HEDDA GABLER " AT THE VAUDEVILLE.
AT one time it seemed to us as if the theatre was anxious to usurp the place of the pulpit, and considered that its Irst duty was to illustrate and explain difficult "cases of con- science" for the benefit of the playgoer. The prospect was not an exhilarating one. The sermons that were delivered upon the -stage were very excellent, no doubt, but they were not enter- taining ; and we were conscious of a very decided feeling of relief when the last cf these instructive and moral plays died of its own dullness. Still less exhilarating, however, would be the prospect of the theatre if it should fall into the hands of Henrik Ibsen and his followers. The scene would be shifted from the pulpit to the lecture-room of a medical school ; the theatre would become the operating-theatre of the hospital —the room where the skilled surgeon vivisects his un- conscious patient, and explains to his subordinates the nature of the disease before them—and we should be ex- pected to find gratification in the careful exposition and illustration of all the different stages in the most horrible hereditary complaints and mental ailments. In this, his last play, Hedda Gabler, Ibsen has at least spared us for once his doctrine of heredity. Hedda, as far as we are informed, has inherited nothing from the late General Gabler but a pair of pistols ; and though it is true that she shoots herself with one of them, and persuades a discarded lover to shoot himself with the other, that use of her inheritance hardly constitutes a case of heredity. The dramatist is content with the dissec- tion of a character, without attempting to account for its phases. Hedda Gabler is the incarnation of intense selfishness, bordering upon madness ; her morbid self-love and vanity have slowly developed into a dangerous mental disease, and finally transform her into a lunatic) of homicidal tendencies. On one side she is oppressed by a wild craving for excitement at any cost, for self-indulgence, and above all for food for her hungry vanity; on the other, she is tortured by a fear of consequences that prevents her from violently breaking away from the dull respectibility that she loathes. Her vanity is as cowardly as it is rapacious ; and the result of this in- ternal struggle is madness. That at least seems to be the only possible explanation of her actions. But is this good patho- logy? Would such a development be possible if the seeds of madness were not already existing in her ? The actress who undertakes the part at the Vaudeville seems to think not ; for she shows more than one indication of coming mad- ness even at the beginning of the play. And if the case that we are called upon to consider is the abnormal one of a mad woman, what business has it upon the st,:ge P The skill of the dissector is something extraordinary, and the way in which the wretched woman is made to lay bare the repulsive aspects of her soul, one ugly revelation succeeding to another in the most natural way possible, certainly commands our wonder, if not our admiration ; but even if this exposition of the growth of moral insanity be true and correct as far as science is concerned, is it true to art, and what place has it in the drama P Hedda Gabler, once a spoilt beauty, and now a woman of twenty-nine, who "had danced until she was tired," had found some difficulty in settling herself, and graciously allowed George Tesman, the embodiment of genteel poverty and dull virtue, to marry and provide for her. The experiences of her honeymoon have already sickened her of her bargain, and the return to the narrow bosom of the Tesman family fairly drives her into a frenzy of disgust. There enters to her Judge Brack, a former admirer, with a cut-and-dried scheme for a three- cornered arrangement which he assures her will prove the best possible remedy against the ennui with which she is con- sumed. It is evident that a "triple alliance" of which Judge Brack is to form the chief member, has but a very moderate attraction for Mrs. Tesman, who, however, entertains the proposal without any intention of accepting it. A more interesting diversion has suggested itself to her mind, —to get back into her toils another old admirer, Ejlert Lovborg, who, unlike her husband, is a man of genius, and whose irregular habits have kept him under a cloud for some years. She learns from the lips of an old school-fellow, Mrs. Elvsted, that Lovborg is a reformed character, that his reform has been due to Mrs. Elvsted's influence, and that Mrs. Elvsted herself has that day deliberately ruined her own repu- tation by her devotion to her friend. The old school-fellow has, in the eyes of Hedda