Ibsen’s Over the ‘Hedda’ of Vanguard Ensemble

Henrik Ibsen’s dramas were so far ahead of their time that it took decades to appreciate them fully. Now, a bit more than a century later, storefront theater companies put on his plays without a second thought.

The Vanguard Theatre Ensemble either didn’t realize what it was getting into with “Hedda Gabler,” which is now on the boards there, or, perhaps more likely, thought it could master Ibsen’s play despite scant resources.

In other words, this is a production with actors who are in way over their heads. It also has the wrong period furniture, ill-fitting costumes and other problems that must be ignored if what’s happening on stage is to be believed.

The result, unfortunately, is the sort of stuffy, well-meaning, poorly executed production that gives the phrase “theater classic” a bad name.

What this “Hedda Gabler” lacks in appointments and what it fails to evoke in atmosphere might be overlooked, but not the infinite distortions imposed on the play by a cast incapable of portraying 19th century characters whose manners are more than the actors know how to convey.

Director Susan Boulanger barely gets the ensemble through the text, never mind peeling open scenes and exploring subtext. It’s not a matter of the players not knowing their lines. They do, almost to the point of glibness. They just don’t have the demeanor and bearing that their roles require.

Jill Cary Martin, who plays Hedda, is a sympathetic actor. But she has done better work here before, most notably as Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, in “The Crucible.” Martin captures Hedda’s sense of suffocation in a bad marriage as well as her disdainful hauteur. But it’s a two-note performance.

*

Hedda is surrounded by men: her absent-minded husband, Jorgen Tesman, who is a prosaic scholar; her former lover, Eilert Lovborg, who is a brilliant, self-destructive writer; and a cynical Lothario, Judge Brack, who is plotting her seduction.

She is a mystery to all of them. In fact, the mystery of this woman--wholly conventional yet stifled by convention, full of strange depths yet more shallow than Lovborg’s mousy acolyte Thea, whom she dominates--is never plumbed for any of us. Hedda remains a mystery to the end, an inexplicable paradox whose death comes with the faint, anti-climactic pop of a pistol.

That the fatal shot did not ring out in the reviewed performance, either literally or metaphorically, is emblematic of the production. Perhaps the gunshot sound prop has been fixed by now. Even if it has, however, this “Hedda Gabler” misses the bull’s-eye.

* “Hedda Gabler,” Vanguard Ensemble Theatre, 699A S. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m. Ends May 24. $12-$14. (714) 526-8007. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.

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“Hedda Gabler,”

Jill Cary Martin: Hedda Gabler

Judy Jones: Miss Juliana (Julie) Tesman

Marty Jo Harkness: Berte

Vince Campbell: Jorgen Tesman

Susan Hinshaw: Thea Elvsted

Ron Graham: Judge Brack

Neal Fugate: Eilert Lovborg

A Vanguard Theatre Ensemble production of a play by Henrik Ibsen. Directed by Susan Boulanger. Scenic design: Robert Allen Hillig. Lighting design: Jane Phillips Hobson. Costume coordinator: Ambra Wakefield. Sound design: K. Robert Eaton. Composer: Jeff Fairbanks.