This Saturday, the University of the Incarnate Word’s Theatre Arts Department begins its production of Hedda Gabler, one of the most famous plays of Henrik Ibsen, widely considered the “father of modern drama.”
The play, first performed in Munich in 1891, begins with its young antiheroine trapped in a gilded cage of bourgeois melancholy, surrounded by fainting couches and self-invented — and self-destructive — dramas to keep her mind entertained.
In this adaptation by Jon Robin Baitz, Hedda’s character is transformed into a willful and persuasive protagonist whose actions don’t fall short of displaying actual agency. It’s an interesting spin on a classic — one whose effectiveness remains to be seen.
$5, noon and 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. Sunday matinee Saturday, Nov. 14-Friday Nov. 20, University of the Incarnate Word, 4301 Broadway, (210) 829-3805, uiw.edu.
