Hedda

by Tanika Gupta inspired by Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond on 21 October 2025

Hettie Macdonald directs Pearl Chanda as Hedda, Joe Bannister as George (Jörgen) Tesman, Milo Twomey as John Brack, Bebe Cave as Alice Smith (Mrs Elvsted), Jake Mann as Leonard (Ejlert Lövborg), Rina Fatania as Shona (Berte) and Caroline Harker as Aunt Julia (Juliane) in Tanika Gupta's adaptation of Ibsen's 1890 play Hedda Gabler, cleverly re-imagined as taking place in London in 1948.

In this setting Hedda is a film star of the 1930s and 40s determined to retire rather than keep up the pretence of her public persona. The social constraints which suffocate the original Hedda are here replaced by the trauma created by long suppressing her identity as an Anglo-Indian in order to succeed in a film world bedevilled by ingrained racism (the parallel with the careers of such stars as Merle Oberon is obvious). Aristocratic hauteur is replaced by Hedda's consuming insecurity masked by reserve, but the consequent ruthlessness remains as formidable as ever.

Around her the constellation of hapless academics - her second-rate husband and the fragile alcoholic genius - are replaced by rival screenwriters, and the calculating judge Brack by a powerful film producer. In perhaps the boldest realignment, the household servant becomes Hedda's ayah; the menfolk and Aunt Julia cannot understand the hold this figure has on her mistress, but there is a clever twist which explains all to us but remains opaque to the characters. on stage

The great scenes of the original - the disparaging of Julia's hat, the condescension towards George, the manipulation of Alice and the corruption of Leonard, Brack's machinations - all survive and thrive in this new atmosphere, and the cast deliver exemplary performances in a fascinating variation on Ibsen's themes. The evocation of the prejudiced world of glamorous film-making is transmitted with shocking directness when the men talk contemptuously about half-castes, and the threat to Hedda's position is made abundantly clear when the details of Leonard's screenplay are discussed - he has used Hedda's own story in fictional form to create what the others see, without irony, as a masterpiece of cinema, where she sees only an unforgivable personal betrayal. (In the original the details of Lövborg's manuscript are not revealed.)

There is thus slightly more melodrama in the situation, but nonetheless this was a fascinating evening.