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History and Background of Dikenga and Source Material

“Hedda Gabbler”, the 19th-century play from Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is often heralded as the female Hamlet. It’s lead, Hedda Gabbler, has complex and somewhat unknowable motivations. It’s also the perfect source material for Dikenga Audio founder Steve Balderson whose independent film, “Firecracker” won the Special Jury Award for Roger Ebert’s Best Films of the Year in 2006. Raindance Magazine called the movie the “film David Lynch wishes he was still capable of making.” While Balderson took the world of independent cinema by storm early in its life cycle, how well do his style and brand translate to audio in his first entry into the theater of the mind?

If ever there were a production to warrant this site’s definition of “full-cast,” this audio adaption of “Hedda Gabbler” is it. Similar to “1865” and LA Theater Works‘ recorded shows on audible.com, Dikenga Audio’s first sonic melodrama is the quintessential audio play in both content and form.

Adaptation, Translation and Setting Confusion

Because the original play was first performed on January 31, 1891, in Munich and written in the Ibsen’s native language, somethings will get lost in translation. It’s hard to say how much of Dikenga Audio’s behind the scenes work went into adaptation vs translation as Joseph Suglia and Balderson — credited as the adapters of this version — don’t give a source for the English translation they used. In some ways, it doesn’t matter as this could be set in a modern-day southern U.S., or at the very least, an alternate reality. It’s a bit ambiguous in both the performances and words on the page. The mention of Jane Austen and, later on, the 21st-century leaves a listener wondering where this play is set temporally.

Like Phillip Kan Gotanda’s “The Wind Cries Mary” — another take of the Norwegian play about 1960s Asian American lifestyles with different names but similar characters — the setting is almost an afterthought. Unlike Gotanda’s loose adaption which shares and borrows more than inspiration from Jimmy Hendrix’s rock ballad, there are no visual clues to where the scene was set. Nothing beyond narrated stage directions, which Balderson tends to over-rely on to block not just the scene, but the actions as well. It’s one thing to use a narrator to set a scene, it’s something else to have them interrupt with a character performing an action that a good sound effect makes irrelevant when used properly. Balderson may have won awards and nominations for his films, but there’s nothing fresh sound-wise in this audio play.

That said, it is melodrama and over-the-top acting is par for the course. For his first time in the realm of pure audio storytelling, it’s not bad, but it’s also not taking full advantage of the medium. You can listen to the 90-minute audio play starting November 1, 2020 by visiting the Dikenga website.

4/5 Stars