by AMY BARRATT

Even though it was written at the end of the 19th century, I think of Hedda Gabler as a great 20th-century play. That's because Ibsen, along with Chekhov, pointed the way into the new century, into modernism.

Chris Abraham's Hedda, currently playing at the Saidye in a clean, contemporary translation, reminds us what a vital piece of work this play is. I've said it before: Abraham has a genius for taking plays that have sort of calcified into "great works" and pumping the lifeblood back into them. He did it with The Glass Menagerie last season, and he's done it brilliantly with Hedda.

Originally, Abraham planned to do an adaptation of Hedda combined with parts of A Doll's House to be titled The Tarantella. But after tinkering with the texts for a while, he recently told a reporter, he realized that everything he wanted to incorporate into Hedda was actually already there. The exercise probably helped him crystallize his interpretation of the play, but the decision to leave the text alone was a good one. Ibsen - unlike Shaw, the last playwright staged at the Saidye - needs no fixing. Though the show runs close to three hours including intermission, I can't think of one moment I would cut. This was the most satisfying evening I've spent at the theatre in years.

Colombe Demers is wonderful as the steely-eyed anti-heroine. Never shying away from the abrasive side of Hedda's character, Demers makes her, not sympathetic exactly, but dreadfully human.

Several elements of Abraham's mise en scène - the soundtrack, the sombre lighting and the addition of an extra actor - are reminiscent of film, particularly the films of that other Scandinavian genius, Ingmar Bergman. I thought I detected a little Jane Campion influence as well, appropriate since both Ibsen and Campion have been called "feminist" but have also stirred controversy in feminist circles.

Some, it must be said, will find the constant dim lighting annoying. There was also, on opening night, some difficulty hearing the actors in certain scenes. The latter will hopefully have been worked out by now.

Good translations

The place to be these next few nights is Playwrights' Workshop. The venerable 40-year-old centre dedicated to developing new work for the stage is presenting a series of staged readings of local works in translation, three from French to English and one the other way 'round.

The festivities got underway last night with Hypatia, or the Memory Man by Pan Bouyoucas, translated into English by Michael Brunet.

Tonight, Nov. 27, it's Titanica, the Great Battle Gown, Edmund C. Asher, London, 1968 by Sébastien Harrisson, translated by Crystal Béliveau. Titanica was produced in the original French at Théâtre D'Aujourd'hui in 2001.

Jocelyn Is Under a Cloud Today by Olivier Choinière, translated by Paula Wing, will be presented on Nov. 28. The play comically applies the form of Greek tragedy to the Canadian obsession with winter.

Saturday, in French, it's The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine by Leah Cherniak, Martha Ross and Robert Morgan, translated by actor Danielle Desormeaux.

Hedda Gabler to Dec. 7 at the Saidye
(5150 Côte-Ste-Catherine), 739-7944

The Montreal Festival of New Works in Translation, at Playwrights' Workshop (4324 St-Laurent), Nov 27-29, 8pm, 843-3685

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