Hedda directing

During this lesson, I directed Millie and James in a particular scene in Hedda Gabler. This scene is based around Tesman and Hedda. Tesman is speaking to Hedda and is oblivious as to how angry she appears. She is ignoring him and is speaking very short and curtly when she does speak to him. She gets increasingly aggravated and speaks about her pistols, which makes Tesman nervous and anxious. 

To make this scene unusual and interesting, we took the piece and decided to make it more modern. Also, we decided to take the piece and change the practitioner to a more absurd style. 
First of all, we played with the idea that Hedda is trapped, and that Tesman is constantly annoying and aggravating her. To do this, we had Hedda sat on a chair and had Tesman circling around her. To make his character as absurd and annoying as possible, we decided that James should be clowning around her. He created huge arm gestures and danced around her. 

Then, we decided to play with the proximity of the characters. To portray the idea that Tesman was constricting Hedda, we created an imaginary box around Hedda and told James that he had to do the same, but not leave the box. This was interesting, as it showed us how Tesman was suffocating Hedda. It created a far different interpretation of the piece as it added a further level in Tesmans annoyance. It fully portrayed the idea that Tesman was frustrating and generally annoying to Hedda. It allowed us to feel more sympathetic for Hedda and less towards Tesman. 

However, we still felt that our interpretation was rather lacking, so we decided to make it more absurd and unusual. To do this, we played with different levels and set- we decided to have Hedda sat on a chair and have Tesman underneath the chair with his head craning up. This primarily showed us the power imbalance between the characters. Although it may appear that Tesman has the control over the situation, the set shows us that Hedda has him 'wrapped around her little finger'. James continued with the absurd ideas and held onto a rum bottle and a spoon which added to his annoying characteristics. Moreover, James was very exaggerated and absurd, and made his voice very exaggerated and annoying. However, Millie was normal and was rather tired of him. This showed the relationship between Hedda and Tesman and how strained it is. 

Overall, this was a very effective activity as it showed us how we could direct Hedda Gabler in our exam. It also showed us how we could reinterpret the script and really specialize the piece.