Who was Hedda Gabler during Salazar’s Portugal:

TEP’s production and interpretation

Candidate no: 704
Subject code: IBS4105
Fall Semester 2023
Introduction
Studying artistic phenomena requires delving into culturally, socially, and historically
connotated factors. Researchers must comprehend the material and philosophical implications, their
relevance, shades of meaning, and the forms these meanings take in their critical work. In this journey,
two main types of factors emerge: internal factors, originating directly from the untouched artistic
phenomenon, and external factors, encompassing the critical and analytical structures applied to
understand and dissect the artistic essence.
It will be crucial for us to understand how, where and when these two types of factors come
into play in regards to the artistic phenomenon I will be studying in this paper, that is the theatrical
performance of 1961 of the play Hedda Gabler (1890) by Henrik Ibsen staged by João Guedes from
the Teatro Experimental do Porto (TEP) group. This study will find its object’s internal factors in
Ibsen’s proper text of Hedda Gabler and Guedes’ and Pedro’s production itself, including their poetic,
literary and qualities and the levels of meaning they may carry. On the other hand, its external factors
will be found in the peculiar socio-cultural context and temporal-spatial coordinates which was
Portugal in the time of the dictatorship established by António de Oliveira Salazar between the 30s
and 70s of last century, highlighting more specifically the circumstances revolving around the year
1961, known to the Estado Novo regime as Annus Horribilis.
To achieve the objective of analysis, I will use mainly books and scientific articles, but other
types of resources as well such as documentaries and reportages, as the socio-political and cultural
essence of theater, its poetic achievements are never limited only to paper but also and above all in the
(meta)physical realization of the artistic object under analysis, because of which theatre makes use in
the first place of tools which are primarily interactive, both for intellectuals and critics. In this way, we
will be able to answer the two primary questions of this paper, which are both intertwined with the
aesthetic reasons behind the Portuguese theatrical event and with its meanings from a critical and
political point of view; the two questions are:

1) How can we comprehend the significance and relevance of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and its
performance by TEP within the highly repressive context of Salazar’s Estado Novo
dictatorship, particularly in relation to the possible cultural clash between Hedda Gabler and
the idealized woman of Salazar’s Estado Novo?

2) In what theoretical category can we identify the relationship between Ibsen’s theatrical text
and the performance put on by Guedes almost a hundred years after the play was first
published?
These two questions will be the main focus of the critical discussion in this paper. The first
helps readers navigate and understand the artistic phenomenon, recognizing its key features and
assessing their value. This will be done by considering prior critical literature, such as the analyses by
Carlos Porto and Rui Pina Coelho on TEP’s role in renewing Portuguese theatre. The second question
aims to examine the relationships established between TEP’s production and Ibsen’s play, attempting
to hypothesize how they communicate. The theory of the Interweaving of Theater developed by Erika
Fischer-Lichte will be instrumental in this analysis.
 In the ensuing paragraphs, we embark on a comprehensive exploration, drawing upon diverse
perspectives and critical insights, ranging from concrete analyses to theoretical interpretations.
Through this multidimensional lens, we aim to shed new light on the significance of Ibsen's Hedda
Gabler in a historical epoch in which Portugal was marked by repression, while highlighting the
transformative power of theater as a vehicle for cultural discourse and self-expression

