defining what appropriate masculinity and femininity are.  Also, consider your viewpoint as a 21st century man or woman.

Question #4:

Does realism have a place on the stage?  Why?  Why not?  Support your argument with examples from your reading and viewing.

Below is a scene from a New Delhi theater's adaptation of The Good Person of Szechuan:

Study Guide for Midterm -- EN 230

Above is a picture of Syracuse Stage's 2007 production of Death of a Salesman, and below is our study guide.

The following texts will be on our midterm:

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, August Wilson's Fences, Tony Kushner's Angels in America, David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, and Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechuan.

The following performances will be as well:

the scenes from Richard III and Looking for Richard that we saw

the March 3 performance of Living Out

For our first set of links from class, see the link below:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/181

My review of Arthur Miller's Salesman in Beijing is here:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/182

To see the links for Fences, see below:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/183

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/184

A picture from Syracuse Stage's 2010 performance of Fences is below:


I've reviewed two other plays in the Century Cycle as well:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/49/August_Wilsons_Gem_of_The_Ocean_

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/107/More_Local_Theater...August_Wilsons_Radio_Golf

For Angels in America, see the link below:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/185

This entry has more information about Angels, Living Out, and M. Butterfly (including Madame Butterfly):

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/186

East West Theater in LA has done an interesting version of M. Butterfly (see below).  As you can see, the actor playing Song plays "her" as a less girly woman, and the actor playing Gallimard looks a little like Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman.