Ibsen's Year at Bam: From Corsets to Plexiglas

Summary

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[Thomas Ostermeier] is one of Germany's most talented directors - and in a country where the director, rather than the actor, is the star, that says a lot. A pedantic young man, his Hedda Gabler was a visually minimalist one in a contemporary setting complete with cell phones and laptops. The mise en scène consisted of a rotating Plexiglas bungalow, adorned with a giant pea green sofa, and accompanied by a perpetual rain. The German cast drummed out the story calmly and pitch perfect. It was bone chilling to watch the quick demise of [Hedda Gabier], who, bored to tears, begins running amok as she feels her life ambitions slip through her fingers. The text had been tampered with quite a bit by translator Hirsch Schmidt-Henkel, and all curlicues had effectually been straightened out. This was a Hedda Gabler peopled by hip, Angst-ridden yuppies with far too much dough for their own good.

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Ibsen's Year at Bam: From Corsets to Plexiglas

It started out with a corseted Cate Blanchett in what was a rather bland Australian interpretation of Hedda Gabier, but it finished...

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