Broadway Blogs - Hedda Gabler Review Roundup and More...

Tony, Emmy & Golden Globe winning actress Mary-Louise Parker returns to Broadway in a new Broadway production of Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. The production features a new adaptation by Christopher Shinn and will be directed by Ian Rickson.

Barbara Hoffman, New York Post: "Now it's Mary-Louise Parker's time. Her sultry star turn in Ibsen's 1890 shocker is the only reason, really, to see the uneven revival that opened last night at the Roundabout. The fault lies not in its stars - well, partly, but we'll get to Peter Stormare later - but in Christopher Shinn's tin-eared adaptation."

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "Parker is an unpredictable actress, and that's what makes her so exciting. But in this outing, she's got two switches: seethe and boil over. Her Hedda actually hisses and claws at her hair when she's outsmarted by Thea late in the game. To quote the script's last line - "Who would do such a thing!""

Linda Winer, Newsday: "It seemed weird - in an interesting way - that Mary-Louise Parker was cast in Henrik Ibsen's 1890 damaged-diva vehicle, "Hedda Gabler." And, wow, is it ever weird. Unfortunately, it is also not interesting-and really not good at all."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "If the production and performances are jagged, playwright Christopher Shinn's clear-headed, economical and modern-sounding adaptation is not. It moves with surprisingly swiftness across Hildegard Bechtler's odd, almost spare setting of the Tesman living room, which is as off-kilter as the people who occupy it."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "There was reason to expect more from Mary-Louise Parker, the latest A-list actress to tackle a character who, like Macbeth or Mama Rose, seems destined to pop up on Broadway every few years. But Parker's intelligence and range are wasted on this performance, which reduces Hedda to a petulant, if glamorous, brat."

David Rooney, Variety: Mary-Louise Parker's interpretation of "Hedda Gabler" was probably always going to be a little wacky, but in the Roundabout revival she's the loopiest of a fairly off-kilter bunch. Using a disappointingly blunt new adaptation by Christopher Shinn, this is a production so doused in glum eccentricities that Ibsen's terminally bored neurotic has already reached the apex of her caged desperation before a line of dialogue has even been spoken. And while there's entertainment to be had from Parker's curt sarcasm and nutty double-takes, too many perplexing choices make the great play unaffecting and the irrational actions of its self-destructive antiheroine unsurprising."

Ben Brantley, New York Times: And - oh, break, break my heart - the director of this "Hedda" is Ian Rickson, who this season delivered a nigh-perfect "Seagull" on Broadway, one of the best revivals I have ever, ever seen. That he is now responsible for one of the worst revivals I have ever, ever seen has me flummoxed. Mr. Rickson's "Seagull" was a fluidly integrated production in which everyone seemed to exist in the same moment and in the same universe. With this "Hedda" it's not just that everyone is bad. It's that they're all bad in their own, different ways. At times you feel that because of some confusing detours in the back alleys of Broadway, actors who were meant to be in - I dunno, anything from "Grease" to "Equus" - showed up at the wrong place."

"Many of us spend half of our time wishing for things we could have if we didn't spend half our time wishing."

-- Alexander Woollcott

The grosses are out for the week ending 1/25/2009 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: SOUL OF SHAOLIN (14.4%), THE AMERICAN PLAN (1.1%), WICKED (1.0%),

Down for the week was: HEDDA GABLER (-18.5%), SHREK THE MUSICAL (-17.0%), AVENUE Q (-14.8%), CHICAGO (-13.3%), SPEED THE PLOW (-13.1%), THE 39 STEPS (-8.8%), THE LITTLE MERMAID (-8.6%), EQUUS (-7.5%), THE LION KING (-6.7%), IN THE HEIGHTS (-6.2%), PAL JOEY (-6.1%), MAMMA MIA! (-5.8%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-5.6%), JERSEY BOYS (-5.3%), MARY POPPINS (-4.8%), SOUTH PACIFIC (-4.3%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (-3.1%), AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (-2.4%),