Lee Hye-young and Lee Young-ae went head-to-head..National Theater Company Hedda Gabler opens on the 8th

By Jaewan, Ko

Apr 17, 2025

Lee Hye-young and Lee Young-ae went head-to-head..National Theater Company Hedda Gabler opens on the 8th



He chose to go head-to-head with Lee Young-ae. The National Theater Company's 'Hedda Gabler' will be unveiled on the 8th of next month.

The National Theater Company will perform 'Hedda Gabler' again at the Myeongdong Arts Theater for the first time in 13 years. At the premiere in 2012, Lee Hye-young, who played the role of 'heda', recorded the myth of all the sold-out seats in the previous round, was honored with the 5th Korean Theater Awards for Women's Acting and the 49th Dong-A Theater Awards for Women's Acting.

On the 7th, a day earlier, Lee Hye-young and Lee Young-ae faced off as the play of the same name, which Lee Young-ae played the title role, began performing at Magok at the LG Art Center.




Heda Gabler' is an 1890 play by Henrik Ibsen that no modifier can exceed the reputation of its name. Rejecting her husband's adult Tessman and Heda, the heroine who lives with her father's last name and her own adult Gabler, boldly declared the subject of an independent woman, not a male accessory, creating a sensation in a male-centered society in the 17th century.

The work, which marked a milestone in theatrical history by capturing the rupture and reality of desire, the domination of fate, and the fundamental dilemma in a sharp tragedy, has caused a great repercussion as it has been performed across Europe and around the world to this day. It was first introduced in 120 years after the world premiere on the domestic professional stage, and it was the play that was performed at the Myeongdong Art Theater in 2012.

The National Theater Company once again leads the audience to a desperate fall of free will and a swamp of destruction that does not fall terribly, 'Hedda Gabler'.




Lee Hye-young and Lee Young-ae went head-to-head..National Theater Company Hedda Gabler opens on the 8th
Director Park Chung-hee will present his first debut work since his appointment as artistic director of the National Theater Company with 'Heda Gabler'. Director Park looked deeper into the human will of the work, going beyond the traditional analysis of how 'heda Gabler' as a classic is generally interpreted, that is, the dismantling of the role norms given by the patriarchy and the passive rejection of the female image. In a way that adds to the reflection of the times, the lighting of the people around him, and the density of emotions that cross between the characters, director Park plans to evoke the will to exist in modern society, which is instinctively craved by vulnerable individuals who have internalized social norms.

Director Park said, `Even in a complicated and complex modern society, the twenty-first generation heads exist. Those who have had enough of the vertically proposed values of the social structure, such as money, honor, and power, boldly destroy themselves. "Heda finally abandons her body by dismantling all the social values that become " from the inside, but her existence survives to the end. While working on the work, I feel that the hypnosis of structuralism, which binds and compels individuals with the word universal value, is still working today. We are asking what kind of hand can we, and society, reach out to today's Hedas, who are wandering in search of the essence of their selves in that hypnosis."

Lee Hye-young and Lee Young-ae went head-to-head..National Theater Company Hedda Gabler opens on the 8th
Actress Lee Hye-young, who absorbs the role with her animal senses, once again plays Hedda, a burning flame. The main character Heda is such a tricky and difficult role that the success or failure of the work is determined by which actor plays the role of Heda due to the nature of the work, which is called the key psychological description of the actor. At the premiere in 2012, director Park Chung-hee welcomed actor Lee Hye-young as Korea's first Hedda with the judgment that `Lee Hye-young is the only actor who can do Hedda.' At that time, actress Lee Hye-young was reborn as "Korea's first Hedda" and "Korea's unrivaled Hedda" amid favorable reviews from audiences and critics, performing highly the sense of boredom, emptiness, and mental isolation felt by a human being in social norms.




Aesthetic elements of stage art, such as stages, costumes, music, videos, and props, reach the audience with a different charm from the premiere. While the premiere highlighted the ruler and deified Hedda by embodying the era background of grand and classical classics, 2025 'Hedda Gabler' brings the era of freedom and frenzy to the stage and reflects the brilliant fall of Hedda, a human being who walks precariously on the border between life and death. The whole stage, full of sophisticated and elegant but dreamy and flashy elements, is "That's the end of it, don't you want to make it beautiful?"Hedda's lines in the play are more intoxicating and stimulating.



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