Hedda Gabler
Henrik Ibsen
Hedda Gabler
Imagining that marriage might provide her with a welcome escape from her early existence, Hedda is instead stifled by the reality of her new life in a comfortable home. Consumed by the burning desires within her and haunted by a half-forgotten ghost "with vine leaves in his hair", she sets out on a destructive path that pits her lust for drama and beauty against social conformity.
4.0 out of 5 based on 6 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Location |
Northampton |
| Venue |
Royal & Derngate Theatre |
| Director |
Laurie Sansom |
| Cast |
Jack Hawkins, Matti Hougton, Janice McKenzie, Lex Shrapnel, Jay Villiers, Sue Wallace Emma Hamilton |
| From |
July 2012 |
| Until |
July 2012 |
| Box Office |
01536 470470 |
| |
Imagining that marriage might provide her with a welcome escape from her early existence, Hedda is instead stifled by the reality of her new life in a comfortable home. Consumed by the burning desires within her and haunted by a half-forgotten ghost "with vine leaves in his hair", she sets out on a destructive path that pits her lust for drama and beauty against social conformity.
Reviews
The Guardian
Michael Billington
“Above all, Hamilton reminds us Hedda has the soul of a 19th-century aesthete who cannot bear too much reality: she shudders at the dead smell of the marital home and famously wants Eilert Lovborg to die beautifully. What I like about Hamilton is that there is nothing operatic about her Hedda: if she is a destroyer, it is because she is a mix of disappointed idealist and control freak.”
11/07/2012
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The Observer
Susannah Clapp
“Sansom's production has one encumbrance. Andrew Upton's version spells out the heroine's pregnancy, plants sexual explicitness all over the place and plonks down heavy-handed jokes: Jay Villiers's insinuating Judge Brack, an avid part of an Ibsen menage à trois, describes his pathway to the house as (get it?) "the Brack passage". The swirling undercurrent of the tragedy is here too often a ripple on the surface.”
15/07/2012
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The Stage
Caroline Morris
“Without doubt, Ibsen and Sansom excel at revealing raw human emotions, with performances from this group of actors that make the audience feel uncomfortable and ill at ease. Ruth Sutcliffe’s virtually monotone set puts everything in stark relief.”
11/07/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Laura Thompson
“Sansom has done something far harder than he makes it look: he has blown the dust from Ibsen’s masterpiece and brought it to completely believable life. Andrew Upton’s adaptation – first performed with his wife, Cate Blanchett, in the lead – is a tremendous help. Upton firmly grasps the lurking melodrama, keeping the famous line in which Hedda pictures her fantasy love, Ejlert Lovborg, with “vine leaves in his hair”, but he has a droll, demotic voice that brings us up squarely against reality. ”
11/07/2012
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The Times
Libby Purves
“The spice of this performance and production is that, for all the fascination, Hamilton doesn’t try to sell us Hedda as a noble caged eagle. Vulture, more like.”
12/07/2012
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The Sunday Times
Maxie Szakwinska
“Ibsen’s merciless play about deceit and self-deceit works as it should in Sansom’s production: it’s a vice slowly beginning to close.”
15/07/2012
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