Gabler, committed a series of crimes beyond all pardon : she has stolen a man who ought to belong to Hedda Gabler ; she has shown a courage of which Hedda Gabler is incapable ; she, "a sweet little simpleton, has had her fingers in the destinies of a man," while Hedda Gabler has no power except over that contemptible being, her fool of a husband; and finally, she seems likely to succeed in her work of charity, and to become in all things the good genius of a real man, whose success in life will inevitably mean the ridiculous failure of the husband of Hedda, Gabler. So Hedda comes to a swift decision; if it has been denied to her to become the good genius of a man, she can still become his evil genius, and destroy what she could not create. Chance, to a certain extent, plays into her hands ; she destroys in a day the results of Mrs. Elvsted's two-years labour; she persuades LOyborg to destroy himself in a fit of despair ; and she destroys the manuscript that was to bring him fame, the hated offspring of the recreant amborg and her innocent rival. But when her work of destruction is com- plete, her morbid vanity is as unsatisfied as ever, for she can take no credit for it, and finds herself confronted with the alternative of a vulgar and scandalous exposure, or the con- tinuation in perpetuity of the triple alliance proposed by Judge Brack, in whose power she has unwittingly pi aced herself. Therefore she destroys herself also, with a last pistol-shot. That is the rough outline of the story, as far as Hedda Gabler is concerned ; and one is tempted to echo the last words of the play, that are uttered by Judge Brack when he sinks back into his chair, aghast at the catastrophe that has robbed him of his prize : "May God take pity on us,--people don't do such things as that 1 " People, as a rule, do not do such things. The case of Hedda Gabler is the rare case of the dangerous maniac whose madness has not shown itself in sufficient time to suffer proper constraint. As regards the other characters, they are all drawn with the same curious skill and power, and one and all give evidence of the hopeless, despairing pessimism of their author. George Tesman is a wonderfully clever sketch of the fatuous fool who con- founds industry with ability, and his love for his wife with his wife's love for him ; Judge Brack is a perfect type of an eminently respectable and middle-aged blackguard; Ejlert Lovborg, man of genius though he be, is a wretched, unstable creature, who succumbs to the first vulgar tempta- tion; and poor Mrs. Elvated is so weak as to entrust her honour to a man whom she dares not let go out of her sight. And in all this sombre story, there is not one ray of humour, not one flash of wit, to brighten its dreary darkness. The language is that of every-day life, caught with wonderful kill, but unredeemed in its monotony by anything but its genuine reality. It would be idle to deny the real dramatic strength of some of the situations ; but at what a cost is that strength obtained ! It is characteristic of the author that on the one occasion in the last scene with Hedda, when he allows Lovborg to attain to a certain dignity of utterance, he quickly repents himself,—he will not even allow him to die decently. Of the acting at the Vaudeville it would be difficult to speak too highly. Miss Elizabeth Robins, in the titular reile, almost succeeded in making the character of Hedda Gabler a plausible one. Every word of the author was made to tell, every hint that he had given' was micie use of,—the uneasy vanity, the unceasing restlessness, the frantic outbursts of spite and jealousy into which the unhappy woman is betrayed, were all conveyed with an extraordinary force, and without the least extravagance of voice or gesture. Almost, if not equally clever, was the performance of Miss Marion Lea, who invested the touching weakness of Mrs. Elvsted with real pathos. The male parts were also excellently played, notably the part of Judge Brack, by Mr. Charles Sugden. As far as the representation of the play went, Henrik Ibsen has suffered no injustice at the bands of the actors ; nor has he the same reason to complain of his translator, for Mr. Gosse seems to have revised and considerably improved his first English version. And yet the result, to our mind at least, is most doubtful and unsatisfactory. As giving scope for fine and forcible acting, the Ibsen drama may have its uses; it may even do good by introducing a certain simplicity of diction and scorn of mechanical and artificial padding to the English stage; but we should regret to see other plays written upon the same lines.
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