Pittsburgh Public Theater staged "Hedda Gabler" in 1989 because Bill Gardner decided it should program great roles for Pittsburgh actress Helena Ruoti.

	Suellen Fitzsimmons Robin Walsh plays Hedda in Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre's "Hedda Gabler." Click photo for larger image. 'Hedda Gabler' Where: Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre, Stephen Foster Memorial, University of Pittsburgh, Oakland. When: Through June 30; Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m.; also tonight at 7 and June 30 at 2 p.m. Tickets: $29-$45; 412-394-3353.

I have no idea what moved PICT artistic director Andrew Paul to schedule "Hedda Gabler" -- perhaps it was chosen by visiting Polish director Tadeusz Bradecki. But Paul might have been thinking that Robin Walsh deserves a crack at it and Pittsburgh deserves to see her, and he'd have been right.

Walsh meets Hedda head-on and emerges with a clear, highly charged portrait of that intriguingly neurotic pre-feminist, a tragic figure of a modern kind.

Of course Hedda is also a tragic figure of an ancient kind -- that kind being Phaedra, Medea or those other tormented figures of myth, consumed by destructive urges stirred by the gods.

Walsh is as wily, manipulative and quick-witted as one could wish, and also as fascinating, with a brilliant smile and an enticing, Circe-like voice. But Hedda's power goes only so far. Ultimately, though she disdains middle-class morality, Hedda can't imagine herself free, so she turns to destruction, first others and then herself.

In the story, aristocratic Hedda is newly married to George Tesman, a boring researcher who may be about to win a professorship. For competition for him, there's their brilliant old acquaintance, Eilert Lovborg, and for her, Thea, the woman who has inspired Lovborg to curtail the wild ways Hedda avidly encouraged. And there's Judge Brack, who aims to be just useful enough to get intimately involved with Hedda -- he's the true face of the hypocrisy of the age.

Bradecki, who has a reputation for creative direction, chooses to present the play largely unadorned. What is newest about this "Hedda Gabler," in addition to Walsh's chilling passion (white hot, yet also as cold as black ice), is the translation/adaptation by Canadian Judith Thompson. Mainly, her diction is a degree franker than Henrik Ibsen's text. Werewolf, vermin, prostitutes, vomit, "the only cock on the dungheap" -- these are words you don't hear in older translations.

The language is not excessive, though, because this is no late Victorian household but well into the new century. Stephanie Meyer-Staley's design sets a white living room floating in black space, with a huge blood red orchid crawling up the wall with the sexual suggestiveness of Georgia O'Keeffe. The furniture is wood painted white with blood red upholstery, a heightening of the everyday that matches Thompson's language.

Designer Pei-Chi Su has Hedda appear first in a white satin dressing gown with traces of royal purple. For the evening, she wears sea green with a purple sash, which looks mythic, too. The bright set has an appealing immediacy, but that surrounding black space gives it mystery.

Bradecki provides several moments of directorial intervention. Most thrillingly, he twice has Hedda start to return Lovborg's lost manuscript. Later, there's a projection of flames that makes it seem her next stop might be in Hell.

Martin Giles plays Tesman, perfectly capturing his banality without disguising his childish decency. He is not a dryasdust fool but effusive, straight out of "Babbitt," with his nervous chortle taking the place of the irritating repetitions in Ibsen's text.

Hedda, meanwhile, switches her powers on and off, seeking a challenge. She finds one in the mousy Thea, the younger woman brave enough to leave her husband, and she disastrously plans a dramatic role for Lovborg, the suitor she never dared embrace.

As Thea, Susan Goodwillie is seriously undercut by a curly blond wig that just looks goofy. (Of course, I once said this about a Public Theater actress, only to learn it was her real hair.) Goodwillie is also young to have been Hedda's schoolfellow.

John Shepard is an oily Brack, properly devilish with goatee and cane, all the more odious for thinking himself so reasonable.

Two caveats: I occasionally found it hard to hear, especially when Walsh turned sideways and used her striking lower register. And the finale didn't create the tragic rush that it might.

But obsessive, doomed Hedda holds our fearful gaze.