Hedda (NHB Modern Plays)

By Lucy Kirkwood

A bold new version of Ibsen's tragic masterpiece by an award-winning modern writer of Chimerica.

In Lucy Kirkwood's version of Hedda Gabler, Ibsen's nineteenth-century heroine is relocated to present-day London, to startling effect.

Hedda, still mourning for the father she adored, returns from honeymoon with a husband she doesn't love, to a flat and a pregnancy she doesn't want. Trapped by her past and terrified of her future, bored by her life but too cowardly to walk away from it, she finds herself caught between three men. And in the end, something has to give.

Lucy Kirkwood's Hedda premiered at the Gate Theatre, London, in August 2008.

'a Hedda for our times' Guardian

Ibsen's 19th-century masterpiece relocated thrillingly to London 2008... Kirkwood makes us believe absolutely in this modern-day world of mountainous mortgages and bitchy academia' Evening Standard

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Apr 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780013138

Lucy Kirkwood

Lucy Kirkwood is a British playwright and screenwriter whose plays include: The Human Body (Donmar Warehouse, London, 2024); Rapture (promoted as That Is Not Who I Am, Royal Court Theatre, London, 2022); The Welkin (National Theatre, London 2020); Mosquitoes (National Theatre, 2017); The Children (Royal Court Theatre, 2016); Chimerica (Almeida Theatre and West End, 2013; winner of the 2014 Olivier Award for Best New Play, the 2013 Evening Standard Best Play Award, the 2014 Critics’ Circle Best New Play Award, and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award); NSFW (Royal Court, 2012); small hours (co-written with Ed Hime; Hampstead Theatre, 2011); Beauty and the Beast (with Katie Mitchell; National Theatre, 2010); Bloody Wimmin, as part of Women, Power and Politics (Tricycle Theatre, 2010); it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now (Clean Break and Arcola Theatre, 2009; winner of the 2012 John Whiting Award); Hedda (Gate Theatre, London, 2008); and Tinderbox (Bush Theatre, 2008). She won the inaugural Berwin Lee UK Playwrights Award in 2013.