The bourgeois veneer cracks and buckles in Ibsen’s famed drama that portrays a chilling encounter with people living out a dream of total self-expression on the brink of death.

Meet Hedda Gabler. Fêted bourgeois princess, newly married, returned from her honeymoon and ready to move into a dreamy designer villa purchased for her by her husband, Jørgen Tesman. But the new house doesn’t appeal to Hedda. And neither does her new husband.

But events turn from bad to worse when Hedda’s old flame Eilert Løvborg turns up. Like her husband, Løvborg is a respected academic and his upcoming publication is a threat to Tesman’s career. Bursting with secrets, lust and jealousy, a dark plan gradually begins to evolve inside Hedda.

The set is a tastefully decorated living room but a video screen simultaneously shows the six characters in vibrating close-ups that scream the pain and yearning they feel amidst their polished middle-class lives. The Red Room’s intense drama played to packed houses last season, and audiences now get another opportunity to experience the highly talented actress Johanne Louise Schmidt in the title role as Hedda.

In Rune David Grue’s updated version of Ibsen’s classic, the modern designer living room provides the backdrop for a sense of human void in which the dream of success makes everyone a slave to their lowest instincts.

“Incredibly well done and relevant theatre on the national stage.” - Børsen