Un-"blocking" Hedda and Medea through Feminist "Play" with Traditional Staging Forms

Abstract

Hedda walks to the center of the room clutching to her belly a gun wrapped loosely in red and gold leaves. She sinks to the floor, her black satin dress ballooning around her. Only feet away, the audience can see her expression and interpret her thought process. Hedda looks vaguely around the space for an exit. She responds to Judge Brack (Ibsen 246), her focus less on him than on the gun which she lets rise to her line of vision, trailing leaves as it comes. She raises it slowly to her head and pulls the trigger, then falls gently to the floor. Red leaves fall from her pelvis, stark in contrast against the black of her dress. —Hedda Gabler, act 4, Loyola University Chicago (2006) As Jason races to the front door for revenge, Medea takes control of a camera filming the event. Her image is projected in large dimension across the house façade. Jason rails and beats the wall, but he cannot touch or hurt her. Defeated, Jason crumples in despair and the action downstage suspends. Medea's image fades and she stands in the doorway of her home clutching two bloody babies to her belly. She walks slowly across her yard, beyond the front gate of the white fence, off the stage and up the aisle of the auditorium. The door of the theatre slams behind her as the chorus chants its final ode, reminding us that the gods do not give us what we expect. —Medea, final scene, MacAninich Arts Center, College of DuPage (2007)

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