Hedda Gabler: The second of the Alban Spring Classics!
Just in time for Women’s History Month, Henrik Ibsen’s dark and convoluted drama showcases one of the most iconic female characters of the 19th century.
Location:
Alban Arts Center
65 Olde Main Street
St. Albans WV 25177
Dates and Times:
March 24, 25 & 31 –April 1 at 8pm
Sunday Matinees: March 26 & April 2 at 2pm
Tickets:
$15 for Adults, $10 Students/Seniors. Group rates are available. Visit our website www.albanartscenter.com to purchase tickets.
For more information call 304-721-8896
Directed by Leah Turley. Olivia Morris as Hedda, Cameron Vance as George, Manda Neal as Thea, Tyler Eldridge as Lövborg, John Halstead as Judge Brack, with Jennifer Anderson and Terri Olson.
Synopsis:
Hedda Gabler, at first glance, is a bored aristocrat whose marriage of convenience to George is rapidly losing all interest. However, her ennui covers a deep and irresistible craving for a life outside the constraints placed on a 19th century woman of good breeding. Her husband George has an up and coming career as a professor, which promises to secure a solid future for both of them; when Hedda is visted by old friends who are happy to share news she has missed during her honeymoon. Within a short space of time these gossipy tidbits morph Hedda’s mundane life into one of erratic jealousy and tragic choices.
Thea Elvsted, Hedda’s old schoolmate, tells her of Eilert Lövborg (an intimate friend of Hedda’s from the past) who has reformed his alcoholism and is preparing to publish a ground breaking manuscript in the same field as George. Thea and Lövborg have developed a close working relationship, and it becomes apparent that Thea has left her husband, awaking Hedda’s jealousy.
Meanwhile, George learns from Judge Brack that his confirmed professorship has a potential rival in Lövborg instead. Hedda and George now face financial hardship without an assured income. When Loevborg visits the house to greet the newlyweds he confides that he will not seek the professorship, and states that his new manuscript is his sole focus. As it was written with the assistance of Thea Hedda’s bitterness gets the best of her, and she manipulates Lövborg into drinking and attending a stag party with George and Judge Brack that evening.
The next morning George returns home in possession of Lövborg’s manuscript, which was dropped while drunk. Hedda asks to read it before it is returned to Lövborg. A distraught Lövborg arrives later in the day and fears his life is over. Despite knowing the whereabouts of his masterpiece, Hedda convinces him to commit suicide and gives him a one of her father’s pistols, with the expectation that he will die beautifully. Hedda burns the manuscript, in effect destroying Lövborg and Thea’s symbolic child of the mind, at the same time revealing her own actual pregnancy to George.
That evening Judge Brack arrives with news that Lövborg has committed suicide. George, in remorse, decides to work with Thea to reconstruct the manuscript using Thea’s notes. Privately, Hedda takes a moment to relish Lövborg’s “beautiful” death, but is disabused by Brack’s admission that it was probably a drunken accident in a brothel. He also recognized the gun, and makes a smarmy proposition in return for keeping her name out of the newspapers.
Hedda is trapped by her own manipulations, and left with scandal or sexual blackmail as her only alternatives, plays a final wild tune on her piano before shooting herself.
This play is Rated PG 13 for mild language and violence.
Run time is 2 hours