Were Critics Head Over Heels for Cate Blanchett in Hedda Gabler?

The Sydney Theater Company production of Hedda Gabler, which opened a limited engagement at Brooklyn Academy of Music on March 2, is getting attention that a lot of Broadway shows would like to have. That is because the mounting stars Oscar winner Cate Blanchett in the title role. Did critics think the star sparkled in the role?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Rob Kendt in his Broadway.com Review: "A star vehicle just pulled into the loading dock at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, looking as sumptuous and severe as its choice cargo, the willowy blond tigress Cate Blanchett. It doesn't move as well as she does, though. In the lead role of Henrik Ibsen's bitter pill of play, Hedda Gabler, Blanchett swoops and fusses sinuously about Fiona Crombie's forbiddingly tall set, which is dominated by a chimney rising to the rafters and a trellis letting in the wintry glare of Nick Schlieper's lights. But the production, an import from the Sydney Theatre Company, seems positively cowed not only by the set but by Blanchett's own near-blinding wattage."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "Blanchett is giving roughly a dozen of the liveliest performances to be seen this year, all at the same time. Actually, a mere one or two at this level of intensity would have been enough. Then again, how often do you get to watch an actress of such virtuosity pulling out every stop of her instrument and then some? Playing Ibsen's destructively dissatisfied heroine, Ms. Blanchett is a moody perpetual motion machine, twirling among several centuries' worth of acting styles. She variously brings to mind the deep-toned grandeur of a Bernhardt or Duse, the refined screwball stylings of Katharine Hepburn whom Ms. Blanchett played on screen in her Oscar-winning turn in The Aviator and a very contemporary self-satirizing malcontent. All of which would be merely entertaining or irritating--depending upon your tolerance level--except for the instances of genuine, revelatory brilliance that suddenly sear the air like a camera flash."

Frank Scheck of The New York Post: "As the titular character in Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Cate Blanchett cuts a striking figure. Tall and elegant, her sharp features and piercing eyes further defined by her close-cropped hair, this stunning actress makes one believe in Hedda's formidable resolve and disdain for her weaker husband without uttering a word. Would that her portrayal made as much of an impact. Playing Hedda as if she were still channeling Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, the Oscar winner delivers a mannered performance. Hyperactively flittering about the stage and making manic gestures, she only fitfully conveys the suicidal ennui of her character."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "[Blanchett's] portrayal is a triumph… From her first entrance, Blanchett makes it clear that Hedda is in crisis. She may move with elegance and allure, but she bristles with tension, barely able to contain her rage. Despite the havoc she wreaks, Blanchett maintains our enthusiastic sympathy throughout. The supporting cast is equally impressive, especially Hugo Weaving as Judge Brack…. The production, directed by Robyn Nevin, captures the force of Ibsen's play with rare intelligence and brilliant attention to detail."

David Rooney of Variety: "In Sydney Theater Company's disconcertingly tragicomic take on the 1890 classic, arriving at BAM for a sold-out four-week run, director Robyn Nevin and adaptor Andrew Upton make one odd choice after another. Upton Blanchett's husband has stripped back and subtly contemporized the text, its language rendered more colloquial in the relaxed delivery of the Australian cast. But Nevin approaches the work as if it's Les Liaisons Dangereuses rewritten by Joe Orton. Her inconsistent direction tosses aside subtlety, swinging between a broad, at times almost campy strain and arch high drama that borders on soap opera… [Blanchett's] the literal embodiment of bristling agitation… What Blanchett isn't is vulnerable in any way."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "The actress, a tall, slender woman with her blond hair pulled back in a bun, is eminently watchable. She perfectly captures Hedda's desperate nervousness, her mordant humor and her yearning for something beyond a middle-class existence… There is a neurotic, contemporary quality to the production, added by the idiosyncratic adaptation of Andrew Upton, Blachett's husband. The language is direct and conversational, even modern in tone, which makes even the play's more talky moments surprisingly lively."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "Since Henrik Ibsen's 1890 mad-housewife pioneer is meant to be too good for the middle-class mundanities into which she married, we can almost pretend to justify the disparity between Blanchett's exquisite intelligence and Robyn Nevin's mediocre production. But not really. This Hedda does not merely exist in her own superior if damaged mind. She also appears to be in a more eccentric, far more fascinating version of the play than the middling histrionic conventions around her… The new adaptation, by Andrew Upton, Blanchett's husband, counterbalances the occasional excess with doggedly helpful psychological detail. Otherwise, Nevin, artistic director of the company, tears us apart with the incongruities of style. Fiona Crombie's scenery for the newlywed's extravagant new house has a nicely suffocating mustiness and persuasive scarcity of furniture. But the set seems lost on the large stage."