Hedda Tesman (Gabler)

In the performance program for Hedda Gabler, director Barthold Halle writes that the background for the project was that the puppetry ensemble "often have wanted to perform for adults. Frivolous dreams of revue or late-night erotic cabarets have been dreamt. Then two things happened: The theatre could determine that solid successes had secured the repertoire for children for a long time to come, and Bjørg Vindsetmo and Kjersti Germeten launched the idea of Hedda. (...)  

Our puppet maker, Lisbeth Narud, started drawing at an early phase of the process, and changed her drawings as the discussions progressed."

Lisbeth Narud stated the following in an interview done by Vibeke Helgesen: "There is something in preparing for work in a team. I have to try to figure out the relationship the others in the team have to the material and their images of it. The most satisfying work situations are those when my images and the team's images more or less correspond. I often need to let the impressions mill around for a bit, before I can decide how to approach it. I mostly want to try to stay true to my own images..."

(Helgesen, Vibeke: Førstemann ut blant de norske scenografer (literally: The first among the Norwegian stage designers), from Ånd i hanske, 1996.)

Hedda Tesman (Gabler) was played by Kjersti Germeten.

Sceneweb refers to the other puppets registered from the production. These are: Jørgen Tesman, Eilert Løvborg, Brack, Mrs. Elvsted and Miss Juliane Tesman.

SOURCES:

Oslo Nye Teater (Oslo New Theatre). Performance program, by director Barthold Halle.  

Helgesen, Anne M.: Animasjonen - Figurteatrets velsignelse og forbannelse. Norsk Figurteaterhistorie (literally: Animation - The blessing and curse of puppetry. Norwegian Puppetry History). Dr. Art. thesis in theatre theory, 2003, UiO. 

Helgesen, Vibeke: Førstemann ut blant de norske scenografer (literally: The first among the Norwegian stage designers), from Ånd i hanske, issue no. 1, 1996:6.

Donated by: Oslo Nye Teater (Oslo New Theatre). Knut Wiulsrød.

Transported 30.06.2020.

The head of Hedda was cut from a plastic material (Styrofoam, Sundolitt isolation material or similar), after which it was fortified with cotton gauze and glue. (White glue meant to glue wood would work fine.) It is likely that textile gauze was used for the forehead and nose, and that thin glove leather was used for the rest of the facial surfaces. The face was long and narrow, and the mouth stretched horizontally across the lower part of it. The eyes were long and narrow, clearly marked with black glass beads for pupils.

Hedda's hair was reminiscent of Medusa's head, with twirling snakes. These "snakes" were sewn from textile, some of which with a piano pattern, but other than this, the hair, the head and the face were white. Hedda's hair was filled with cotton wool and stood out in all directions.

The corset was a very visible part of the torso, almost as if the puppet could crack at the waist. The dress was long and reached to the ankles.

It seems as if the textiles were mostly from cotton materials. The shawl may have been made from an artificial material or from artificial materials.

Hedda was a Bunraku-inspired theatre puppet, and the puppeteer held it in front of her own body. The puppet had a solid handle fastened at the back of her head, a construction providing great mobility to the head and the body. The neck was also flexible, and could be twisted towards the right and the left. It may also have been possible to prolong it.

The puppet's body looked tall and slim, with a corset drawn tight at the waist, a symbol of the limitations of her possibilities to express herself. Hedda's love for music was symbolised through a shawl decorated with a piano pattern. Her arms were the puppeteer's arms, hidden behind the long and wide shawl.

Hedda's chest was massive, likely cut from a plastic material. She had joints at the waist and the pelvic area, where the legs were fastened. The legs had joints at the hips, the knees, and the ankles.

That Hedda's body was held in front of the puppeteer made it possible to give it large physical movements, but it also made it possible to control the movements with the help of the puppeteer's arm (made to look like Hedda's arm). The puppet had legs, and the feet were clad in red boots, partially visible beneath the long dress.

Hedda was made in white, from her head with the snake-like hair, her chalk-white face and her body, as well as the shawl she wore, only broken up by a piano pattern.

The puppeteer was visible and clad in black, as the puppeteers were not to be too visible for the audience.

From Henrik Ibsen's notes for Hedda Gabler:

"The play is to revolve around 'the unsurmountable', to long and strive for something against convention, against the consciously accepted, also in Hedda. 

In Hedda, there is a fundament of deep poetry. But the surroundings scare her.

Hedda's fundamental demand is: I want to know everything, but stay pure!

It is said that it is a law of nature. Well, then, one rebels against it.

In this play, I have not really wanted to treat so-called problems. To me, the priority has been to describe people, people's moods and people's destinies, based on certain dominant societal circumstances and views."

SOURCE:

Excerpt from the performance program for Hedda Gabler (Oslo Nye Teater (Oslo New Theatre) 1994).