Hedda Gabler

The story of a woman who ends up putting a bullet through her head.

Hedda Gabler has married the man who promised that her life with him would be filled with "receptions, soirées and cocktail parties," instead of the aspiring writer she really loves. A few days into the honeymoon, the harsh reality sinks in: she is bored. Monumentally bored. She has barely settled in as mistress of her (lavish) new house when her husband’s career prospects begin to dim; for her former admirer, on the other hand, the future looks bright. Hedda Gabler has bet on the wrong horse. But in a male-dominated society, she refuses to become a victim of humiliation. Almost nonchalantly, in barely 24 hours, she concocts a vindictive plot, a contest with fateful consequences, as her way of getting back at the world.

The cool detachment of this female icon of modern theatre as she toys with the pistols she inherited from her father, the General—she fires into the air simply to relieve the boredom!—reflects the vision of the co-artistic director of Berlin’s prestigious Schaubühne. Under his direction, the company channels the anomie of a bourgeoisie devoid of any true desire. By infusing the play with a sense of psychological rather than societal oppression, and emphasizing the feeling of purposelessness that underlies its irrationality and violence, Thomas Ostermeier—a leading figure in contemporary theatre—invests the intimate drama Ibsen wrote in 1890 with ferocious relevance. And the Norwegian playwright’s message still rings true: beware of depending on others to fulfil your dreams and ambitions.

Performed in German with English and French surtitles