"Hedda Gabler": the stimulating mise-en-scène of Antonio Calenda

Abstract

This article examines the very recent mise-en-scène made by the Teatro Stabile di Trieste, directed by Antonio Calenda (Manuela Mandracchia as the protagonist), and highlights the tied relationship that the director has intended to establish with the more provocative Ibsenian critics, according to which Hedda could be anything except the character of a proto-martyr of the Decadency ideology. The Ibsenian text – in Calenda’s staging – is haunted by an incestuous ghost between Hedda and her father, the General Gabler, which – in the past – stopped her love to Løvborg, and – in the present – stops her marriage with Tesman (Hedda accepts to marry Tesman, but she keeps her maiden name (Hedda Gabler, not Hedda Tesman).