Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Hedda Tesman (NHB Modern Plays)
    Hedda Tesman (NHB Modern Plays)
    Hedda Tesman (NHB Modern Plays)
    Ebook193 pages1 hour

    Hedda Tesman (NHB Modern Plays)

    By Cordelia Lynn and Henrik Ibsen

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A doting husband. A troubled writer. A loaded gun. It's 2019 and Hedda Tesman returns to a life she can't seem to escape from.
    After thirty years of playing wife, Hedda is bitter and bored. When her estranged daughter, Thea, suddenly reappears asking for help, the present begins to echo the past and Hedda embarks on a path of destruction.
    Hedda Tesman, by Cordelia Lynn, breathes new life into Henrik Ibsen's classic, asking what we inherit, what we endure and how we carry our history. A vital exploration of motherhood, power and sabotage, the play was produced by Headlong and premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2019, before transferring to The Lowry, Salford.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNick Hern Books
    Release dateSep 30, 2019
    ISBN9781788502559
    Hedda Tesman (NHB Modern Plays)
    Author

    Cordelia Lynn

    Cordelia Lynn is a playwright whose plays include: Love and Other Acts of Violence (Donmar Warehouse, London, 2021); Hedda Tesman, after Henrik Ibsen (Headlong / Chichester Festival Theatre / The Lowry, 2019); a version of Chekhov's Three Sisters (Almeida Theatre, London, 2019); Lela & Co. (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2015); Believers Anonymous (Rosemary Branch Theatre, 2012); and After the War, which has been performed in venues around the UK and abroad. She was the recipient of the 2017 Pinter Commission for a new play at the Royal Court Theatre.

    Read more from Cordelia Lynn

    Related to Hedda Tesman (NHB Modern Plays)

    Related ebooks

    Performing Arts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Qui Nguyen Finds a Home in Orange County

      Apr 2, 2019

      As a playwright, I’m a little bit ADD artistically,” says Qui Nguyen. “I get bored really quickly. I put things in there that are kind of wild, just to keep myself entertained.” Nguyen’s breakthrough play, Vietgone, illustrates exactly what he’s talk

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Suzan-Lori Parks

      Apr 15, 2019

      The Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright on adapting classics, the black avant-garde and how much of the world is a stage

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Samuel D. Hunter The High Tragedy Place

      Apr 27, 2020

      In Samuel D. Hunter’s Greater Clements, Maggie and Joe, a mother and son who run an Idaho mining museum, face its imminent closure as their small town goes through the process of unincorporating. When an old flame of Maggie’s turns up, her chance for

      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Cathedrals Made of Bricks

      Nov 25, 2019

      Cathedrals Made of Bricks
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      On Stage

      Apr 14, 2020

      On Stage
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Peak Time

      Jun 11, 2021

      Peak Time
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      We Laughed–until We Cried

      Feb 5, 2020

      We Laughed–until We Cried
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Sarah Brightman My Amazing Life

      Mar 21, 2024

      Sarah Brightman My Amazing Life
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      “Where Did You Laugh?”

      Dec 14, 2019

      “Where Did You Laugh?”
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Female RAGE manifesto

      Mar 10, 2020

      The camera loves women. It loves watching us move, it loves watching us get dressed, get undressed, smile, cry, fall in love, get hurt, get drunk, have sex, be assaulted, be wronged, be distressed… But there’s one thing it does not like us to do: it

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Greater Clements

      Apr 27, 2020

      Greater Clements
      88 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Jasmine Lee-Jones Interview: I Want People To Come To The Theatre Like They Watch Netflix

      Jun 24, 2021

      Back in 2019, you either saw seven methods of killing kylie jenner or you were trying to get a ticket for it. Jasmine Lee-Jones’s debut play, exploring female friendship, cultural appropriation and the internet, became one of the most talked-about pl

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      My 21st-century Touchstone Play: Theatre Stars Share The Shows That Shook Them To The Core

      Feb 19, 2021

      Here at the Evening Standard, we recently tried to pull together the 21st-century’s greatest plays (read our list and see if you agree). But what about those plays that impact us more personally, that seem to speak to us directly and leave us getting

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Hedda Tesman (NHB Modern Plays)

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Hedda Tesman (NHB Modern Plays) - Cordelia Lynn

      ACT ONE

      A house. Dark. Sense of morning.

