At Scena Theatre, a hyperbolic ‘Hedda Gabler’

A movie screen periodically usurps part of a Norwegian living room in Scena Theatre’s “Hedda Gabler.” It happens at the rear of the room, behind the fashionably uncomfortable 1930s furniture, where white, gauzy curtains conceal a balcony. Before Act I starts, black-and-white footage of rural and maritime Scandinavia flickers across the curtains, turning them into a de facto screen; at intermission, the word “Intermission” spells itself out in a retro font. There’s a suggestion, in other words, that we’re watching a 1930s “Hedda Gabler” movie — and that’s a prudent hint for director Robert McNamara to drop, because his brisk and watchable, if not revelatory, production contains some acting so hyperbolic it seems movie-palace scale.

We’re not griping about Kerry Waters’s portrait of Henrik Ibsen’s anti­heroine, whose restless dissatisfaction with life — specifically with life as a new bride in a Norwegian town — sets crisis in motion. Hedda Gabler has something of a super-size soul, after all, and could easily go a few rounds with, say, Greta Garbo. Suitably enough, Waters sweeps about with an imposingly hardened air, huskily intoning her lines (the production uses Brian Friel’s lively, accessible 2008 adaptation of Ibsen’s script) and radiating mystery and jaded solipsism. This general’s daughter knows she is far too interesting to be married to George Tesman (Lee Ordeman), an unimaginative academic researching domestic crafts in 10th-century Holland.

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Admittedly, Waters’s turn is a trifle monotonous. Her stony demeanor rarely allows any glimpses of the charisma that presumably attracted men like bees to honey when Hedda was single. Only when the bored bride steps onto the balcony to try her pistols on an approaching visitor, laughing and firing with relish, does a hint of charm flair. (Costume designer Megan Holeva underscores the character’s self-importance with conspicuous outfits, such as the kimono-and-pearls ensemble that Hedda wears one morning.)

A couple of the production’s smaller parts come across as mannered and melodramatic. As Thea Elvsted, a timid housewife who has found the courage to leave her husband, actress Danielle Davy goes overboard on tamped-down hysteria. And Jim Jorgensen turns the devious but overtly respectable Judge Brack into a caricature: a foppish dandy, complete with cane-twirling skills and demonic smirks.

Eric Lucas brings a more plausible intensity to the role of Eilert Lovborg, Tesman’s brilliant but dissolute professional rival, and Rena Cherry Brown is enjoyably chipper as Tesman’s well-bred aunt, Juliana, who raps her fists together when she gets excited. The aunt’s ticklish relationship with Hedda registers before the latter even appears: On first entering the newlyweds’ stylish living room (Michael C. Stepowany is set designer), the aunt tries out the sleek Wassily chair, slides too far back on the leather and has trouble getting up.

The period furniture and the movie projections point to the specific year in which McNamara has chosen to set this “Hedda Gabler”: 1938. They’re more or less the only markers of that choice. In his “Director’s Notes,” McNamara writes that the play’s themes, including some vaguely Nietzschean ideas bandied about by Hedda and Lovborg, resonate with the “looming horizon of death and destruction that was World War II.” But nothing in the production conveys an atmosphere of broad, encroaching menace. Hedda and her acquaintances seem caught up in an intimate circle of problems, and any Ubermensch-evoking talk flits by with little emphasis. Sure, it could be 1938, but it could also be other years after the invention of the Wassily chair.

Wren is a freelance writer.

Hedda Gabler

by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Brian Friel. Directed by Robert McNamara; lighting design, Andrew F. Griffin; sound and projections, Erik Trester; properties, Kevin Laughon; firearms consultant, Robb Hunter. With Mary Suib. Two hours 40 minutes. Through Jan. 29 at H Street Playhouse, 1365 H St. NE. Call 703-683-2824 or visit www.scenatheater.org.