Henrik Ibsen’s play "Hedda Gabler" premiered in 1891. Its female protagonist sparked controversy for defying 19th-century norms and challenging societal expectations of women. The proto-feminist play has inspired nearly two dozen film and television adaptations and countless theater productions. Now, the Old Globe Theatre has commissioned a new translation of "Hedda Gabler" to speak more directly to a contemporary audience.
Just last year, a new film version of Ibsen’s "Hedda Gabler" starring Tessa Thompson and directed by Nia DaCosta was released. Now, Katie Holmes tackles the title role for the Old Globe Theatre, and it’s clear why the play continues to speak to audiences, especially women.
"I think that female rage resonates," Holmes said. "Time and time again, right?"
Holmes is about to take the stage in Erin Cressida Wilson’s new translation of Ibsen’s play, directed by the Globe’s Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director, Barry Edelstein.
"I've always loved this play," Holmes added. "And just the opportunity to take on such a well-known role and work with Barry again and also work with Erin, who's done a really strong adaptation. We've been getting together for about a year now, meeting, going through different drafts, and I find it to be really exciting because it's a huge challenge. I think that this character is one that speaks to all women. There's pieces of her experience on that stage, I think, that are very relatable emotionally. Obviously, there's a lot of big metaphors and a lot of actions that seem demonic. But what we've tried to do is give perspective on her perspective."
And in some ways, little has changed since the 1890s.
"I think that we think that we've come so far as women, and we have, but we all know that we also have not at all," Cressida Wilson said during a break from rehearsals. "And particularly with #MeToo, with people coming out and speaking their truth, I think that we all relate to Hedda Gabler. And part of it is that she has complex desires, and we relate to that. And we relate also to the world saying, 'You're not supposed to be that complex. You just did one thing. Why are you now doing another thing?' So that's why I call it the kaleidoscope of Hedda. And we're all so hard to pin down, but why should we be pinned down?"
Edelstein commissioned a new English-language version of the play that he wanted to direct. It is the first time he will direct "Hedda Gabler" or any Ibsen play.
"Ibsen is known as the father of the modern theater," Edelstein noted. "He was the first writer to bring psychological realism onto the stage in a way that we now recognize when we're watching 'The Sopranos' or something like that. Recognizable people, just regular folks dealing with regular problems, people who are struggling, people who are difficult, people who change their minds, people who are trying to figure out their place in the bigger world. And 'Hedda Gabbler' is one of his masterpieces."
"Hedda Gabler" revolves around the title character, the daughter of a general, who is trapped in a marriage and a house that she does not want. Her response to her situation has stirred debate about whether she is a feminist hero or a bored aristocrat striking out in a malicious and destructive way.
"It's the female Hamlet in many ways, the contemporary female Hamlet," Edelstein said. "It's a play that's about a woman trying to navigate the patriarchy in a very specific way pertinent to that period. It's very much a feminist play about a woman whose options are circumscribed in a world of men and the behaviors she is then driven to in order to survive. But 150 years later, while the patriarchy is still very much in force and apparently on the rise at this particular moment in ways that none of us might have anticipated, it's also true that women have an agency and freedom and power in the world — that are the women who are heads of state and heads of corporations. It's not the same world as Norway in 1891. So the play's center shifts to a bigger idea about an idiosyncratic personality, a personality that's larger than the world she lives in, being suppressed and repressed by that world. The critique of the patriarchy is very much still there, but it resonates in a larger context now about a free spirit: a woman of imagination, a woman of wit and irony, a woman of desires for greatness, being put in a box by a world that isn't really comfortable with that."
So the tragedy shifts from men trying to control the will and the life of a woman to a society trying to contain a free spirit and impose boundaries on her imagination.
The Globe's "Hedda Gabler" begins preview performances on Saturday, and the run has been extended to March 15.
Some noteworthy Heddas include Ingrid Bergman, Diana Rigg and Glenda Jackson.
