Hedda Gabler is both a play and a fictional
character created by Norwegian playwright
Henrik Ibsen. First published in 1890 and premiered the
following year in Germany to negative reviews, the play Hedda Gabler has subsequently
gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theater, and world drama. A 1902
production was a major sensation on Broadway starring Minnie Maddern Fiske and following its
initial limited run was revived with the actress the following year.
The character of Hedda is one of the great dramatic roles in theatre, the "female
Hamlet,"[1] and some portrayals have been very controversial. Depending on the interpretation,
Hedda may be portrayed as an idealistic heroine fighting society,
a victim of circumstance, a prototypical feminist, or a manipulative villain.
Hedda's actual name in the play is Hedda Tesman; Gabler is her maiden name.
About the title, Ibsen wrote: "My intention in giving it this name was to indicate that Hedda as a personality is to be
regarded rather as her father's daughter than her husband's wife." [1]
Characters
- Jørgen Tesman
- Hedda Gabler, his wife
- Miss Juliane Tesman, his aunt
- Mrs. Elvsted
- Judge Brack
- Eilert Løvborg
- Berta, servant at the Tesmans
Synopsis
The action takes place in a villa in Kristiania (now Oslo). Hedda
Gabler, daughter of an impoverished General, has just returned from her honeymoon with Tesman, an aspiring young academic —
reliable, but not brilliant, who has combined research with their honeymoon. It becomes clear in the course of the play that she
has never loved him, that she married him for economic security, and it is suggested she may be pregnant. The reappearance of
George Tesman's academic rival, Eilert Løvborg, throws their lives into disarray. Løvborg, a writer, is also an alcoholic who has wasted his talent until now. Thanks to a relationship with Hedda's old schoolmate, Thea
Elvsted (who has left her husband for him), he shows signs of rehabilitation, and has just completed what he considers to be his
masterpiece. This means he now poses a threat to Tesman, as a competitor for the university professorship which Tesman had
believed would be his. It became clear earlier that the couple are financially overstretched and Tesman now tells Hedda that he
will not be able to afford to have her do a great deal of entertaining or to support her in a lavish lifestyle.
Hedda, apparently jealous of Mrs. Elvsted's influence over Eilert, hopes to come between them. Tesman, returning home from a
party, finds the manuscript of Eilert Løvborg's great work, which the latter has lost while drunk. When Hedda next sees Løvborg,
he confesses to her, despairingly, that he has lost the manuscript. Instead of telling him that the manuscript has been found,
Hedda encourages him to commit suicide, giving him a pistol. She
then burns the manuscript. She tells her husband she has destroyed it to secure their future, so that he, not Løvborg, will
become a professor.
When the news comes that Løvborg has indeed killed himself, Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted are determined to try to reconstruct his
book from what they already know. Hedda is shocked to discover, from the sinister Judge Brack, that Eilert's death, in a brothel,
was messy and probably accidental (this is in huge contrast to the "beautiful" death that Hedda had imagined for him). Worse,
Brack knows where the pistol came from. This means that he has power over her, which he will use to insinuate himself into the
household (there is a strong implication that he will try to seduce Hedda). Leaving the others, she goes into her smaller room
and shoots herself.
Critical interpretation
Joseph Wood Krutch makes a connection between Hedda Gabler and
Freud whose first work on psychoanalysis was
published almost a decade later. Hedda is one of the first fully developed neurotic heroines of
literature.[2] By that Krutch means that Hedda is neither
logical nor insane in the old sense of being random and unaccountable. Her aims and her motives have a secret personal logic of
their own. She gets what she wants, but what she wants is not anything that the normal usually admit, publicly at least, to be
desirable. One of the significant things that such a character implies is the premise that there is a secret, sometimes
unconscious, world of aims and methods — one might almost say a secret system of values — that is often much more important than
the rational one.
Joan Templeton makes a connection between Hedda Gabler and Hjördis from The Vikings at
Helgeland, since the arms-bearing, horse-riding Hedda,
married to a passive man she despises, indeed resembles the "eagle in a cage" that Hjördis terms
herself.[3]
Analysis of Text
The text Hedda Gabler by Ibsen, who intended his work to be read as much as performed, was shunned in its time over the
character Hedda Gabler as she did not fit into the basic ideological places of society and was denounced by many critics as a
demon in a human form or inhuman, as nobody could ever imagine a woman that would be in a relationship without love and also a
love triangle (train metaphor) which would be betraying her husband.
