Hedda Gabler is a
playA play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright
Henrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
. The play premiered in 1891 in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of
realismRealism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
,
nineteenth century theatreNineteenth-century theatre describes a wide range of movements in the theatrical culture of Europe and the United States in the 19th century. In the West, they include Romanticism, melodrama, the well-made plays of Scribe and Sardou, the farces of Feydeau, the problem plays of Naturalism and...
, and world drama. A 1902 production was a major sensation on
BroadwayBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
starring
Minnie Maddern FiskeMinnie Maddern Fiske , born as Marie Augusta Davey, but often billed simply as Mrs. Fiske, was one of the leading American actresses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. She also spearheaded the fight against the Theatrical Syndicate for the sake of artistic freedom...
and following its initial limited run was revived with the actress the following year.
The character of Hedda is considered by some critics as one of the great dramatic roles in
theatreTheatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, the "female
HamletPrince Hamlet is a fictional character, the protagonist in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. He is the Prince of Denmark, nephew to the usurping Claudius and son of the previous King of Denmark, Old Hamlet. Throughout the play he struggles with whether, and how, to avenge the murder of his father, and...
," and some portrayals have been very controversial. Depending on the interpretation, Hedda may be portrayed as an idealistic heroine fighting
societyA society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
, a victim of circumstance, a prototypical feminist, or a
manipulativePsychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics. By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at the other's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative,...
villainA villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
.
Hedda's married name is Hedda Tesman; Gabler is her maiden name. On the subject of 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."
Characters
- Hedda Gabler, the protagonist
- Jørgen Tesman, the husband of Hedda; an academic
- Miss Juliane Tesman, aunt of Jørgen
- Mrs. Thea Elvsted, friend of Jørgen, school rival of Hedda, confidant of Ejlert
- Judge Brack, friend of the Tesmans
- Ejlert Løvborg, Jørgen's academic rival whom Hedda previously loved
- Berta, servant to the Tesmans and to Jørgen as a child
Plot
Hedda Gabler, daughter of an aristocratic general, has just returned to her villa in Kristiania (now
OsloOslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
) from her
honeymoon-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...
. Her husband is Jørgen Tesman, an aspiring, young, reliable (but not brilliant) academic who has combined research with their honeymoon. It becomes clear in the course of the play that she has never loved him but has married him for reasons pertaining to the boring nature of her life, and it is suggested that she may be pregnant.
The reappearance of Tesman's academic rival, Ejlert Løvborg, throws their lives into disarray. Løvborg, a writer, is also a recovered
alcoholicAlcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
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), Løvborg shows signs of rehabilitation and has just completed a bestseller in the same field as Tesman.
The critical success of his recently published work transforms Løvborg into a threat to Tesman, as Løvborg becomes a competitor for the university professorship Tesman had been counting on. Tesman and Hedda are financially overstretched, and Tesman tells Hedda that he will not be able to finance the regular entertaining or luxurious housekeeping that Hedda had been expecting. Upon meeting Løvborg, however, the couple discover that he has no intention of competing for the professorship, but rather has spent the last few years labouring with Mrs. Elvsted over what he considers to be his masterpiece, the "sequel" to his recently published work.
Apparently jealous of Mrs. Elvsted's influence over Løvborg, Hedda hopes to come between them. She provokes Løvborg to get drunk and go to a party. Tesman returns home from the party and reveals that he found the
manuscriptA manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
of 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
suicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, giving him a
pistolWhen distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
. She then burns the manuscript and tells Tesman she has destroyed it to secure their future.
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 (a friend of Tesman's), that Løvborg's death, in a brothel, was messy and probably accidental (this "ridiculous and vile" death contrasts with the "beautiful and free" one that Hedda had imagined for him). Worse, Brack knows the origins of the pistol. It is then made clear that Brack acknowledges his power over Hedda. He also tells her that a scandal will likely arise due to her role in giving Løvborg the pistol. Leaving the others, and wanting to escape this inevitable scandal, she goes into her smaller room and shoots herself in the head. The others in the room assume that Hedda is simply firing shots, and they follow the sound to investigate. The play ends with Tesman, Brack, and Mrs. Elvsted discovering her body.
