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A prelude, accompanied by creepily disjointed music from rock star P.J. Harvey, tells audiences a lot about the Hedda Gabler (Mary-Louise Parker) they're about to see at Roundabout Theatre Company's American Airlines Theatre. Hedda rises from a chaise that's far upstage; clearly she's taken to sleeping in this drawing room (an almost cavernous scenic design from Hildegard Bechtler). Hedda prowls the room as the music plays, ripping dustcovers off the few pieces of furniture that are in the room, and rearranging them with agitated intensity that borders on the maniacal. Ultimately, she plunks out a few notes on the upright piano that's in the room before returning to the antechamber where the chaise sits, and shuts the mammoth doors to the space. Cleary, Hedda, just returned from her honeymoon with seemingly promising academic Jorgen Tesman (Michael Cerveris), is not a happy woman.

Hedda's unhappiness, and the extents to which it will drive her, is, of course the crux of Henrik Ibsen's drama, which has received numerous high profile stagings in New York in the past few years. Among them have been Ivo Van Hove's production which brought the 19th century play firmly into the 21st century and a production from Sydney that featured Cate Blanchett as a regal, period Hedda. For this new Broadway outing, which uses a new, colloquial adaptation by Christopher Shinn, Parker delivers a Hedda which often fascinates, but unfortunately, neither it, nor director Ian Rickson's production ever truly satisfies.

The uniqueness of the piece's opening extends to many of the performances, which can be remarkably idiosyncratic. For example, Peter Stormare's portrayal of the old family friend Judge Brack borders on the Dickensian. He oozes oily licentiousness and sort of slinks around the stage, lusting after Hedda. Ana Reeder, who plays Thea, a school-chum of Hedda's (and perhaps an old flame of Tesman's), gives a similarly one-note performance filled with fluttery nervousness in a role that she's tackled once before and with more modulation – in Van Hove's production. Paul Sparks, playing the once-dissolute Ejlert Løborg, the man whom the unhappily married Thea loves and whom Tesman both mistrusts and envies, delivers solidly in the second half of the play, but initially, seems not only tentative, but curiously backwater (hints of a Southern accent are heard throughout).

Løborg, of course, is also an old flame of Hedda's and it's her continued fascination with him (and vice versa) which create the crux of the play. If she can't find happiness or satisfaction with Tesman in the home for which his aunt Juliane (a fine turn from Helen Carey) has paid dearly, well, she'll attempt to rekindle something with Løborg. Unfortunately, the relationship has been combustible (at best) and once she realizes that he not only cares for Thea, but also poses a threat to Tesman's career, what had been fiery turns truly destructive.

Hedda and Løborg's passion for one another is made explicit in Rickson's staging: not only do they share a prolonged kiss, but Løborg also reaches up under her long dress during their embrace. Like Stormare's almost melodramatic turn as the Judge and even certain choices from costume designer Ann Roth, which contrast Hedda's elegance with other characters' folksy or more homespun ways, Hedda and Løborg's coupling seems to distrust theatergoers, making explicit what is generally intuited or left to the imagination.

A few such moments can be found in this "Hedda." Throughout Cerveris delivers a richly complex portrayal of Tesman, blending neediness with jealousy, amorousness and a certain myopia. Similarly, Parker, who can garner a laugh with some of her deadpan line deliveries, communicates Hedda's strict upbringing when she crosses the stage, her hands clasped behind her back like a dutiful schoolgirl. And then, there are the moments when she's onstage alone, and prowls the stage like a caged animal, while Harvey's music plays. It's during these moments, and thanks to the composer's intriguingly intricate choices, that one wonders if the music is a metaphor for Hedda's thoughts, an aural indication of the sort of mental racing associated with manic-depressiveness or bipolar disorder. It's hard not to wish that more of this interpretation might have been explored in this "Hedda."

---- Andy Propst

Hedda Gabler plays at the American Airlines Theatre (227 West 42nd Street). Performances are Tuesday through Saturday evening at 8pm; matinees are Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $66.50 - $111.50 and can be purchased by calling 212-719-1300 or online at www.RoundaboutTheatre.org.

A chorus of overzealous birds, crickets and frogs greets audiences as they enter the Women's Project for Anne Bogart's staging of Virginia Woolf's Freshwater. This cacophony (just one aspect of designer Darron L. West's effective soundscape for the production) is an apt prelude to what follows, a raucous, absurd dash through the world of some Victorian literary and artistic giants.

Woolf wrote Freshwater as a lark, something that could be performed by her family and friends. There are two versions of the play. One was written in 1923 and she later revised the piece in 1935. Here, audiences will find an amalgam of the two and the piece centers on photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (an ebullient and antic Ellen Lauren) and her husband, philosopher Charles Henry Hay Cameron (imbued with naughty eccentricities by Tom Nellis). They're hoping to embark on a journey to India, but before they leave, a pair of coffins needs to be delivered to their home, where painter George Frederick Watts (given a sort of discombobulated flair by Barney O'Hanlon) and his very young bride, Ellen Terry (a captivating Kelly Maurer) are seemingly in residence. Also staying at the house is Alfred Lord Tennyson (played with preening lunacy by Stephen Duff Webber).

To describe what happens in Freshwater is a little like trying to hold onto a wave. Ultimately, the essential arc of the play focuses on Ellen's infatuation with Lt. John Craig (a wonderfully elegant and deliciously forthright Gian Murray Gianino), who has made advances to her after he and his horse leapt over her while she was picking flowers. Otherwise, the house (which scenic designer James Schuette renders as a large windowed room where the walls are painted with bright strokes of green, making it look like the inhabitants are playing inside a child's conception of a great lawn) and the play are exemplars of controlled pandemonium. Watts attempt to paint Ellen as the Greek incarnation of "Modesty." Julia, after seeing Ellen on Tennyson's lap, decides that the young woman needs to be photographed as his muse. The esteemed poet, who has yet to be made a Lord, recites from his work, and, Charles, when not doddering around the peripheries, extols the moonlight he hopes to see in India.

If one thinks about the sort of familial chaos that runs through Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take It With You, and then imagines that play being written by French absurdist Eugene Ionesco, the sense and feel of Freshwater can almost be realized. Of course, Woolf is also having a grand time skewering some of her neighbors, a relative and her artistic forebears in the process.

Bogart's production, a collaboration between Women's Project and her own SITI Company, brings this minor work by the literary giant surprisingly, and satisfyingly, to life for contemporary audiences. As the actors bound through the piece, scampering up and down ladders and in and out of the large French windows at the back of the stage, it's not always necessary to know the specifics about the targets of Woolf's satire. One simply knows that an artist from a younger generation is having a great deal of fun at the expense of an older one. Fussiness is being eschewed and the younger characters – i.e. Ellen and Lt. Craig – know that something new must be created, even if they're not sure what, and just in case theatergoers don't know that they've just watched an artist have some fun with his or her predecessors, the soundscape comes into play at the end of the production with a blare of rock music. Bogart and her fine company have enjoyed layering their own playfulness onto Woolf's and nothing here should be taken that seriously, simply enjoyed.

---- Andy Propst

Freshwater plays at Women's Project (424 West 55th Street). Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7pm; Thursday through Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3 and 7pm. Tickets are $42.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-239-6200 or by visiting www.Telecharge.com. Further information is also available online at www.WomensProject.org

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