The gun in the text is symbolic that Hedda Gabler does not fit into the class as she plays with toys that are highly
unacceptable in society. It also plays a role in showing the binary opposition status between herself and Tesman as she is
displayed with masculinity as Tesman serves her drinks.
Hedda refuses to be referred to as Tesman as for her it symbolizes imprisonment within the institution of marriage and
society, whilst Gabler embodies freedom (Ibsen also uses the name Gabler as it makes her appear as more of her father's daughter
as opposed to a husband's wife). In a way Ibsen’s play subtly explored issues of feminism as Hedda's main aim was to break free
from the ideologies surrounding a patriarchal society. However, she became incarcerated by self-hate in her determination to
achieve freedom of speech.
Productions
The play was first performed in Munich, Germany, at the Königliches
ResidenzTheater on 31 January 1891, with Clara Heese as Hedda. The first British performance was at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, on April 20 the same year, starring Elizabeth Robins, who directed it with Marion Lea, who played Thea.
Robins also played Hedda in the first US production, which opened on March 30 1898 at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York.
Many popular actresses have played the role of Hedda: they include Eleanora Duse,
Alla Nazimova, Asta Nielsen, Eva Le Gallienne, Anne Meacham, Ingrid Bergman, Jill Bennett, Janet
Suzman, Diana Rigg, Isabelle Huppert,
Kate Burton, Kelly McGillis,
Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith, Annette Bening, Judy Davis, and Cate
Blanchett for which she won the 2005 Helpmann Award (Australia) for Best Female Actor in a Play. In 2005, a production by Richard Eyre, starring Eve
Best, at the Almeida Theatre in London has been well-received, and later
transferred for an 11½ week run at the Playhouse Theatre on
Northumberland Avenue. The play was staged at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theater starring actress Martha
Plimpton, who is credited with bringing renewed modern interest to the play. British playwright John Osborne wrote an adaptation in 1972, and in 1991 famed playwright Judith Thompson presented an inspired adaptation of the play at the Shaw
Festival. Thompson adapted the play a second time in 2005 at Buddies in Bad Times
Theatre in Toronto, Canada, setting the first half of the play in the nineteenth century,
and the second half during the present day. Early in 2006, the play gained critical success at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds and at the Liverpool
Playhouse, directed by Matthew Lloyd with Gillian Kearney in the lead role.
The play has been filmed a number of times, from silent movies onwards, and in many languages. In 1975, Glenda Jackson was nominated for an Academy Award as leading actress for her role in a British film adaptation, simply titled
Hedda. A more recent American film version (2004)
relocated the story to a community of young academics in Washington State.
A new translation by Edward Usher will open in London's Colour House Theatre on October 8, 2007.
Film adaptations
- Hedda Gabler 1917, silent, USA
- Hedda Gabler 1919, silent, Italy
- Hedda Gabler 1924, silent, Germany
- "Hedda Gabler" episode (5 January 1954) of anthology series
The United States Steel Hour (starring Tallulah Bankhead)
- Hedda Gabler 1961, Yugoslavia, TV movie
- Hedda Gabler 1963, Germany, TV movie
- Hedda Gabler 1963, USA, TV movie (starring Ingrid Bergman)
- Hedda Gabler 1972, United Kingdom, BBC
- Hedda Gabler 1975, Norway, TV movie
- Hedda 1975, United Kingdom
- Hedda Gabler 1978, Belgium
- Hedda Gabler 1979, Italy, TV movie
- Hedda Gabler 1980, United Kingdom
- Hedda Gabler 1984, Belgium, TV movie
- Hedda Gabler 1993 United Kingdom, BBC
- Hedda Gabler 1993, Sweden, TV movie
- Hedda Gabler 2004, USA
References in popular culture
- Tony-award winning playwright Jeff Whitty wrote a play titled The Further Adventures
of Hedda Gabler, which was commissioned by South Coast Repertory. The play is
populated by fictional characters including Medea and follows Hedda's adventures after the end of her play.
- "Hedda Gabler" is the name of, and the inspiration for, a song by John Cale that appeared
on his 1977 EP Animal Justice.
- "Hedda Gobbler" (in various spellings), as a facetious play on "Hedda Gabler", is sometimes used as a humorous name for a
turkey [4] (or similar bird), or as a name for a turkey- or
chicken-based dish on a cafeteria or restaurant menu.
- In a promo for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Master Shake claims he's been doing a lot of dinner theatre and says "This is my Hedda Gabler.
'Hey...Hedda...get out of the house!'"
See also
Notes
External links
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