Relevance of topics from Hedda Gabler in Portugal in the 1960s

Published by Ibsen for the first time in 1890, Hedda Gabler is no simple tale by any means,
and it is not supposed to be a play that swiftly tells a story for the public to passively absorb as it is.
The plot itself revolves around a complex narrative nucleus rom which several dramatic environments
branch off, which make the situation we are presented with narratively convoluted and intriguing: the
unhappy marriage between Tesman and Hedda (at least according to the latter), the painful and
unfortunate fall of Løvborg and his "artistic" relationship with Thea Elvsted – similar at times to that
between Rubek and Irene in Ibsen's later drama Når vi døde vågner (1899) –, the interesting and
provocative verbal exchanges between "Hedda Gabler" and councilor Brack. Moreover, the
complexity of the pièce does not end in how the plot has been devised by Ibsen. We must convene
that, upon first reading, it can come natural for someone who has read or seen Hedda Gabler to agree
that the play is really an example of an intense psychological portrait of women and their desire for
freedom and utopian aesthetic (GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017: 9). Here, Grassi
Trementocio Tosta is referring in the first place to the protagonist Hedda Tesman, originally Gabler,
and in the second place to womanhood as a whole. Marianne Sturman, in her analysis of Hedda
Gabler, continues this line of interpretation and states that ‹‹sharing Nora's craving for freedom and
Mrs. Alving's compliance with social conventions, Hedda finds no outlet for her personal demands;
she is constantly torn between her aimless desire for freedom and her commitment to standards of
social appearance. Refusing to submit to her womanly destiny, Hedda has such an unsatisfied craving
for life that she is incapable of being emotionally involved with others›› (STURMAN 2003: 49).
This makes for an introduction to reading Ibsen’s play. However, consistent with this study,
there is more to be said than this; Hedda's vitality and psychological complexity is a theme to which
we will come back later in this paper, but this alone cannot explain by itself the relationship between
Ibsen’s work and the decision of Portuguese intellectuals and artists to include it in their theatrical
repertoire. When analyzing the dramatic development of Hedda Gabler’s plot, we have to admit that
psychological individuality and intensity is not a matter that only regards Hedda herself, but is a much
broader theme in the variety of characters in Ibsen's drama. To understand the peculiar characters’
individuality, we must set some premises; in one of her articles, Spacks reminds the reader of Hedda
Gabler

That ideas about the nature of womanhood and of society are at work here is immediately
suggested by Ibsen's own working notes on Hedda. A section headed "Main Points" contains these
comments:

1. They are not all made to be mothers.

2. They are passionate but they are afraid of scandal.

3. They perceive that the times are full of missions worth devoting one's life to, but they
cannot discover them.

These statements certainly outline Hedda's problems, but the phraseology, the "they" which
obviously applies to women in general, hints that Ibsen had a broader application in mind. And there is
even a sense in which Hedda's problems are duplicated, not only by the other women in the play, but by
the men as well. The desire to control someone's destiny, announced explicitly by Hedda ("For once in
my life I want the power to shape a human destiny") is shared, in more or less devious forms, by all the
 other important characters; this theme dictates the action of the drama, in the Aristotelian sense, and
accounts for its most profound overtones (SPACKS 1962: 156).

It is not hard to imagine that the desire to be able to control destiny, be it one’s own or
someone else’s, is a topic that must have had great relevance in a time such as the second half of the
twentieth century, in Portugal. In the 60s, Portugal was still under the regime of Estado Novo, the
longest lasting dictatorship in Europe, officially established in 1933 by former prime minister António
de Oliveira Salazar, which would end forty-one years later with the Carnation Revolution.
Salazar's Estado Novo, a regime that was very violent in the imposition of its principles, was a
dictatorship that imposed a very static and stagnant model of life, in which each citizen had one and
only one function to which he or she was ascribed and relegated, on pain of social ostracism,
censorship, torture or even death. Valeria Tocco concisely exemplifies in her book what the principles
that formed it were: ‹‹the Estado Novo was based on an extremely static social pyramid, at the apex of
which was the head of state (a direct manifestation of God) who directed the action of the lower strata,
organised into corporations, whose smallest nucleus was the family, based on the Salazarist motto of
“God, Fatherland, Family”››1 (TOCCO 2011: 48). The basis of this ideology was Salazar’s conviction
of the perfection of a “rural microcosm”, the Portuguese one, within which nothing is left to free will
and everything is predetermined and to be accepted with joy, spirit of sacrifice and honourable
resignation (SARMENTO 2010: 42).
The theater also had its role within the so-called "Salazarism", which was an oppositional
role. The Portuguese theater during Salazar's dictatorship was mainly a naturalist theater, which as
Rodrigues explains

objectively aims at the effect of illusion of reality on stage, in order to bring to the scene
characters who “live” the role they play, through language very close to everyday life, in scenarios that
seek to reconstitute reality. The naturalistic show provides the public with the sensation – or illusion –
of being in front of a real event, forgetting, during the time of the performance they are watching, that
they are, in fact, in front of a fictional event. This was what a certain portion of Portuguese theater
artists began to avoid (RODRIGUES 2010: 19-20)2.

