Her Father's Daughter (Hotel Now Theatre Group)

On stage, whether it be in theatre, opera or dance, the most revered masterworks of the Western canon are often anchored to stories of destroyed women - murdered by men; driven to suicide; crushed by oppressive relationships.

A grim litany of misogynistic storytelling often gets a free pass because of its ubiquity, particularly in works considered significant, or at the very least enduringly popular. This isn't to say that these narratives are entirely odious or obsolete, but there is a line of questioning that becomes necessary when justifying their relevance to a contemporary audience.

Her Father's Daughter, playwright Keziah Warner response to Ibsen's suicide-centric Hedda Gabler, is not the redemptive or feminist reimagining one might anticipate from a 21st-century, Australian-set reboot. And largely, this is an intriguingly successful choice. Warner's Hedda remains tragically fated and hopelessly flawed, but in a distinctly current way, channelling the disaffected yet privileged cynicism of a Bret Easton Ellis anti-heroine, not driven into doomed choices by an inescapable Victorian ennui, but rather a more modern, brattish, kamikaze need to see the world burn.

Director and dramaturge Cathy Hunt has created an innovative roving performance exploring the grand Victorian interiors of the Prahran Council Chambers. One could imagine this production playing out against the backdrop of some soulless penthouse in a newly thrown-up high-rise, but there is an aspect of poetic wit in staging this update in a surrounding that would be familiar to Ibsen. Rather than pushing an overly heavy-handed dramatic lens onto Warner's often urbane dialogue, Hunt keeps the action in the eye of the storm. Only Hedda - delivered with stellar control by Cait Spiker - is aware of the tempest raging just out of sight, so that even as she calmly meets her fate, her undoing goes almost unnoticed by those around her.

Some slightly uneven performances from other members of the cast easily jostle a production such as this, which relies on such a delicate level of balance and restraint - the infamous final line, in particular, felt a little too much like a winking punchline at the performance I attended. But Warner's words and Hunt's direction keep a steady hand on the rudder, and reveal a remarkably fresh perspective on this story without divorcing it from its original incarnation. Traditional stagings of Ibsen often paint Hedda as a woman broken and defeated, whose final act is one of manoeuvered desperation. There is still despair and tragedy in Her Father's Daughter, but not desperation, I think. Rather, defiance.

Hotel Now presents Her Father's Daughter till 3 Jun at Prahran Council Chambers.