HEDDA
The plot is complex enough to warrant a rebriefing. General Gabler’s much-courted daughter has married George Tesman, who is expected to assume a prestigious position at a large university. Hedda’s disappointment with married life begins early, when her husband spends their entire honeymoon poring over antique books, but she looks forward to the extensive social life George has promised her. When it looks as if George’s ascension to academe, and the salary and social standing that go with it, may be postponed, Hedda finds herself facing–temporarily, at least–a life of genteel poverty. Meanwhile, the most ardent of her former suitors, Eilert Lovborg, has written a brilliant book with the assistance of Thea Elvsted, an old schoolmate whom Hedda has always openly scorned and secretly envied. Jealous over what she regards as Lovborg’s betrayal of the bond between them, Hedda burns his manuscript and, after he has declared that its loss has destroyed his will to live, hands him one of her father’s dueling pistols and requests him to “do it beautifully.” His bungled suicide (he literally shoots himself in the balls) does not satisfy Hedda, and rather than deal with the public scandal and private ennui she feels is certain to ensue, she decides to kill herself.
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This Hedda appears to be more nerves than backbone, an impression that’s heightened by having the actress deliver her lines in a brittle treble chirp and giving her a maquillage that makes her look like the bad fairy in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. The sum is a Hedda who’s not in the least heroic, but selfish, malicious, and bonkers in the bargain. It could be argued that this is the definitive Romantic female, but how are we to care about such a person?
