Ghislaine Gabler. Playground Theatre.

There are always commonalities to be found between the lives of fictional and real-life personalities. By one measure drama can only really be effective if the former have something to say about the souls of the latter. Does Kristin Winter’s one-woman play Ghislaine / Gabler bring about greater understanding of convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell by interrogating her through the lens of Ibsen’s great antiheroine, Hedda Gabler? Yes and no.

The surface similarities between the Maxwell and Gabler are certainly brought out, although you will get much more out of Winters’ work if you have seen Ibsen’s. As the spare and cleverly conceived writing makes clear, both characters are spoilt, selfish, controlling schemers who wreck the lives of those around them. Both grow up beautiful, under the shadow of powerful, and in Maxwell’s case abusive fathers. Both become privileged and self-entitled she-devils. Winters’ performance brings out the repellent, scorpion-like aspects of each with clinical precision. Clad for much of the performance in a blood-red dress straight from a ‘90s Chanel catalogue, you cannot help thinking she would make a great choice to play Hedda next time a revival comes round.

Yet in the end, at a deeper level, the comparison between the two in Ghislaine / Gabler fails. For all her inscrutability and devious vanity, there is something brave about the sheer self-destructiveness of the fictional Hedda. Something that invites, not empathy exactly, but a recognition that she is a victim of the way things are in her life. At the end of Ibsen’s work, his antiheroine makes the only real choice she can, one that is heroic in its own way. No such heroism can be ascribed to Maxwell. She did what she did out of her own volition, for her own ends. She is not a victim at all, she is a perpetrator. Her blighted life is best understood in its own terms and not in comparison with that of a fictional dramatic character.

Winters places the action in a narrow, claustrophobic square that mimic the floorspace of Maxwell’s prison cell. An immaculately created soundscape combines news footage, excerpts from Ibsen’s play, and pulsing original music from Alexey Kochetkov that blends the toll of bells with prison doors slamming shut. Aided by excellent lighting design from Alex Forey (the stark fluorescent glare of prison illumination), the stagecraft comes together to create a highly atmospheric evocation of the constrained physical and emotional space the prisoner inhabits.

Winters’ performance works best in the scripted monologue sections which can be uncomfortable to listen to, thick as they are with the self-justifying rants of a narcissistic. Thankfully the writing never asks for empathy for Maxwell, but it does demand we reflect on what drives one individual to commit heinous crimes. The choreographed physical elements, though technically impressive and useful for adding momentum, contribute little to the narrative structure. Ghislaine / Gabler is a tough 50 minutes to sit through and the central conceit does not always work, but there is an awful lot of quality work here to appreciate, if not exactly enjoy.

Writer and Director: Kristin Winters

29 October 2022

Duration: 50 minutes. No interval.

This Review First Appeared in The Reviews Hub