Portuguese men and women of the theater were tired of pretending that there were no issues in
the isolationist, stagnant society that Salazar had created; they now intended to shake, wake up the
spectator from the inert sleep into which he had been induced and show them a way to “freedom and
revolution”: this is how experimentalism, social concerns and existential reflections in the theater in
Portugal at the beginning of the 1960s started to be incorporated into the discussion and put into
practice by several experimental theater companies that had been emerging in the country since the
previous decade, of which the Teatro Experimental do Porto was itself an exponent.

The evolution of Teatro Experimental do Porto: experimentalism and artistic leadership

One could argue that TEP had actually been the exponent of experimentalism in theater,
seeing that it was the only one among the various experimental theatre companies founded in Portugal
1
Original language Text (O.T.): ‹‹l’Estado Novo era basato su una piramide sociale estremamente statica, al cui
apice si trovava il capo di Stato (diretta manifestazione di Dio) che dirigeva l’azione degli strati inferiori,
organizzati in corporazioni, il cui nucleo più piccolo era la famiglia, in base al motto salazarista di “Dio, Patria,
Famiglia”››.
2
O.T.: ‹‹[A estética naturalista] visa objetivamente o efeito de ilusão de realidade no palco, de modo a trazer
para a cena personagens que “vivem” o papel que desempenham, por meio de uma linguagem muito próxima da
cotidiana, em cenários que procuram reconstituir a realidade. O espetáculo naturalista fornece ao público a
sensação – ou a ilusão – de estar diante de um acontecimento real, esquecendo-se, durante o tempo da
encenação a que assiste, de que está, na verdade, diante de um acontecimento ficcional. Era isso que certa
parcela dos artistas do teatro português começava a evitar››.
during the 1950s that did not disappear by the middle of the decade. The Teatro Experimental do
Porto, a creative space dedicated to experimentation born inside of the “Círculo de Cultura Teatral”,
first obtained its public license in 1952, and then became a professional company in 1957. For years
to come, the company remained the “lone survivor”, as Rui Pina Coelho calls it, one that proved to be
coherent over the years in the experimentalist theatrical practice, which during the second half of the
Portuguese twentieth century meant adopting ‹‹a stance of promoting works and authors, in the
appreciation of an ethic regarding theatrical work, in the rejection of commercial interests and
professional conventions››3 (COELHO 2013: 1). This ended up being the same attitude that paved the
way for the establishment of the foundations of Portuguese independent theater, a movement that
developed more consistently in the following decades.
However, at the dawn of its existence, the Teatro Experimental do Porto was much more of a
project in the making than an actual prospect, and as such lacked a proper formal structure. As former
artistic director of TEP Júlio Gago recounts in an interview with Maria João Leite for A Página da
Educãçao, the company originally was made of ‹‹kids who were out there playing at theaters››
[miúdos que andavam por aí a brincar aos teatros] (GAGO 2013: 1), referring to the
socially-and-aesthetically-engaged but unexperienced Portuguese youth who formed the theatre
collective of TEP in the first place. Gago then further explains himself by stating that ‹‹everyone
talked about theater, there was talk of experimental theaters (in Europe, numerous groups of this
nature were beginning to emerge), but the truth is that no one understood any of this. And so, they
read plays, translated plays, translated theoretical texts about theater, but nothing came out because
none of them had experience››4 (GAGO 2013: 1).
The presence of a prominent and educated figure was needed to initiate a substantial and
productive theatrical activity at TEP. This figure was António Pedro, an essayist on surrealism and its
first exponent in Portugal, a fighter against the censorship exercised by the Salazar regime towards
theater and all arts, and a pedagogue of modernity in Portuguese performing arts (LEITE 2013: 1).
Pedro took over the direction of TEP in 1953, where he began to give lessons to the company
collective on innovations in theater and performance that were developing in the rest of Europe,
especially in Paris, where Pedro had stayed between 1934 and 1936. Choosing from the French
repertoire, Pedro decided to stage the first play for TEP, A Gota de Mel by Léon Chancerel, an author
disliked by Salazar for his ideas of dramatizing man in a context of cultural absence and for the hymn
to freedom that his work promoted. TEP was the first to bring Chancerel's play to Portuguese stages
and performed it until it was banned by the government in 1959, when the first signs of the colonial
war showed, and the Indian Union began the protest that would lead to the liberation of the
Portuguese colonies in India (Goa, Damão, and Diu) in 1961 – the year that went down in Salazar’s
cultural domains as the Annus Horribilis.
António Pedro would not have hesitated in the face of censorship, and he would have
continued to provide a space in TEP dedicated to the free expression of the artist and their work, and
more importantly, to experimentation that, according to Pedro, was necessary for the development of
modern Portuguese theater and the freedom of the modern man. Pedro's work, according to Rui Pina
Coelho, ‹‹transformed the cultural landscape of the city and the country, bringing to the stage a
demanding and informed repertoire, entirely incongruent with the prevailing mediocrity in its
contemporary theater: Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Kleist, Ibsen, Tchekov, Synge, Miller, O’Neill,
Ionesco››5 (COELHO 2013: 1); these authors were reworked in the light of an experimentalism that

