Consider the responses you would wish an audience to have during a performance of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, discuss some of the ways in which some of these might be achieved.

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Consider the responses you would wish an audience to have during a performance of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, discuss some of the ways in which some of these might be achieved

During this essay I hope to realise the response that I would want the audience to have of the play Hedda Gabler. I have to consider the ways in which this could be achieved, through the actor’s behaviour on stage and set design and other aspects such as music and lighting used.

        When many people watch the play, they may view Hedda Gabler as a selfish and cold person, who has no feelings for anyone, except herself, they could see her as a powerful woman who knows exactly what she wants. Hedda is commonly played as neurotic, however I would want the audience to also see the over side of Hedda, what is inside her emotionally rather than the cold external front that she puts up, I would want the audience to see her as a lost women trapped by her position in society “Hedda is trapped in a marriage of convenience”- Shipley, and tied by her duties as a new wife “ how much she has filled out on the trip” the expectations that now she is married to Jorgen she must also sleep with him and become a mother. This side could be shown through many different ways by both the actress who plays Hedda and the characters which surround her during the play and their reactions and actions towards her. When Hedda is talking to Brack about her honeymoon, she tells him that she did not enjoy it, hinting towards the more tied down and lost soul inside her and that she finds him boring.

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“It was all very fine for him,

But for me! Oh my dear Mr Brack!

For me it was horribly tedious”

To show the audience the desperate woman, I would want the actress playing Hedda to show desperation in her voice through trembles and exaggerated words, by clenching and rising of her fists, and the expression of anger and frustration on her face and her eyes to show desperation would show the audience in a very visual and bold way that is simple for them to understand, the other side of the character, other than the bold strides ...

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