      Someone trying to get in.

      Front door opens.

      Thump.

      BERTHA (off). Shit!

      Beat.

      (Soft, off.) Hello?

      Beat.

      Footsteps. Not carpet.

      Lights on. Tungsten bulb. Gold and dim. Shadows.

      Large kitchen. Old. Decaying. Ugly. A stove, wood burning. Incongruously, a piano. Large shuttered doors leading to a garden. The doors are open.

      Further in the house, a sitting room. A mantelpiece. Above the mantelpiece a portrait of a general.

      Everywhere boxes. A life to be unwrapped.

      Dreadful wallpaper.

      BERTHA in the kitchen doorway. Hand on light switch.

      Beat.

      BERTHA to the garden doors.

      (Into the garden.) Hello-o?

      Beat.

      Exit BERTHA, hallway.

      A light breeze.

      Enter BERTHA with cleaning materials. Looks around the kitchen.

      Sighs.

      Opens a cardboard box and unpacks it. One by one unwraps things from packing paper, puts them on the table. Hums as she works.

      A large rectangular case in bubble wrap. Removes the bubble wrap. Wipes down the case. Opens the case.

      Stops humming.

      Beat.

      Looks around.

      Carefully lifts a Second World War service revolver out of the case.

      Stares at it.

      Takes out another, its twin.

      Stares at them.

      Beat.

      Aims the guns.

      Bang ba-da bang bang!

      Lowers the guns. Looks around. Sees The General through the doorway.

      (American accent.) There ain’t enough space in this town for the two of us.

      The General doesn’t respond.

      Beat.

      Draws the guns at The General.

      Bang Bang!

      Blows smoke from the barrels.

      The House.

      Puts the guns back in the case and closes it.

      Unwraps a music box. Opens the lid.

      ‘Hush little baby’ plays.

      Enter GEORGE, garden door.

      GEORGE. Morning!

      BERTHA. Oh!

      Shuts the music box.

      You scared me /

      GEORGE. Sorry! You must be…

      The cleaner.

      BERTHA. Bertha.

      GEORGE. Bertha, hello. George Tesman.

      Beat.

      Bertha. That’s a nice name.

      BERTHA. No it’s not.

      Beat.

      I mean /

      GEORGE. Well yes.

      Beat.

      Thanks for coming so early /

      BERTHA. Well they said to. But I’ll come when you like, if you let me know. Or the agency. Let them know /

      GEORGE. It’s just while we’re settling in, then the hours will be more reasonable.

      BERTHA unpacking the box.

      BERTHA. They said to do the unpacking, said you’d been away.

      GEORGE. Just got back. Best keep it down actually, Hedda’s sleeping.

      BERTHA. Hedda?

      GEORGE. My wife.

      BERTHA. Where were you?

      GEORGE. Boston.

      BERTHA. I’ve never been to Boston.

      GEORGE. Neither had I until we moved there.

      BERTHA. What were you doing?

      GEORGE. I had a job for a few years, a fellowship.

      BERTHA. Doing what?

      GEORGE. I’m a historian.

      Beat.

      BERTHA. Cool.

      GEORGE. I think it is –

      Ah!

      The music box.

      I haven’t seen this for years…

      Opens the lid.

      ‘Hush little baby’ plays.

      It winds down.

      Pause.

      That belonged to my daughter.

      BERTHA. She live here too?

      GEORGE. No. No she –

      Well I think she lives in London.

      Beat.

      I’d hoped these would have got lost in storage…

      Touches the gun case.

      BERTHA. Yeah. So

      the guns /

      GEORGE. You opened it?

      Beat.

