Ibsen Plays

I recently read Hedda Gabbler and A Doll's House. They were quick to read. I was investigating whether I wanted to suggest them for book group with the idea that it could be interesting to compare the two female leads--Hedda and Nora.

I started with A Doll's House, and was turned off a little bit by it. Not that it wasn't interesting--it was, and I would like to see a performance. The themes in the play reminded me a lot of Edna in The Awakening. The story, perhaps owning to the fact that it had to be condensed into a 2-hour play, was simplistic and I felt like the characterization of the main characters was too predictable. Or that Ibsen was too heavy handed in his characterizations. Nora's character especially was much more simplistic to me than Edna and her awakening seemed to come too suddenly without much nuance. It didn't resonate with me in the same way that Chopin's work did. I wondered how anyone could get so fired up--especially her husband--about her forging her father's name so that she could help her husband when he got sick. I also thought it curious that she could so easily leave behind her children (as did Edna). I am also a woman of little imagination, and so perhaps the story would really come to life in a play, while the text feels flat.

Hedda Gabbler was a woman of a completely different nature than Nora, almost her complete opposite. I never did quite grasp what Hedda was all about. Manipulative, deceitful, mean, but to what end? Especially given the final suicide scene. Was she just miserably unhappy and wanted everyone else to suffer? I didn't get it. It was certainly interesting as a psychological portrait of a woman, and was probably ground-breaking in drama for this theme. And I just found that Cate Blanchett played Hedda very recently. Again, I would like to see the play performed.