HEDDA GABLER
adapted from the play by Henrik Ibsen

BELVOIR

 

PREMIERED JUNE 2014

 

"Jacobs’ efforts at inventing a new theatrical language, and her interpretation of the classic text, propels theatre towards something far greater than recreation...Points of comfort in our shared notions of art are the canary in a coal mine, which this production of Hedda Gabler locates, and unleashes upon them ruthless waves of disruption." SUZY GOES SEE

 

After the Broadway premiere of Hedda Gabler in 1902, one reviewer wrote of its extraordinary heroine: ‘Degenerate, selfish, morbid, cruel, bitter, jealous, something of a visionary, something of a lunatic.’

 

Hedda Gabler is trapped inside a conventional life: she married the scholar George Tesman. But money is short, Tesman’s old rival Ejlert Lövborg has turned up again, Judge Brack is visiting with alarming regularity, and Hedda Gabler’s volcanic boredom is reaching its limits. So begins a dangerous game of finding purpose in a purposeless existence.

 

Belvoir’s Resident Director Adena Jacobs has an uncanny ability to uncover the torrents of instinct that run beneath the routines of modern living. Ash Flanders is a man who has made an artform out of playing tragic heroines. Their Hedda Gabler is a primal close-up of Ibsen’s electrifying marriage tragedy.

 

adapted and directed by Adena Jacobs

set designer: Dayna Morrissey

costume designer: David Fleischer

lighting designer: Danny Pettingill

composer: Kelly Ryall

dramaturgue: Luisa Hastings Edge

stage manager: Edwina Guinness

assistant stage manager: Angharad Lindley

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​performed by Ash Flanders, Branden Christine, Lynette Curran, Marcus Graham, Anna Houston, Oscar Redding and Tim Walter

 

"This Hedda is dripping in synth, unease, bold hyperreality and neon-coloured violence...(a) cool, cerebral, cinematic psychodrama."

RIMA SABINA AOUF - CONCRETE PLAYGROUND

 

"A genuine theatrical experiment, a reflection of modern ideologies and individual displacement" CASSIE TONGUE - DAILY REVIEW

 

"Ash Flanders’s Hedda is a metaphor, placed, (like Marianne Moore’s imaginary toads), into a real garden...deeply uneasy, horrifyingly bleak...compelling to watch" ALISON CROGGON - ABC ARTS

 

 

Sydney Theatre Award Nomination:

Best Supporting Actor

 

 

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