Henrik Ibsen

Hedda Gabler

Katona József Theatre / Budapest / HU

 

Hedda Gabler has been taught that if everything looks all right, it really is all right. Status, money, comfort. This attractive, exciting, almost perfect woman’s inner being is full of dark tones, secrets, manipulation, selfishness, fear, and suppression. When a former lover unexpectedly reappears in her life, her crust of made-up maximalism starts to crack. With an out of balance Hedda in the middle, the movements of the individuals dancing in circles like moths in her charm become a chaotic wriggle. Under the representative outer layers, we get to see irregular, but much more real faces.

Kriszta Székely’s second production of Ibsen doesn’t only reveal psychological structures and situations through the themes of role-playing, longing for freedom, and facing a raw reality; it is searching for a playing language to refresh the classical material as well.

 

SZÉKELY KRISZTA

Kriszta Székely was born in Budapest. She was trained as a classical ballet dancer, but instead of starting a regular ballet career, she opened a bar in Laos and spent four years there. After returning to Budapest, she started her Stage Director MA training in the University of Drama and Film. Since her graduation in 2015, she is a resident director of Katona József Theatre. In her artistic work Székely is deeply dedicated to demanding and intense collaboration with the ensemble and the creative team, renewed representation of classical plays, discovering unusual territories of theatre art and speaking about politically important issues, such as position of women or the effect of socially constructed roles on a person’s life. She started to teach acting class in the University of Drama and Film in 2016. She won best director’s award in 2017 and 2018 at the National Theater Festival and the Theater Critics Award as best director in 2018 and in 2019.

Her most important productions at the Katona are Petra von Kant by Fassbinder (2014), Nora – Christmas at the Helmers’ by Ibsen (2016), Caucasian Chalk Circle by Brecht (2017) Platonov by Cechov (2019), L’incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi (2020), Othello by Shakespeare (2020) and Hedda Gabler by Ibsen (2022). In 2020 she put on stage Cechov’s Uncle Vania at the Teatro Stabile di Torino, and in 2022 Three Sisters at the Landestheater, Sankt Pölten, Austria. Since last year she has been associate director of the Teatro Stabile of Torino, where she put on stage Richard III. at the beginning of 2023.

 

KATONA JÓZSEF THEATRE

The Katona József Theatre, with more than 100.000 spectators per season, is one of the most prominent and highly-estimated theatres in Hungary. Using modern and innovative methods and theatre language, it presents the problems and most important questions of our society in a way that is enjoyable also for a wider range of audience. One of the important elements of social dialogue is the conscious addressing of young audiences.

The Katona József Theatre, in its present-day form, came into being in 1982. Its members came from the former National Theatre, and started to work as an independent company at the Katona József Theatre. This new artistic team considered its important task, on the one hand, to be open, sensitive, and receptive to the new problems of Hungarian society, and to respond to these problems. On the other hand, they also believed it to be an important duty, instead of nurturing traditions, to find the theatrical tools and language with which one can articulate the problems raised by life.

The Katona József Theatre strives to enforce maximum literary sophistication, starting from the selection of dramas to be put on the repertoire, through the consistent rejection of commercial plays, all the way up to the preparation of translations and retranslations, and cooperation with translators. The Katona József Theater started its work as a realistic theatre in the 1980s (but even then not in the sense of narrowly understood stylistic realism, but in the comprehensive aesthetic sense of its relationship to reality). We consider it important that in the spirit of commitment to concrete reality, the playing style of our theatre should be as diverse, rich and open as possible.

After its foundation, the Katona József Színház was directed by two important directors, Gábor Székely and Gábor Zsámbéki. Between 1989 and 2011 Gábor Zsámbéki was its director, and since 2011 Gábor Máté has directed the Katona. Katona is a member of the MITOS 21 international theatre association. The Katona has worked with a fix, resident company of actors ever since its foundation. The members of the Hedda Gabler cast are all members of the company.

 

CAST:

 

Hedda Tesman, born Gabler – Jordán Adél

Jörgen Tesman PhD. – Bányai Kelemen Barna

Ejlert Lövborg – Mészáros Béla

Thia – Mentes Júlia

Brack, judge – Takátsy Péter

Aunt Julle, Jörgen’s aunt – Kiss Eszter

 

Director: Székely Kriszta

 

Assistant: Tiwald György

Scenery: Balázs Juli

Scenery assistant: Fehér Luca Kata

Costumes: Pattantyus Dóra

Dramaturgy: Szabó-Székely Ármin

Music: Matisz Flóra Lili

Lights: Bárány Bence

Prompter: Schaefer Andrea

Stage manager: Valovics István

 

Stage masters: Fodor István, Fórián Péter

Decorators: Brusznyiczki János, Frankó Bence, Kovács Bálint, Kurucz András, Lakatos Dezső, Molnár László, Szabó András, Szakács László, Szalontai István

Chief of props: Tölli Judit

Prop woman: Kertész Janka

Lighting chief: Pető Gergő

Lighting technicians: Bárány Bence, Kovács Mózes, Makray Gábor, Mészáros Gábor, Sziebert Sebestyén

Dresser: Kovács Ildikó

Dressmakers: Batta Eszter, Elek Bea, Kulcsár Nóra

Hair stylist: Szeberényi Lejla

Hairdresser: Szabó Sára

Sound technicians: Szomszéd Máté, Héricz Anna, Nagy Réka

 

Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes, without intermission / 14+

the language of the performance: HU

subtitle: RO, EN

Premiere: 15th of October, 2022.