Belgian premiere
Why fight against reality, Hedda?
Accept it and make the best of it!
People can get used to anything!
What drives a person so far that she can only feel contempt for her surroundings and no longer respects human lives?
Social horror – that’s what Ibsen’s classic play becomes in the hands of Norwegian-Danish director Rebekka Nilsson. Our modern, hedonistic, high-achievement society has produced a bunch of little monsters pathetically and obtrusively clamouring for attention, wanting to be liked on social media, pursuing personal success and pathologically longing for happiness. Everything revolves around ego, lust and porn.
Hedda Gabler and her antagonists have to survive in an overstimulated, suffocating and pugnacious macho hell populated by childish monsters or monstrous children. Nobody is afraid to fight for their own interests with tooth and nail here; walking over dead bodies is justified. The beast in man reveals itself. Everything is ballistic in this hell. What happens when people can no longer stop to ask where we are headed and why?
HEDDA is a graduation project by Rebekka Nilsson for the Theatre Directing programme of the Academy for Theatre and Dance (ATD) in Amsterdam.
concept and direction Rebekka Nilsson - adaptation (after Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen) Roel Pronk and Rebekka Nilsson - performance Coen Bril, Babette Engels, Yannick Greweldinger, Bram Gerrits, Momo Samwel, Simme Wouters - dramaturgy /assistant director Sofie Boiten - costume design Rebekka Wörmann - costume assistant Ana Resede - music /composition Matthías Sigurdsson - soundscape Alexandros Papamarkou - lighting design Vincent Romijn - supervision Florian Hellwig - with special thanks to Henri van Woerkum and Hennes Automobielen - with thanks to Stefijn Lehr, Steven van Watermeulen and the Theatre Directing programme of the ATD, Koen Stegers, Szymon Adamczak, Sarah Moeremans
