Marianna Gailus and More to Star in HEDDA GABLER at Yale Repertory Theatre

Yale Repertory Theatre will present Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, the final production staged by James Bundy as the organization’s Artistic Director, after 23 years of leadership at Yale (where he has also served as Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean of David Geffen School of Drama). Following the celebrated production of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People in 2017, Bundy takes on another of Paul Walsh’s razor-sharp, linguistically sensitive translations from the Norwegian. The production (November 28 – December 20 at Yale Repertory Theatre) brings together a cast of acclaimed theater actors to inhabit Ibsen’s stinging portrayal of domestic upheaval.

Freshly arrived from her honeymoon to her elegant, newly purchased villa, Hedda Tesman (née Gabler) wasn’t born and raised for a life of contented domesticity. When a former lover returns to town, her husband’s academic career and finances suddenly hang in the balance, along with her social standing. A propulsive, fiery, and often funny meditation on romantic dreams and bourgeois ambitions, Ibsen’s 1890 play is the portrait of a woman who will stop at nothing to gain control over her own destiny.

In the words of James Bundy, Hedda Gabler is “a play of extraordinary nuance and psychological sophistication from a playwright who knew how to keep audiences on the edge of their seats— a play set up as a farce that goes horribly wrong as it tells the timely and resonant story of a woman who seeks autonomy.”

Marianna Gailus, who most recently performed all the roles in the acclaimed one-person VANYA (as understudy to Andrew Scott), embodies the title role, one of the canon’s most challenging and often debated.

Hedda Gabler’s cast also includes Austin Durant (Yale Rep: Assassins; Broadway: Moulin Rouge, You Can’t Take it with You) as Judge Brack; Felicity Jones Latta (Yale Rep: Arcadia; Broadway: Metamorphoses; Broadway Tour: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) as Juliane Tesman, Stephanie Machado (Yale Rep: An Enemy of the People; Regional: Laughs in Spanish, Sabina) as Thea Elvsted, Max Gordon Moore (Yale Rep and Broadway: Indecent; Broadway: Tammy Faye, The Nap) as Jorgen Tesman, Mary Lou Rosato (Yale Rep: Escaped Alone; Broadway: Once Upon a Mattress, The Suicide) as Berte, the housekeeper; and James Udom (Yale Rep: Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3; Off-Broadway: Henry IV, The Rolling Stone) as Eilert Lovborg. Understudies include Jack Kelley (u/s Jorgen Tesman), Rebecca Rivera (u/s Mrs. Thea Elvsted), Erik Manuel Robles (u/s Eilert Lovborg), Emma Steiner (u/s Hedda Gabler), Mark Yarde (u/s Judge Brack), and Grace Wissink (u/s Juliane Tesman and Berte).

“I’m so happy to have been able to reach out to actors I admire and adore and have them all say yes,” said James Bundy. “Every Ibsen play is an opportunity to reclaim the power and scope of great drama, not as an historical or museum exercise but as an interpretive and craft-based investigation that is deeply human and theatrically satisfying. I’m overjoyed to be working to do that with a gifted translator like Paul Walsh, this terrific cohort of actors, and a brilliant team of designers.”