Tonight at 92Y Tribeca, Broadway star Michael Cerveris and playwright Christopher Shinn will be participating in a discussion about their current collaboration on Broadway, Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, starring Mary-Louise Parker in the title role. Shinn, who has written critically acclaimed plays like Dying City and On the Mountain, adapted the script about an unhappy woman (Hedda) trapped in a life with her dull and academically obsessed husband Jorgen Tesman, played by Cerveris.

Cerveris is the definition of a Broadway star. In the last decade he’s sang Sondheim, spoken Shakespeare and rocked out in what I would consider Broadway’s only true “rock” musical Tommy. It really seemed as if he could do no wrong in the eyes of critics, Tony voters and audiences alike. Until now that is. Hedda was critically panned after it opened on January 25th, and Cerveris took several jabs for his more genial portrayal of Tesman, who in many translations has no appealing qualities whatsoever. I recently got the chance to chat with him about what he and Shinn will be talking about tonight and how he’s pushing the negativity aside to perform in what he feels is a revival Ibsen would have appreciated – in part because of the backlash it has caused. The Norwegian playwright received much of the same in his day.

Why made you sign on for this production of Hedda?
It was mostly the chance to work with the director Ian Rickson and Mary-Louise. Those were the big drawing cards for me. I had never seen the production before and to be honest, I was not a big fan of the play when I read it. It just wasn’t a play that spoke to me.

Why’s that?
It seemed to be about this really bitchy woman and this really wimpy husband. I didn’t understand why people loved it so much and I didn’t understand why people wanted to play Hedda so much. I never really shook that initial idea of it off, so it was interesting to me to work on something and kind of figure out what it is that people respond to. Obviously I’ve come to appreciate it over the last couple of months.

What changed your mind?
I think immersing yourself in it you start to realize what an incredibly well crafted story it is. Ibsen wrote these really very complicated psychological portraits in a time that was pre-Freud. People were just beginning to understand complicated motivations for behavior. And I think what I found really meaningful about our production is it is our attempt to mine it for ideas and interpretations that are maybe not the traditional ones -- but I feel like it’s actually more faithful to the spirit of Ibsen’s original. And the fact that it has polarized people and has no end of hostile critics is also perfectly in keeping with the initial reception of the play.

The original production was criticized?
Yeah, people said it was just a piece of garbage and how could someone write something like that and people don’t behave like that. There were near riots at productions of it so you know if we’re pissing people off we must be doing something right.

You usually are in shows that get pretty good reviews. How are you dealing with these negative ones?
I’ve been really fortunate that way and even when that’s not been the case I’ve been spared the brunt of it. I haven’t read any of these reviews. I find that at the end of the day other peoples' opinions are not my business, I mean they’re welcome to have them but it’s a critic’s opinion -- that’s one person’s opinion that happens to be disseminated, but to be honest there are bloggers that have bigger audiences than some of the newspaper critics.

Was it hard go on stage the night after the reviews came out?
Well, like you said, I haven’t had this experience for awhile. I’ve really been blessed to be in critically acclaimed things and I’ll be honest, the week after they came out, and I don’t know if anybody in the cast read the reviews, but everybody seemed to get the tone of it from people and that first week was brutal. It was really difficult and I have never been so proud of a company’s spirit than this one in that first week, because we came out with these back voices in our collective heads saying everybody hates you and hates everything that you’re doing. Yet you still have to get up there and do exactly what you’ve been led to believe that people are hating. We really stuck to our guns and if anything, I think the show got better because we had this kind of siege mentality. It’s especially hard for Mary –Louise, the focal point for the brunt of the criticism, and the fucking gossip columnists, but she was incredibly professional and went out and gave really professional performances. And the key thing has been that we’ve been filling the house consistently. In fact, ticket sales were very good after the reviews came out and we’re drawing apparently one of the youngest crowds that the Roundabout has ever had. I mean it probably doesn’t hurt that our Hedda sells weed on television.

Right, that's true.
But it’s not just that. I think there’s a certain section of the theater-going public that reads the reviews and says, 'you know what I want to see this for myself.' And then I had people come up to me and say congratulations on those fantastic reviews. It seems that even people that live and work in the theater don't actually really read them. The people that really decide if a show runs are the people that buy tickets and critics don’t buy tickets.

Do you really think the reviews don’t have that much of an impact on whether or not a show runs?
I think in the commercial theater the reviews don’t have the impact that they once did. I think they’re more for the downtown shows the smaller shows that need some kind of exposure and something to help audiences find them.

What will you and Chris Shinn talk about tonight at the 92Y Tribeca?
Well I’m sure the reviews will come up. It appears to be the most intriguing aspect of things, but hopefully it will just be an interesting discussion of the play. I think we’ll talk a lot about how he read the play and what it said to him initially and how that’s changed and what we’ve discovered along the way. I think that casting me in this part was unusual. I think most people that I knew assumed that I was playing one of the other two male characters because Tesman is usually played as stiff and weak, and a sort of wimpy out of touch academic, and I can see where that comes from -- especially in older adaptations of it.

How does your more likable, slightly ballsier Tesman change things for this production?
He’s clearly obsessed with academic things and things that aren’t generally thought of as heroic, exciting things -- but that doesn’t mean he has to be a cartoon character. I think [my portrayal] suggests that maybe if Hedda weren’t so kind of manic depressive this marriage could have worked. We thought it was interesting to find moments where we actually see them functioning as a couple early on and even later in the play.

Do you think you’ll do more Ibsen now?
I’ve actually been talking to John Doyle about doing some other Ibsen plays with him.

What's next for you?
I’m filming Fringe, the TV show, and I filmed Cirque du Freak last year in New Orleans with John C. Reilly, Salma Hayek and Willem Dafoe. I play Mr. Destiny -- he's like 400 pounds and the bad guy that even the bad guys are afraid of. It’s supposed to come out at the end of the summer or fall. I’m not sure what’s next for me on stage but I could use a bit of a break to be honest.

Pictured is Cerveris and Mary-Louise Parker in Hedda Gabler at the American Airlines Theater through March 28th. Photograph by Nigel Parry.

UPDATE: Tonight's 92Y Tribeca talk has been postponed. Check in at 92y.org for the rescheduled date and time.