3
O.T: ‹‹uma atitude de divulgação de obras e autores, na valorização de uma ética em relação ao trabalho
teatral, na rejeição dos interesses comerciais e das convenções da profissão››.
4
O.T.: ‹‹Todos falavam de teatro, falava-se nos teatros experimentais (na Europa começavam a aparecer
inúmeros grupos desta natureza), mas a verdade é que ninguém percebia nada disto. E portanto, liam peças,
traduziam peças, traduziam textos teóricos de teatro, mas nada saía porque nenhum deles tinha experiência››.
5
O.T.: ‹‹transformou a paisagem cultural da cidade e do país, levando à cena um repertório exigente e
informado, nada consentâneo com a mediania geral vigente no Teatro seu contemporâneo: Shakespeare, Ben
Jonson, Kleist, Ibsen, Tchekov, Synge, Miller, O’Neill, Ionesco››.
influenced their use of ‹‹set design, lighting, sound design, and costumes, and, very significantly,
consolidated the practice of direction in Portugal, carrying out one of the most relevant scenic
renewals in 20th-century Portuguese theater›› [cenografia, da iluminação, da sonoplastia e dos
figurinos e, muito significativamente, consolidou a prática da encenação em Portugal operando uma
das mais relevantes renovações cénicas no teatro do século XX português] (COELHO 2013: 1).
Particularly interesting among the technical innovations brought by Pedro to Portuguese
theater is the experimentation he conducted on the use of light and sound media at TEP. Before
Pedro's arrival, regarding lighting, ‹‹there was no experience in Portuguese theater of creating a
spotlight, a light that only shines on an actor, [...] on something that is in focus during a specific
scene››6 (GAGO 2013: 2). As for reproducing sounds during performances, ‹‹noises such as thunder,
wind, or footsteps ceased to be produced backstage by the stagehand and began to be recorded on
reels››7 (GAGO 2013: 2).
The protagonists in António Pedro’s experimental theater always were the actors who
materially put the production together, with whom he always operated in close proximity, establishing
a bond that would be crucial for their artistic development. Sound design, voice use, and character
building were indeed central to Pedro’s work with TEP’s crew of actors, both as theoretical and
practical domains to explore via the means of experimentalism, and as the gateway for the actor as an
individual to be able to express themselves against the stagnant principles of Portuguese theater in the
1960s. As Júlio Gago explains, Pedro’s theater ‹‹gives another importance to the use of voice and
movement, making them indispensable for the actor's assertion on stage. In other words, by fighting
against traditional theatrical mannerisms, he simplifies it, brings it closer [to actuality], with absolute
confidence in the actor's mastery of voice and movement››8 (GAGO 2013: 2).
The aesthetic guidelines that António Pedro had imparted during his lessons and in the
preparation of theatrical productions were able to train the actors, technicians, and set designers of
TEP in the innovations of modern theater. One of these individuals was João Guedes, an actor and
director from Porto who followed Pedro in the realization of productions from the early 1950s; for
instance, Guedes was already listed as an actor, together with young actress Dalila Rocha, for the
1953 production of Chekhov's Um pedido de casamento, one of the first three shows staged by TEP,
including A Gota de Mel (GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017: 35). The collaboration between
them continued, and a very productive teacher-pupil artistic bond was established, to the extent that
when Antonio Pedro decided to step down from the direction of TEP in 1961, he entrusted it to
Guedes. It was the latter, acting as both stage and production director, who, a few months before
Pedro handed over the reins of TEP to the already forty-year-old Guedes, staged the play Hedda
Gabler by Ibsen on May 26, 1961, at the Teatro Avenida in Lisbon. This work had already been
performed on the TEP stage in January of the same year.

