Hedda Cleverly Reimagined
“No I can’t deal with illness or death!”
Hedda
Tanika Gupta has done an excellent job of adapting Henrik Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler at the Orange Tree. She has given a reason for Hedda’s driven personality and sense of entitlement. Set in Chelsea, London in 1948 as India is relieving itself of the British Raj. Hedda (Pearl Chanda) a successful Hollywood actress has married for the third time, to film writer and director George Tesman (Joe Bannister). We meet Shona (Rita Fatania) Hedda’s maid who has looked after Hedda as her ayah in India. As an actor Rita Fatania is most expressive as she rolls her eyes and shrugs her shoulders in disagreement, flouncing off.
Hedda has left the Hollywood Studio mid-contract and had to pay them for defaulting on films not made, but contracted for. Caroline Harker plays George’s Aunt Julia who with her sister has relocated to London. Julia brought up George. The first time we see Hedda she is being rude about Julia’s hat.
Alice Smith (Bebe Cave) has left her husband to follow the man who used to tutor her husband’s children. The tutor is Leonard (Jake Mann) a screenwriter who is a reformed alcoholic. Completing the cast is John Brack (Milo Twomey) a film producer who is interested in making George’s screenplay and fascinated by Hedda.
Leonard Webb, who is Anglo-Indian but passes for white, knew Hedda as a child when she was brought up in General Gabler’s household. Hedda has always been headstrong and different. She is very beautiful and the implication is that she is Anglo Indian and this information if made public in 1948 would have destroyed her Hollywood career. We are told that Hedda’s mother died in childbirth.
Taking Ibsen’s story of the headstrong and unconventional woman and updating it 60 years has succeeded for Tanika Gupta. The main character structure is there and we see Hedda’s motivation for her actions. Leonard has written a new screenplay which, if produced by John Brack will eclipse George Tesman’s planned film. Leonard Webb’s subject would also expose Hedda and so there are two good reasons for Hedda to remove the threat to her husband’s career move.
Director Hettie Macdonald gets excellent performances from her beautifully dressed cast and Pearl Chanda is especially steely and bitchy as Hedda, whilst we admire her resolve, we cannot forgive her methods. Joe Bannister’s well meaning George Tesman is not bright enough to recognise Hedda’s deceit and only John Brack is the judge of that. I really liked this new version of Hedda Gabler.
Editor of TheatreVibe.co.uk
See ABOUT US
Production Notes
Hedda
Adapted by Tanika Gupta from Henrik Ibsen
Directed by Hettie Macdonald
Cast
Starring:
Caroline Harker
Jake Mann
Joe Bannister
Milo Twomey
Pearl Chanda
Rina Fatania
Bebe Cave
Creatives
Director: Hettie Macdonald
Set Designer: Simon Kenny
Costume Designer:Sheena Napier
Lighting Designer: Ben Ormerod
Fight Director: Ruth Cooper-Brown
Composer : Pouya Ehsaei
Information
Running Time: Two hours 20 minutes including one interval
Booking to 22nd November 2025
Theatre:
Orange Tree Theatre
Rail/Tube: Richmond
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Orange Tree
on 27th October 2025