THE DAILY STAR - BEIRUT, LEBANON SUNDAY MAY 18 1969 Berytus' 'Hedda Gabler' Every Act Shaded with Nuance In theatrical history certain By LOUISA KENNEDY crusty than the role has female fiends flourish signifi- in the past called for, yet Miss cantly. If Medea and Lady I believe that Valerie Surruf's O'Brien's characterization of Macbeth may be considered two performance as the rapacious an elderly spinster is a remar- of the arch fiends then Hedda Hedda deserves to be seen kable feat in itself for a young Gabler is surely a prominent several times so great is this actress. handmaiden. Such fiends actress' ability to shade her meddle, but their meddling is every act and glance with nuance Lindi MacWilliam's Mrs. never confined to a single, and deeply frightening percep- Elvsted is a charming, transient, inconsequential act. tion. Her study in madness is gossamer disciple strangely It must nourish their individual calculated to chill the blood, laced with strong purpose. It being. Hedda Gabler, in her even as it defines the delicacies follows easily that she will take way, is more honest, more of the wingroom. Hedda's up with Jorgen Tesman where direct about her actions and malice seems scewered on taut she left off with Lovborg. cruelties than most. "I want... nerve ends that now and then to have power to mold a human flash blindingly in the lightand, The Berytus Theater En- destiny". The statement is al- ominously, fall not with a bang semble has been publicly cri- most a lament for Hedda is but a tinkle. ticized for disenterring a dusty surrounded, suffocated by fold museum piece of theater. Pre- whose destinies can never shake The women in the cast off sumably what is meant by this the world, indeed whose world, more specifically here than any criticism is that audience as Ibsen hammers it out, is one performance. Ibsen's craft habits have changed. This may narrow, dark, and sodden with does not disallow melodrama. be true. But human nature has bourgeoise codes. Attempting Ejlert Lovborg, Hedda's disso- not and few dramatists today CHILLS THE BLOOD: One of the scenes of "Hedda Gabler", which as a study in nad- to sever herself from it Hedda lute victim is, perhaps, Ibsen's give it SO long a view. ness, chills the blood for botn acting and production. applies herself meticulously, victim too. Despite the diffi- icily, to the accomplishment of culties presented him in the three crimes. They are: the context of the play itself Michael destruction of a manuscript Mills creates a believable which she sees as the child of Lovborg and he allows much of an old lover and another woman, the gentleness in Lovborg's soul the fatal suggestion of death to to manifest itself. He is sym- her lover, and her own suicide. pathetic and one wishes that in- To understand the full sig- deed he could have died "with nificance of a Hedda Gabler I vine leaves in his hair". think one has to ask oneself why we go to the theaters. Good As Jorgen Tesman, David drama accomplishes what real Kurani reflects the pedantic, life rarely if ever concedes unawakened sould of Hedda's through the process of laying husband with particular aware- bare human motives in a struc- ness in the second and third ture which can prepare for them acts. And Peter Shebaya also a beginning, a middle and an end. reaches to the nerve centers of Further even than that, we are the cold Judge Brack. If all all interested, Ithink, to how these performances seem to human beings will comport lack a perfect cohesion it must themselves in the extremities of be remarked again that these despair, remorse, or fear. people's mores and common- place reactions are less cre- In "Hedda Gabler" then, we dible now than they may have witness three murders, SO to been in Ibsen's society. speak, but more than that we witness the inexorable de- Maureen O'Brien as Miss terioration of a mind which little by little is forced to fracture Juliana Tesman, Tesman's truth and rearrange itspattern. aunt, seemed a trifle more GOOD DRAMA: Valerie Sarruf, as Hedda, manifests a great ability to snade ner every act and glance with nuance and deeply frightening perception.