Critical interpretation
Joseph Wood KrutchJoseph Wood Krutch was an American writer, critic, and naturalist.Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, he initially studied at the University of Tennessee and received a masters degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University. After serving in the army in 1918, he travelled in Europe for a year with friend...
makes a connection between
Hedda Gabler and Freud, whose first work on
psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
was published almost a decade later. Hedda is one of the first fully developed neurotic female protagonists of literature. 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 Hjørdis from
The Vikings at HelgelandThe Vikings at Helgeland is Henrik Ibsen's seventh play.The Vikings at Helgeland was written during 1857 and first performed at Christiania Norske Theater in Oslo on 24 November 1858. The scenes take place during the time of Erik Blood-axe in the north of Norway in historic Helgeland...
, since the arms-bearing, horse-riding Hedda, married to a passive man she despises, indeed resembles the "
eagleEagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
in a cage" that Hjørdis terms herself.
Bernard Paris interprets Hedda's actions as stemming from her "need for freedom [which is] as compensatory as her craving for power... her desire to shape a man's destiny."
Productions
The play was written and first performed in
MunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
at the
Königliches Residenz-TheaterThe Cuvilliés Theatre or Old Residence Theatre is the former court theatre of the Residenz in Munich, southern Germany.- Description :...
on 31 January 1891, with Clara Heese as Hedda. The first British performance was at the Vaudeville Theatre,
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, on 20 April the same year, starring
Elizabeth RobinsElizabeth Robins was an actress, playwright, novelist, and suffragette.- Early life :Elizabeth Robins, the first child of Charles Robins and Hannah Crow, and was born in Louisville, Kentucky. After financial difficulties, her father left for Colorado, leaving the children in the care of Hannah...
, 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 CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Many popular actresses have played the role of Hedda: they include
Eleonora Duse-Life and career:Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, and began acting as a child. Both her father and her grandfather were actors, and she joined the troupe at age four. Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently...
,
Alla NazimovaAlla Nazimova , was a Russian American film and theatre actress, a screenwriter and film producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff.-Early life:...
,
Asta NielsenAsta Nielsen , was a Danish silent film actress who was one of the most popular leading ladies of the 1910s and one of the first international movie stars. Seventy of Nielsen's 74 films were made in Germany where she was known simply as Die Asta...
,
Eva Le GallienneEva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century.-Early life and early career:...
,
Anne MeachamMary Anne Meacham was a noted American actress of stage, film and soap opera.Born and raised in Chicago, Meacham left to study drama at Yale University, graduating with a degree in 1947.-New York stage:...
,
Ingrid BergmanIngrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
, Jill Bennett,
Janet SuzmanDame Janet Suzman, DBE is a South African-born-British actress and director.-Early life:Janet Suzman was born in Johannesburg to a Jewish family, the daughter of Betty and Saul Suzman, a wealthy importer of tobacco....
,
Diana RiggDame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
,
Isabelle HuppertIsabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
,
Kate Burton-Personal life:Burton was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the daughter of producer Sybil Burton and actor Richard Burton . She was thus the stepdaughter of actress Elizabeth Taylor and of Sybil's second husband Jordan Christopher. In 1979, Burton earned a bachelor's degree in Russian studies and...
,
Kate MulgrewKatherine Kiernan Maria "Kate" Mulgrew is an American actress, most noted for her roles on Star Trek: Voyager as Captain Kathryn Janeway and Ryan's Hope as Mary Ryan...
,
Kelly McGillisKelly Ann McGillis is an American actress. Her films include Top Gun, The Accused, and Witness, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.-Career:...
,
Fiona ShawFiona Shaw, CBE is an Irish actress and theatre director. Although to international audiences she is probably most familiar for her minor role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, she is an accomplished classical actress...
,
Maggie SmithDame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
,
Annette BeningAnnette Carol Bening is an American actress. Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee for her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right, winning Golden Globe Awards for the latter two films...
,
Amanda DonohoeAmanda Donohoe is an English film and television actress. She is known for her 1980s relationship with popstar Adam Ant and her later work on television — including L.A. Law and Emmerdale — and her roles in successful movies including Liar, Liar.-Early life:Donohoe was born in London, the daughter...
,
Judy DavisJudy Davis is an Australian actress best known for her roles in Husbands and Wives, Barton Fink, A Passage to India and in the TV miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows....
, Erin Berger,
Emmanuelle SeignerEmmanuelle Seigner is a French actress, former fashion model, and singer, best known as the wife of Academy Award winning director Roman Polanski, and for her roles in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly , and Frantic...
,
Harriet WalterDame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE is a British actress.-Personal life:She is the niece of renowned British actor Sir Christopher Lee, as the daughter of his elder sister Xandra Lee. On her father's side she is a great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The TimesShe was educated at...
