BEAUTIFUL, BORED, AND
BENT ON DESTRUCTION

A brisk new adaptation of Ibsen’s classic showcases
Katie Holmes’s ferocious Hedda—while questioning
the modern impulse to excuse her behavior

The Old Globe is staging Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler in a streamlined adaptation by Erin Cressida Wilson. First performed in 1891, the play has seen countless English-language productions, usually in four acts, but this revival runs a taut 80 minutes without an intermission. The production itself proves admirable under Barry Edelstein‘s direction, though some of the interpretive framing around Hedda invites criticism.

Alexander Hurt as Ejlert Lövborg, Katie Holmes as Hedda Gabler, and Charlie Barnett as George Tesman

Hedda, newly married to the mild-mannered academic George Tesman, returns from a long honeymoon to face what promises to be a suffocatingly conventional life. Her husband is well-meaning but dull, the house feels claustrophobic, and the future laid out before her appears painfully predictable. The arrival of Judge Brack, a worldly family friend with ambiguous intentions, and Eilert Lövborg, a brilliant but troubled scholar with a complicated past with Hedda, quickly disrupts the fragile domestic calm.

Charlie Barnett as George Tesman

As professional rivalries and personal histories collide, Hedda begins to exert the only power she feels she possesses—her ability to influence the lives of those around her. What begins as subtle manipulation gradually spirals into a series of reckless choices that push the characters toward consequences none of them fully anticipate.

Alfredo Narciso as Judge Brack

Much controversy surrounds the character of Hedda. One interpretation has long cast her as one of the most destructive female figures in literature since Lady Macbeth—a ruthless, neurotic woman unable to face the prospect of a boring life, hungry for power over others while terrified of being controlled herself. Another view, echoed in the Old Globe playbill, presents Hedda primarily as a victim of patriarchy, trapped in a society where men hold the reins of authority.

Celeste Arias as Thea Elvsted

This production nods toward that latter perspective, but the evidence onstage points elsewhere. There is simply too much malice, manipulation, and cowardice in Hedda’s actions to dismiss them as the by-product of a man’s world.

Whatever one’s interpretation of the character, there can be no dispute about Katie Holmes’s performance. Her Hedda is intense, energetic, and commanding from the first moment to the last. When she commits a heinous act involving the stove’s live fire, the audience audibly gasped.

Katie Holmes as Hedda Gabler

Holmes is surrounded by strong supporting performances. Alexander Hurt brings nuance to the complex Lövborg. Alfredo Narciso is superb as Judge Brack, whose smooth manners conceal a calculating and lecherous interest in Hedda. Charles Barnett makes Tesman convincingly weak and overwhelmed as Hedda’s husband. The cast is ably rounded out by Celeste Arias, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, and Katie MacNichol.

Saidah Arrika Ekulona as Aunt Julie Tesman and Charlie Barnett as George Tesman

Adding a subtle but effective atmospheric layer, Korrie Yamakoa plays an almost continuous piano score from above and behind the stage, lending the production a quietly ominous undertone.

Charlie Barnett as George Tesman

More than a century after its premiere, Hedda Gabler continues to provoke strong reactions precisely because it refuses easy explanations. Whether viewed as villain, victim, or something more troublingly complex, Hedda remains one of theater’s most unsettling portraits of a restless intelligence determined to test the limits of power—and ultimately itself.

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photos by Rich Soublet II
artwork by Ben Wiseman

Hedda Gabler
The Old Globe
1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tues–Fri at 7; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 2 & 7
ends on March 22, 2026
for tickets ($61+), call 619.234.5623 or visit The Old Globe

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