Against the regime: women of Hedda Gabler drawn by Guedes and his colleagues

Henrik Ibsen is an author whose work enjoys fame and success throughout Europe and the
world, and his bourgeois dramas have been staged countless times in European theaters. Hedda
Gabler is one of his best-known works, and one would expect that, like A Doll's House or Ghosts, it
found its place on Portuguese stages. The truth is that, after being first performed in 1898 at Teatro de
D. Amélia by the actress Eleonora Duse, albeit not in Portuguese but in Italian, Hedda Gabler
disappeared from the repertoires of Portuguese theater companies that performed throughout the first

6
O.T.: ‹‹não havia no teatro português a experiência de se fazer um pontual, […] sobre um objeto, sobre algo
que está em foco durante determinada cena››.
7
O.T.: ‹‹Os ruídos, como trovoadas, vento ou passos, deixaram de ser produzidos nos bastidores pelo
contrarregra para passarem a ser gravados em bobines››.
8
O.T.: ‹‹ele dá uma outra importância à utilização da voz e do movimento, tornando-os indispensáveis para a
afirmação do ator em cena. Ou seja, lutando contra os tiques tradicionais do teatro, torna-o mais simples, mais
próximo, com segurança absoluta no domínio da voz e do movimento pelo ator››.
half of the 20th century (GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017: 13). Certainly, the reasons why the
work had not been brought to Portuguese stages for more than sixty years include the naturalistic
essence that runs through Ibsen's closet dramas and truth of one-self as one of the main topics exposed
in the works of the Norwegian author. Basing herself on the ideas of theater director João Lourenço,
Grassi Trementocio Tosta asserts that Ibsen's new naturalistic perspective defended the ideals of
freedom and truth as basic principles that the individual must follow to be themself in their own
existence (GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017: 14). According to Salazarist ideology, the
individual had to be instead subordinate to the social order established by the Estado Novo. This helps
us understand how complicated it could be to receive approval from the state censorship committee
for the staging of "dangerous" theatrical works like those of Ibsen. Additionally, Carlos Porto reveals
in his volume Em Busca do Teatro Perdido that, due to the cultural stagnation caused by Salazar's
cultural policies, the Portuguese audience had become incapable of being critical, of reasoning about
the artistic-political phenomena presented to them by the Portuguese intelligentsia (PORTO 1973: 12).
This could cause discouragement among Portuguese theater practitioners, who felt demotivated in
proposing a "cultural opposition" to the art approved by the State during Salazarism in their
productions, and this clearly influenced the choice of repertoire to be staged.
Even the TEP had been subjected to censorship during its journey. An example can be the
“disguised” ban of its production of Arco de Sant’Ana: ‹‹A telephone-telegraph from the Pre-Exam
Commission of Porto to the press, reproduced by Graça dos Santos (1980, p.75), illustrates well what
we assert: “A play, an adaptation by Correia Alves from Arco de Sant'Ana, at TEP (Teatro
Experimental do Porto) has been prohibited. Not to say that it has been prohibited. It can, however, be
said that it will no longer be staged. Captain Correia de Barros”››9 (RODRIGUES 2010: 23). But João
Guedes, following the anti-fascist teachings of the maestro Pedro, decided to continue to fight against
censorship and for freedom of self-expression. Guedes did not let Estado Novo’s censorship
intimidate him, and managed to stage TEP’s interpretation of Ibsen’s work nonetheless. In favor of
Guedes, it may have played the fact that, although the characters in the drama of Hedda Gabler might
appear controversial, it seemed that Ibsen’s theater could enjoy a certain degree of anonymity in the
face of Portuguese censorship. It is possible that, considering the lack of significant cultural ties and
exchanges between Portugal and Northern Europe, this might have negatively influenced the spread of