,
Rosamund PikeRosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike is a British actress. Her film roles include villainous Bond girl Miranda Frost in Die Another Day, Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Helen in An Education, Lisa in Made in Dagenham, Miriam Grant-Panofsky in Barney's Version and Kate Sumner in Johnny English...
and
Cate BlanchettCatherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award...
, who won the 2005 Helpmann Award (Australia) for Best Female Actor in a Play. In the early 1970s,
Irene WorthIrene Worth, CBE was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the English and American theatre. -Early life:...
played Hedda at Stratford, Ontario, prompting
New York Times critic
Walter KerrFor the RN admiral see Lord Walter KerrWalter Francis Kerr was an American writer and Broadway theater critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals.-Biography:...
to write, "Miss Worth is just possibly the best actress in the world." In 2005, a production by
Richard EyreSir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre, television, and opera.-Biography:Eyre was educated at Sherborne School, an independent school for boys in the market town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset in south-west England, followed by Peterhouse at the University...
, starring
Eve BestEve Best is an English actress, best known for her roles as Dr. O'Hara in the Showtime television series Nurse Jackie, as Wallis Simpson in the 2010 film The King's Speech, and Dolley Madison in the 2011 American Experience television special about that First Lady.-Early life and education:Best...
, at the
Almeida TheatreThe Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of...
in London has been well-received, and later transferred for an 11½ week run at the
Duke of York'sDuke of York's can refer to:* The Duke of York's Theatre, a theatre in London* The Duke of York's Picture House, Brighton, a cinema in Brighton, England...
on St Martin's Lane. The play was staged at Chicago's famed
Steppenwolf TheaterSteppenwolf Theatre Company is a Tony Award-winning Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry in the basement of a church in Highland Park, Illinois. It has since relocated to Chicago's Halsted Street, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Its name comes from...
starring actress
Martha PlimptonMartha Campbell Plimpton is an American actress and singer and former model. Plimpton is a screen, stage and television actress. She first appeared as Jonsy in the feature film River Rats before rising to prominence in the Richard Donner film The Goonies portraying the character Stef...
, who is credited with bringing renewed modern interest to the play.
British playwright
John OsborneJohn James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
wrote an adaptation in 1972, and in 1991 famed playwright
Judith ThompsonJudith Clare Thompson, OC is a Canadian playwright who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail once declared that "...in this country, a playwright as good as Judith Thompson is a miracle." She has twice been awarded the Governor General's Award for drama, and is the...
presented an adaptation at the
Shaw FestivalThe Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the second largest repertory theatre company in North America...
. Thompson adapted the play a second time in 2005 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in
TorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, 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 PlayhouseThe West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, England is a theatre which opened in March 1990 as part of the regeneration of the Quarry Hill area of the city...
in Leeds and at the
Liverpool PlayhouseThe Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...
, directed by Matthew Lloyd with
Gillian KearneyGillian Louise Kearney is an English actress best known for playing Jessica Harrison in the long-running BBC television medical drama series Casualty, and her early role as Debbie McGrath in Channel 4's Liverpool-based soap opera Brookside and the spin-off mini-series Damon and Debbie.-Early...
in the lead role. A revival opened in January 2009 on Broadway, starring
Mary-Louise ParkerMary-Louise Parker is an American actress, known for her current lead role on Showtime's television series Weeds portraying Nancy Botwin, for which she has received several nominations and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 2006...
as the title character and
Michael CerverisMichael Cerveris is an American singer, guitarist and actor. He has performed in many stage musicals and plays, including in several Stephen Sondheim musicals: Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Road Show, and Passion...
as Jørgen Tesman, at the
American Airlines TheatreThe American Airlines Theatre is a Broadway theatre, located at 227 West 42nd Street, New York City.-Design:Originally named the Selwyn Theatre, it was constructed by the Selwyn brothers, Edgar and Archie, in 1918. It was one of three theatres they built and controlled on 42nd Street, along with...
to mixed critical reviews. A modernised New Zealand adaptation by The Wild Duck starring Clare Kerrison in the title role, and opening at BATS Theatre in Wellington in April 2009, was hailed as "extraordinarily accessible without compromising Ibsen's genius at all."
