Henrik Ibsen’s classic drama, “Hedda Gabler,” premiered in 1891, but Jeff Whitty’s 2012 comedy picks up where Ibsen’s left off, with Hedda (Emily Baker), just having put a bullet in her head, waking up in a messy limbo of sorts on the Cul de Sac Of The Tragic Heroines. She, along with Gone With The Wind’s house slave Mammy (Jeanitta Perkins), and several other theatrical, film and television figures of note, are doomed to repeatedly play out the patterns their creators have given them, unable to re-write their own destinies. Pulling off the right tone for this kind of play is tricky, but under the sharp direction of St. Louis Shakespeare’s new artistic director, Suki Peters, and the leading performances of a fiercely engaging Baker and a quietly heroic Perkins and strong supporting players, this production soars.
