The King of Prussia Players
Community Theater for
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania
Our 44th Year of Fine and Fun Productions

"Hedda" Opened May 11th

Hedda Gabler
By Henrik Ibsen
Opened February 9th
(In our Studio Theater Format)
Produced by
Julie Leavitt
Directed by
David Ben Leavitt

Our Cast

Aunt Julia	Charla Bendas
Hedda Gabler	Kathleen Carlin
Judge Brack	Ben Hynson
Berle	Janice Jankowski
Jorgen Tesman	Christopher DeWitt
Ellert Lovborg	Jim Ludovici
Thea Elvsted	Julie Ann Marra

Our technical staff and back stage crew
Stage Manager - Sarah Urfer
Tech. Director - Larry Anderson
Lights - Tom Dinnella
Sound - Fran Kobialka
Fx - Bil Katrina
Gaffer - Jacques Louvet

Always open to interpretation by both the director and the cast, this classic Ibsen drama (Tragedy?) gives The Players a chance to make anew a powerful piece of theater. Staged in our limited seating Studio Theater Format where you are, as one wag put it, close enough to smell the action, the remote voyeurism of the proscenium framed stage disappears and you are drawn into a much more intimate theatrical encounter.

The Press Release

The King of Prussia Players bring a touch of Norway to Upper Merion with the performance of Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler." The drama will be performed in an intimate studio setting on the stage at Upper Merion Area High School in King of Prussia. Ibsen's drama opens a window into the life of intelligent and strong-willed Hedda Gabler (Kathleen Carlin) as she struggles with the strictures of Victorian life. Hedda, the upper-crust daughter of a respected general, is now the bourgeois wife of Jurgen Tesman (Christopher DeWitt), an ineffective academic who spent most of their honeymoon digging around in libraries. Hedda's only diversions are visits from Jurgen's cloying Aunt Julia (Charla Bendas) and a lecherous neighbor, Judge Brack (Ben Hynson). The sudden reappearance of old beau Eilert Lovborg (Jim Ludovici) and former schoolmate Thea Elvsted (Julie Marra) cause Hedda to embark on a dangerous---and ultimately fatal---game of manipulation in a desperate effort to find some measure of independence and "control a human destiny."

Director David Leavitt believes a new translation of Ibsen's drama published last year will be a pleasant surprise to people familiar with earlier versions. "I've read at least five translations of "Hedda Gabler." The problem with some of them is the language is much more early 20th-century. It seems stilted to the modern ear. There's one other translation that worked reasonably well, but it was a little too colloquial. I felt this translation gives the right combination of modern sensibility without becoming too trendy." He is also working with the cast to balance the dramatic tension with some lighter touches of comic relief. "People tend to see 'Hedda Gabler' as strictly a tragedy---the tragedy of Hedda, a woman caught outside her time. But Ibsen also brought humor to how he treated the bourgeoisie of his time. In the treatment of Jurgen Tesman, for example....If we see him as an academic who's out of his depth in human relationships, his gaffes become humorous. Auntie Julia's reactions are very funny. For example, when Hedda mistakes her hat for the maid's, Julia picks up a parasol and says, 'That's mine, too.' It's a funny moment, and if we play it as straight seriousness, we lose that aspect of the show."

The production will also note, but not flaunt, the sexual tensions suggested by the script. Explains Leavitt, "The sexuality in Victorian times tended not to be anywhere near as open as our times, and we're not going to play it as a very open thing. However, reading the text, comparing the various translations, there are strong overtones of sexuality. With Hedda and the three men in the play, as well as overtones between Hedda and Thea.
In the production, you will see these as hinted at. We are not going to make it obvious, because even brought-up-to-date it's never obvious."

Authentic Norwegian props and decorations will add a touch of authenticity to the Players' production. Pronunciation of names were confirmed with the Norwegian embassy, which also provided some pieces for set dressing. The director notes, "As with any show that is part of its time, this is very much a Norwegian show. It's mainly in the little things---we're trying to get the specificity of the place as a way of conveying the
universality of the message."

Interesting Insights Into the Original Work

"Hedda Gabler dramatizes the vanity and destructiveness of romantic visions of heroism and the fatal consequences of a woman's refusal to accept the sexual passion implicit in those visions. Throughout the play Hedda feeds parasitically on her dream of Eilert Lovburg as a demigod, without ever loving him. The consequences of Eilert's death, caused by Hedda's demonic attempt with one stroke to actualize her romantic ideal of him and permanently avoid the sexual passion it involves, move this tragedy to its desperate end. Hedda impels the destruction of her romantic hero: the ignoble manner of his death in turn destroys her romantic idealism. The loss of that idealism, the fear of scandal, and the certain enslavement to Judge Brack that Eilert's death ironically entails force Hedda to destroy herself."

-- (T.C.Theoharis, ELH 1983 V50 pp791)

"In 1878, Henrik Ibsen wrote, 'A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.' Though written in his notes for A Doll's House, another great Ibsen classic, this is the same environment against which Hedda Gabler is framed. A woman's desires were expected to be subjugated to the lives of the men around her. There was no socially acceptable outlet for the desires that didn't fit the traditional female model. Hedda's desire for life is great, but she lacks the courage to challenge what is acceptable behavior in the eyes of society. Her fear of being "scandalized" is far greater than any inner cravings. She becomes a woman who cautiously exists in the world, paralyzed and embittered by fear, unable to take responsibility for her life.

"By the time Hedda Gabler was published in 1890, Henrik Ibsen was a major force in Western theatre. His major plays were at the forefront of the Realism movement, and his themes of social and moral justice caused both condemnation and admiration. Ibsen has been accused of being a "femenist," as his most important characters are women who are trapped in a web of societal pressures and expectations that keep them from fully realizing who they are as people. Ibsen denied the specific label, insisting that his women were representative of overall societal injustice, and as long as even one group of people are not free, then no man, no society is free."

-- Susan Boulanger, The Vanguard Theatre Ensemble

For More Information:

The King of Prussia Players
Box 75
King of Prussia, Pa 19406
(610) 277-9505