Ibsen’s fame in the Lusitanian country. After all, most relations between the two countries have
always been of a different nature, commercial, naval; for example, the only entry on the historical
index of cultural relations between Portugal and Norway on the Portuguese government’s website
mentions the nonexistent representation of the Instituto Camões on Norwegian soil (PESSOA E
COSTA 2013: 8). Therefore, if not mutual disinterest, at least cultural indifference always was
perceived by both States’ peoples towards each other. In that matter, Carlos Porto had also hinted at
the precariousness characterizing the discussion of Ibsen’s works in Portugal (PORTO 1973: 77).
Moreover, a list of the major foreign authors banned by censorship during Salazar's time, compiled by
Rodrigues, might be even more relevant. In this list, among prominent names like Brecht, Sartre, Peter
Weiss, Piscator, and Ionesco, there is no mention of Ibsen (RODRIGUES 2010: 28). Clearly, this is
not a completely exhaustive list, and on its own it cannot prove that Ibsen's work was overlooked and
almost never banned in the 1960’s Portuguese State. However, it remains significant that, perhaps due
to the general cultural distance likely perceived between Portugal and Norway, Ibsen was not as
well-known to Portuguese society and, most importantly, by the government. João Guedes probably
managed to leverage this advantage in avoiding possible censorship of the show, challenging the
State-imposed norms by staging a controversial and rebellious work nonetheless.
Guedes's production of Hedda Gabler was scheduled to premiere on January 9, 1961, at the
Teatro Avenida in Lisbon. The first Portuguese translation of Ibsen's play, likely based on an English
9
O.T.: ‹‹Um telegrama telefonado da Comissão do Exame Prévio do Porto para a imprensa, reproduzido por
Graça dos Santos (1980, p.75), ilustra bem o que afirmamos: “Foi proibida uma peça de teatro, adaptação de
Correia Alves, do Arco de Sant´Ana, no TEP (Teatro Experimental do Porto). Não dizer que foi proibida. Pode,
no entanto, dizer-se que já não vai à cena. Capitão Correia de Barros”››.
version of Hedda Gabler, was crafted specifically for TEP's production by José Correia Alves.
Discrepancies between Ibsen's original conception and Guedes's theatrical adaptation become evident
when reading Correia Alves's translation, which made it different than it was supposed to be
according to the original text.
Primarily, spatial configurations of the scenography underwent alterations. Comparing a
meticulous and precise Portuguese translation of Hedda Gabler by Clarice Lispector with Correia
Alves’, Grassi Trementocio Tosta asserts that ‹‹upon reading Correia Alves's text, one perceives, right
in the first scene, a difference in translation: the vestibule and the balcony were not in the main hall
but in the small room in the background, on its right and left sides. Considering that all characters
enter through the vestibule and that most scenes take place in the living room, in this configuration,
the scenic space would be shifted backwards››10 (GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017: 37). The
scholar then contends that, according to Correia Alves’ translation, the action would have taken place
in the interior room rather than in the main living room due to the scenographic construction on the
smaller-than-usual stage at Teatro Avenida. This would have reduced the size of the office in the play,
causing an imbalance in the representation according to what Rui Pina Coelho affirms. Coelho, in his
essay on António Pedro in the volume Em Busca do Teatro Perdido by Porto, emphasizes that the
reduced size of the office and stove on the stage would have caused an imbalance, especially in the
right part of the scene, where the most important scenes occurred; among these, Coelho indicates the
dialogue between Hedda and Dr. Brack (COELHO 1973: 93).
Moreover, it is worth noting that Correia Alves's translation provides captions and
descriptions reduced to the utmost simplicity, a fact in line with the principles of simplification in