Performance of a production of the play was stopped in
TehranTehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
,
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
in 2011. Its organizers were summoned to court for inquiry after an Iranian news agency blasted the classic drama in a review and described it as "vulgar" and "hedonistic" with symbols of "sexual slavery cult". A
SerbianThe Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
production premiered in February 2011 at the
National Theatre in BelgradeThe National Theatre was founded in the latter half of the 19th century. It is located on Republic Square, in Belgrade, Serbia.The National Theatre was declared a Monument of Culture of Great Importance in 1983, and it is protected by the Republic of Serbia....
Mass media adaptations
The play has been adapted for screen a number of times, from the silent film era of the early 1910s to the present day in several languages. In 1975,
Glenda JacksonGlenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
was nominated for an Academy Award as leading actress for her role in the British film adaptation
HeddaHedda is a 1975 film adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. It stars Peter Eyre, Glenda Jackson and Patrick Stewart and was directed by Trevor Nunn.This was the first major theatrical film version of the play in English...
.
Deborah WarnerDeborah Warner CBE is a British director of theatre and opera known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her long-term working relationship with the Irish actress Fiona Shaw.-Early years:Warner was born in Oxfordshire,...
's version, with
Fiona ShawFiona Shaw, CBE is an Irish actress and theatre director. Although to international audiences she is probably most familiar for her minor role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, she is an accomplished classical actress...
as Hedda Gabler and
Stephen ReaStephen Rea is an Irish film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in high profile films such as V for Vendetta, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire and Breakfast on Pluto...
as Ejlert Løvborg, was televised in 1993. Shaw's portrayal finds the hypersensitivity behind those cruelties of Hedda's which are often played without conscience. Shaw plays the requisite arrogance with which Hedda wounds those around her, but the immediate recriminations which she visits upon herself are even more harrowing.
An American film version released in 2004 relocated the story to a community of young academics in Washington state.
Awards and nominations
Awards
- 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival
- 2006 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival
Nominations
- 2005 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival
Alternate productions, tribute and parody
An operatic adaptation of the play has been produced by
ShanghaiShanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
's Hangzhou XiaoBaiHua Yue Opera House.
An adaptation with a lesbian relationship was staged in Philadelphia in 2009 by Mauckingbird Theatre Company.
A turkey living in Morningside Park, New York City, was named Hedda G
obbler.
A prostitute in the feature film
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is named Hedda Gobbler.
The 2009 album
Until the Earth Begins to Part by Scottish folk indie-rock band
Broken RecordsBroken Records are a six-piece indie folk band from Edinburgh, Scotland, which formed in December 2006. The band are signed to 4AD and released their debut album, Until the Earth Begins to Part, in June 2009...
features a song, "If Eilert Løvborg Wrote A Song, It Would Sound Like This".
John CaleJohn Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
, Welsh musician and founder of American rock band
The Velvet UndergroundThe Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
, recorded a song "Hedda Gabler" in 1976, included originally on the 1977 EP
Animal Justice (now a bonus track on the CD of the album
Sabotage). He performed the song live in London (5 March 2010) with a band and a 19 piece orchestra in his Paris 1919 tour.
The Norwegian hard-rock band
Black DebbathThe hard rock/metal band Black Debbath is a Norwegian band created by four of the core members of Duplex Records. They often make a political statement, calling their genre "Heavy Politically Incorrect Humor Rock".-Members:...
recorded the song "Mötorhedda Gabler" on their Ibsen-inspired album
Naar Vi Døde Rocker ("When We Dead Rock").
The original play
Heddatron by
Elizabeth MeriwetherElizabeth Meriwether is an American playwright and screenwriter, television producer and writer. She is known for the 2010 play Oliver Parker! and the 2011 romantic comedy film No Strings Attached, and the sitcom New Girl for Fox, starring Zooey Deschanel.-Biography:Elizabeth Meriwether was born in...
melds
Hedda Gabler with a modern family’s search for love despite the invasion of technology into everyday life.
Further reading
- Ibsen, Henrik. Hedda Gabler trans. Kenneth McLeish, Nick Hern Books
Nick Hern Books is a London-based independent specialist publisher of plays, theatre books and screenplays. The company was founded by the former Methuen drama editor Nick Hern in 1988.-History:...
, London, 1995. ISBN 978-1854591845
- Novelguide: Hedda Gabler
External links
- Hedda Gabler at the Internet off-Broadway Database
The Lortel Archives, or the Internet Off-Broadway Database is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway.The archives are named in honor of actress and theatrical producer Lucille Lortel.-See also:...
- Photos of the Irish Classical Theatre Company's 2009 production of Hedda Gabler