ABSTRACT
Hedda Gabler directed by Deborah Warner is briefl y set in the play’s production history, starting with Elizabeth Robins (1891) and Eleonora Duse (1903) in the title role and passing by Glenda Jackson (1975) and Eve Best (2005) before focusing on Warner’s work (1991) in which Fiona Shaw performs Hedda. This chapter gives a detailed account of the production, referring to critical responses to it as well as to reviews of the earlier productions cited. It raises questions as to whether and how Hedda Gabler speaks to 1991, having come out of the years 1979-90 when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of Britain and Thatcherism had entirely transformed the country. These were also the years when Deborah Warner advanced her career as a director. Essentially writing a socio-cultural study, or-more explicitly put-a sociological one, the author draws on her expertise in the sociology of the theater and performance in which her work on the theory of Pierre Bourdieu plays a part.