theater that António Pedro had taught to his students, such as João Guedes and José Correia Alves
themselves, who implemented them in the production of their Hedda Gabler: ‹‹[regarding] the colors
indicated in the description of the first scene [...] Alves informs only that the room has dark tones.
Another example [is] the description of the vestibule door [...] Alves places it to the right of the
interior room, where a door would be giving access to the vestibule, without worrying about defining
it››11 (GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017: 38). In his translation, Correia Alves focused little on
spatial visualization, providing clear and honest descriptions, not detailed but complete in themselves,
as suggested by his description of the on-stage veranda. If in the original by Ibsen the veranda could
only be glimpsed, in Correia Alves’ version, it was clearly visible: “Beyond the glass, one can see a
balcony and the autumn foliage”12 (ALVES, 1961, p. 09-10).
The generality in the spatial scenic coordinates of Correia Alves’ text played into Guedes's
intention to direct the audience's full attention towards the story that the drama tells – and thus,
towards the dynamics that the characters of Hedda Gabler enact among themselves. After all, as
Carlos Porto suggests, ‹‹one cannot deny the strength of this author's [Ibsen] language, what is
remarkable in the dramatic construction of his plays, the psychological richness of his characters.
Hedda Gabler is conclusive proof of these qualities››13 (PORTO 1973: 78). Language and
psychological richness of the characters are a matter that tightly revolves around the rendition of the
actors in the play. Therefore, to do justice to Ibsen’s work and to reinterpret it without distorting it, it
was crucial to focus on the actors’ interpretation and their preparation, one of the directives that
António Pedro had given to his students during his early years directing the TEP.
10
O.T.: ‹‹Ao ler o texto de Correia Alves, percebe-se, logo na primeira cena, uma diferença na tradução: o
vestíbulo e a varanda não estavam na sala principal e sim na saleta ao fundo, do lado direito e esquerdo desta.
Considerando que todas as personagens entram pelo vestíbulo e que a maioria das cenas ocorre na sala de estar,
nessa configuração o espaço cênico seria transferido para trás››.
11
O.T.: ‹‹as cores indicadas na descrição da primeira cena {…} Alves informa apenas que a sala possui tons
escurso. Outro exemplo {é} a descrição da porta do vestíbulo {…} Alves posiciona-a a direita da sala do quarto
interior, onde estaria uma porta dando para o vestíbulo, sem se preocupar em defini-la››.
12
O.T.: ‹‹Para lá dos vidros, pode ver-se uma varanda e a folhagem de outono››.
13
O.T.: ‹‹não se pode recusar a força da linguagem deste autor [Ibsen], o que há de notavel na construção
dramática das suas peças, a riqueza psicológica das suas personagens. Hedda Gabler é prova concludente dessas
qualidades››.
 The list of actors collaborating on this production included both names already known within
the TEP, such as Dalila Rocha in the role of Hedda Gabler (and not “Hedda Tesman”!) and Madalena
Braga in the role of Ms. Juliane Tesman, and names of young and less experienced actors, such as
Mário Jacques in the role of Jørgen Tesman and Pedro Santos as Ejlert Løvborg. This ensemble of
actors was skillfully led by Guedes; Francisca Salema writes that the TEP’s production of Hedda
Gabler was a successful one, as its direction ‹‹was achieved by João Guedes, through the use of a
certain flexibility››14 in building the characters played by the actors (SALEMA 2023: 32). According
to Salema, the group of actors received instructions from Guedes not to confine themselves to their
role or limit themselves to its mere reproduction; instead, the goal was to “actualize” it, to interact
with it and to bring it into the “present moment” so that it would not be represented statically. In fact,
if Porto had admitted that ‹‹the set of ideals that Ibsen has to present to us no longer has much to do
with our own [Portuguese] ideologies››15, the critic had still asserted the historical need to represent
