UM to stage ‘Hedda’

ORONO – “A dark play with comic moments” is how associate theater professor Sandra Hardy describes the latest student production opening Nov. 2 at Hauck Auditorium, University of Maine.

“Hedda Gabler,” by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, is a story of a young woman pressured into marriage by convention and the social norms of the 1890s in Norway. She rejects many of the traditional demands of young women – she does not want children, she will not be subservient to her husband, she expresses her opinions freely. And, Hedda Gabler becomes caught up in a Machiavellian scheme to eliminate her husband’s chief competitor for a university professorship. The scheme does not go well.

“She’s a very modern woman,” Hardy said. “I’m afraid she was born at the wrong time and was very lonely and very unhappy as a result. Had she been born today, she probably would be the president or the CEO or General Electric or Hewlett Packard.”

This production of “Hedda Gabler” is of particular significance to Hardy. Born to Scandinavian parents, Hardy reads, writes and speaks Norwegian. Looking for what she considered a more accurate interpretation of the play than the public has seen previously, Hardy personally translated the script into English and adapted the three-hour, four-act production into a two-hour, two-act play. During a reunion last summer in Norway, she enlisted a cousin to help with historical and cultural review of the script. Hardy is an expert on Ibsen, having written her doctoral dissertation on him.

Main cast members are Sarah Farnham of Veazie as Hedda Gabler; Anthony Arnista of Burke, Va., as George Tesman; Greg Middleton of Bangor as Eilert Lovborg; Simon Ferland of Old Town as Judge Brack; Rebecca Bailey of Old Town as Mrs. Elstead; Janice Duy of Caribou as Miss Tesman; and Rachel Chadbourne of Old Town as Berta.

“Hedda Gabler” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 2-3, and Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 8-10, and at 2 p.m. Sundays, Nov. 4 and 11. Admission is $10; students with a Maine Card are admitted free.

For information, call 581-1755.