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Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.
Excerpt from Act 3 Dialogue: Hedda Gabler, Eilert Lovborg
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Understanding the Given Circumstances
- During a dinner party at her home, Hedda observes the affection between Mrs. Thea Elvsted, her former schoolmate, and writer Eilert Lovborg, a recovering alcoholic and one-time beau of Hedda. Desiring control, Hedda decides to exploit their vulnerabilities.
- Knowing Thea assisted Lovborg on his manuscript and left her marriage to follow him, Hedda reveals Thea’s confidences about Lovborg’s fragile sobriety. In defiance, Lovborg starts drinking and joins Hedda’s husband for a night of debauchery, losing his manuscript along the way. Meanwhile, Thea anxiously awaits his return.
- When Hedda’s husband finds Lovborg’s manuscript on the way home, Hedda suggests they keep it until Lovborg is sober. Meanwhile, Lovborg gets arrested after a fight over his lost manuscript.
- Early in the morning, Lovborg returns to Hedda’s drawing room. Believing his behavior has ensured his manuscript is lost forever, Lovborg instead tells Hedda and Thea that he destroyed the manuscript and no longer needs Thea.
- Devastated, Thea says this is tantamount to killing a child—a child that belonged to her, too. Hedda chooses not to reveal she has the manuscript as Thea leaves.
- Having destroyed Thea, Hedda now exerts her power over a defeated Lovborg.
Blocking and Movement
In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. Be sure to show respect and establish trust when working with scene partners. As you prepare to block this scene, ask yourself the following questions:
- At the beginning of Act I, Ibsen provides a very detailed description of the Falk Mansion drawing room, including the location of doors and other rooms. Very little changes in Act III. What elements are necessary to block this scene (i.e., a table, sofa, chairs)? Where are they?
- Where are Lovborg’s manuscript and the General’s dueling pistols? How does Hedda handle them?
- Hedda is a dangerous, deeply conflicted woman. As an actress, you need to find a way into her psyche. Where can you find sympathy for her? How do your choices affect gestures and line delivery?
- Eilert Lovborg, the brilliant visionary writer, is also a fragile alcoholic who wants his disgrace to end. What is his physicality when he arrives? Does it change over the course of the scene? Is he hungover or sober? Distraught or resigned?
- In Act II, Hedda tells Mrs. Elvsted, “I want for once in my life to have power to mold a human destiny.” How does this play out in this scene? Is Lovborg ever aware of this?
Character Relationships
Initially, Hedda Gabler and Eilert Lovborg relate as former comrades who once shared confidences and emotions rather than physical intimacy. Their adolescent memories recall a more hopeful time when Hedda was the pampered daughter of the General and Lovborg the great hope of his family. On the surface, they seem to share other traits as well. Both celebrate the beautiful. Both are self-destructive: Hedda with words and Lovborg with alcohol. Both wonder what might have been.
However, time transforms them and, in turn, how they perceive one another. Abstaining from alcohol, Lovborg rises from social disgrace to academic prominence through his creativity and, in the process, finds a soulmate in Thea Elvsted. Lacking suitable prospects, Hedda marries a man she doesn’t love and insists he mortgage his future to pay for her extravagance. For Lovborg, the creation of his manuscript means redemption. For Hedda, the manipulation of someone’s destiny means a release from boredom. Suddenly plunged into despair, Lovborg hopes for comfort from the friend he once knew. Instead, he receives a loaded gun with the command to die beautifully.
Full Act 3 Dialogue: Hedda Gabler, Eilert Lovborg
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