Hedda Gabler

by Henrik Ibsen

Adapted by Judith Thompson

Quotes

Aut vive libere, aut morire [live free or die].

With Hedda, there is deep poetry at bottom But her surroundings frighten her. – Henrik Idsen, Notes on Hedda Gabler

Hedda is not a vampire-woman. If she is dangerous it is because she stands at bay. She is frustrated at every turn. Her plight is desperate. All her aggressions are aroused; she is defending her inmost life. – Maurice Jacques Valency

What am I that their [other women's] life is not good enough for me?
Oh God what am I? …why, oh my God cannot I be satisfied
with the life that satisfies so many people?
I am told that the conversation of all these good clever men
ought to be enough for me. Why am I starving, desperate, diseased on it?
- Florence Nightengale, 1851

Returning to social life, leaving the “natural” mode, the marvellous freedom that is animal and desiring, leaving music and dance and their specific tempo is, surely, to leave the deadly proximity of suicide, which is always there and always possible; it is certainly to leave risk behind – the danger of the body that is finally unleashed; it is to settle down again under a roof, in a house, in the family circle of kinship and marriage; and it is to return to the men’s world: the celebration is indeed over.
- Helene Cixous and Catherine Clement, The Newly Born Woman

The play is to be about the insuperable’, the aspiration to and striving after something which goes against convention, against what Is accepted into consciousness, – Hedda’s consciousness as well.

Men and women don’t belong in the same century

Subterranean forces and powers are what it is about.
Woman as mineworker.    The subterranean revolution
in woman’s thoughts. Outwardly, the slave-fear of the external world.
-Henrik Ibsen, Notes on Hedda Gabler

Cast List

Hedda Gabler – Sian Williams
Berthe – Alison Wells*
Aunt Juliana Tesman – Doreen Ibsen*
George Tesman – Troy O`Donnell*
Thea Elvsted – Annette Loiselle*
Judge Brack – Dave Clarke*
Eilert Lovborg – Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull

*Member of Canadian Actor`s Equity Association

Interpretive Team

Director – Claire Fogal
Set & Lighting Designer – Tanya Lampey
Costume Designer – Warren Pullen
Head of Sound – Jennifer Barkley
Stage Manager – Stephanie Burton
ASM – Adam Kuss
Dramaturge – Choong-Kyun An