      Best not. Hedda’s rather attached to them.

      BERTHA. Your wife?

      GEORGE. They were her father’s. He was in the army.

      BERTHA. So was mine!

      Beat.

      I don’t have any guns though.

      GEORGE. He was a general.

      BERTHA. My dad wasn’t a general.

      GEORGE. He was older, served in the Second World War.

      BERTHA. Wow.

      GEORGE. Yes, he inspired ‘wow’ in people…

      BERTHA. Was he nice?

      GEORGE. Nice? (Laughs.) Well… Hedda adored him but I didn’t really know him. Died shortly before we were married.

      There.

      The General.

      General Gabler.

      BERTHA. Watching over you.

      GEORGE. I suppose he’s not going to leave us alone…

      A key in the front-door lock.

      They are very still.

      Front door.

      Shuffling in the hallway.

      Stop.

      JULIE (off). Suitcases.

      GEORGE. Auntie Julie?

      Exit GEORGE.

      (Off.) Auntie Julie!

      JULIE (off). Dearest boy! Welcome back!

      GEORGE (off). Watch the bags…

      GEORGE and JULIE in the kitchen. JULIE has flowers.

      JULIE. Well this is very nice! Your new home!

      GEORGE. Lovely flowers, there’ll be a vase somewhere…

      JULIE. Oh hello dear…

      BERTHA. Hi.

      GEORGE. Bertha, my aunt, Julie /

      JULIE. But everyone calls me Auntie Julie.

      BERTHA. Hello

      Auntie Julie.

      JULIE. She got the keys then. I arranged it all with the agency but you never know.

      GEORGE. Thanks so much for overseeing the move.

      JULIE. You know I like to be helpful. Is everything as it should be?

      GEORGE. Just the boxes to arrive from America now /

      Snap.

      BERTHA. Sorry.

      BERTHA is folding the cardboard box.

      I’ll leave you both to it and start on the hoovering /

      JULIE. Don’t mind me dear /

      BERTHA. It’s fine I’ll /

      JULIE. You do whatever you think is best /

      BERTHA. Right so /

      JULIE. We should all be completely at home!

      Beat.

      BERTHA. So I’ll just go and do that.

      GEORGE. Thanks Bertha.

      Exit BERTHA with box and paper.

      JULIE. What a nice girl. Auntie Rina and I have always preferred to do our own cleaning of course but I do understand that for Hedda…

      GEORGE. How is Auntie Rina?

      JULIE. As well as can be expected.

      GEORGE. I’ll come round as soon as we’re settled.

      JULIE. She’s so looking forward to seeing you. She missed you so much…

      GEORGE. Let me take those… Nice hat! Is it new?

      JULIE. Very new! I bought it specially.

      GEORGE. Specially?

      JULIE. Now that you’re back I thought Hedda might like to go on some little trips with me.

      GEORGE. Little trips?

      JULIE. To galleries and museums, National Trust houses…

      GEORGE. I’m sure she’d love to.

      JULIE. But you know Hedda, always so stylish. I wouldn’t want to look like an old frump next to her.

      GEORGE. It’ll be nice for her, something to keep her occupied anyway.

      JULIE. That’s what I thought… But I want to hear all about America. Was it productive?

      GEORGE. Did you see the suitcases in the hall? The big one near the door?

      JULIE. See it? I nearly fell over it!

      GEORGE. Guess what it’s full of.

      Beat.

      JULIE. Clothes.

      GEORGE. Notes! Hundreds of pages of notes. The archives out there, it’s amazing.

      JULIE. And what’s your next masterpiece to be on?

      GEORGE. I’m going for something a little more specialist this time.

      JULIE. Yes?

      GEORGE. Domestic Crafts in the Medieval Brabant.

      Beat.

      JULIE. You’re so clever! How do you even come across these things?

      GEORGE. I suppose I find them interesting.

      JULIE. And did Hedda have a nice time?

      GEORGE. Oh yes. She organised lots of

      things. You know, parties

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1