Marriage in nineteenth century Norway was even more fraught than it is today; Henrik Ibsen believed it suited neither men nor women but showed the latter as victims of social norms. Familiar as we are with Jane Austen’s portrayals, where marriage was preferable to the low status and poverty of being single but offered some satifactions with the right partner, Ibsen's darker view can seem shocking:it certainly shocked his contempories.

Ibsen’s females chafe at the rules of an unjust society, yet he denied he was a feminist. The husbands fail to understand their resentful wives but are presented as victims of the same system. Fear of scandal, the risks of incurable venereal disease outside marriage plus the isolating Scandinavian Winter all take their toll; it’s not surprising that suicide is a recurring motif in the work of the man who has been called the father of modern drama. At the same time his ironic dialogue and awareness of comic social pretension avoid descent into melodrama. Extremes of behaviour are all the more tragic because we are allowed glimpses of other possibilities.

The play opens as Hedda and her husband George Tesman return from a six-month honeymoon to their grand new home in Oslo. Long coveted by Hedda, it came on the market during their absence. Judge Brack, Tesman’s friend and long-time admirer of Hedda, bought and furnished it on their behalf, at ‘a very reasonable price’. The scene seems set for wedded bliss. However, doubts about Hedda’s character have already been cast by a conversation between the new maid and Tesman’s Aunt Juliana. We know she is wilful, the beautiful daughter of a General, and very conscious of her social status.

Any further illusions are soon shattered. Tesman boasts to Judge Brack that he made the most of his honeymoon to research in his obscure academic field. Awarded a doctorate in his absence, as soon as his professorship is confirmed he’ll be able to take his wife into the ‘society’ she craves and supply the liveried footman, and fine horse he promised her.

These plans quickly unravel – the professorship may be awarded to rival and reformed alcoholic Loevborg. How Hedda attempts to secure the post for her husband and what motivates Brack, Loevborg and pretty Mrs Elvested, the ex school friend who has fled her own unhappy marriage, make up the rest of the intrigue. Ibsen's technique of hinting at important incidents in the past and leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions make for very compelling drama. The small studio space, with seats arranged on three sides of an unraised stage, makes the audience feel so intimately bound up with the characters that it would come as no surprise if the maid were to offer us cups of tea.

Fluently directed by Bruce Jamieson, the production is skilfully lit and admirably costumed. Hedda’s lace-trimmed silver-grey dress, soon abandoned in favour of a deep-fringed dark red one strikes a suitably menacing note. I have seldom seen such well-fitting suits so naturally worn onstage, adding to the realism. The symbolism for which Ibsen is equally well-known is less important than in his other plays but also adds to the complexity of associations and the growing tension.

Alice de Sousa presents a glacially beautiful and straight-backed Hedda. We may be tempted to excuse her as the spoilt daughter of a General and the changed circumstances which led her to marry Tesman, but personal sympathy is excluded. Not unlike Lady Macbeth, but lacking her conscience, Hedda schemes to achieve her own ends whilst apparently acting in her husband’s interest. She is cruel to the well-intentioned aunt - ‘Who left that dusty old thing there?' she asks of the hat bought specially to welcome her return, and impatiently threatens to dismiss the maid whose response to a hand-bell is a second or two delayed. Mrs Elvested reminds Hedda,and us, of her former role of school-girl bully.

Christopher Raikes excels as the insensitive Tesman, cheerfully twirling the string on a packet of new books, and eager to ‘cut the pages’. Brooke Hender as Judge Brack plays down the sinister overtones of his role and William Ludvig as Loevborg could have demonstrated more Byronic dash to increase the tragedy of his decline, but both actors are convince in ambiguous roles. Vicki Welles is intelligently observant as the maid. Mrs Elvested the willing amanuensis and Doris Zajer as Tesman’s caring aunt provide perfect counterparts for Hedda, evidence perhaps that a certain type of woman could find happiness within a patriarchal marriage. They would certainly have been less interesting than the restless, strong-minded heroines that Ibsen placed in the centre of his theatrical masterpieces.