the Norwegian author on Portuguese stages (PORTO 1973: 77-78). This goal could only be achieved
through a process of “updating” the work, which, in the case of the TEP, was accomplished through
the actors’ performance; most importantly, through the work done by the actresses, such as Dalila
Rocha, who had the lead in the production directed by Guedes.
Dalila Rocha was an established actress within the TEP (Teatro Experimental do Porto),
marking her debut as an actress in 1953 in each of the first three productions premiered by TEP A
Gota de Mel, Um Pedido de Casamento, and A Nau Catrineta (DE LACERDA 2009). From that
moment on, she continued to work with TEP for a decade, predominantly with Pedro as director and
Guedes as one of the actors. Together, they staged theater productions that continuously challenged
the repressive regime that dictated over Portuguese people’s life, their habits and the values they were
made to respect. Rocha faced a challenging task having to portray the protagonist of Guedes’
production of Hedda Gabler. How could one represent, in a natural way, a woman devoid of control
over her own life, married for convenience, desiring power but not responsibility? (SPACKS 1962:
156-157).
In reality, the character of Hedda Gabler suited well within the Portuguese context of the
Salazarist dictatorship. This is because Hedda, in her own way, is a character subjected to rules and
social norms that constrict her and with which she does not identify. She feels the need to satisfy her
need for a ‹‹vicarious sense of freedom›› (SPACKS 1962: 158) - just as every woman as they were
conceived by Salazar's Estado Novo ideology. A reportage for Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP),
conducted by Felipe Pinto, David Araújo, and Sérgio Tomás, informs its viewers about the conditions
of subordination in which Portuguese women of the time were forced to live. The reportage recounts
how Salazar compared the government of the country to the management of a household, essentially
the place where he intended to keep women: in this country, a woman's husband could choose the
residence, could open her mail without asking, the woman was not allowed to go abroad without her
husband's permission, and, for example, if she wanted to divorce her husband, the first thing he could
do was strip her of economic independence by terminating her employment contract, if she even had
one to begin with; even the criminal code itself provided serious mitigations when a man killed his
wife in the act of adultery (PINTO, ARAÚJO, TOMÁS 2014). Just like Hedda within her microcosm,
Portuguese women in the Estado Novo possessed no rights, no power, no control: they were seen just
as inferior beings compared to men.
Representing the much-coveted independence that Hedda longs for in the play would have
certainly touched and stirred the minds of an audience (both female and non-female) that was still
awakening from the cultural slumber induced by the dictatorial regime. The real challenge for Guedes,
Rocha, and the TEP company in producing a play like Hedda Gabler, which revolves entirely around
a catalytic character like Hedda, was to make her protagonist likable and appreciable – a character

14
O.T.: ‹‹esta terá sido conseguida por João Guedes, através do uso de “uma certa maleabilidade››.
15
O.T.: ‹‹talvez, na verdade, o conjunto de ideias que Ibsen tem para apresentar-nos não tenha já muito a ver
com as nossas próprias ideologias››.
who could represent the women’s freedom cause without adopting tones so vehement as to possibly
provoke rejection from the audience. This applied not only to Hedda, according to Porto, but also to
the other female characters in the work: ‹‹accentuating the characteristics of these figures [Hedda,
Juliane Tesman, Thea Elvsted and Berte], making them rigid and whole, obviously carries its risks.
The director must, therefore, use a certain flexibility that allows giving each character its own
character [...] without failing to form with them a set of relationships that are humanly valid››16
(PORTO 1973: 79).
Therefore, the actresses that played Hedda, Juliane, Thea, and Berte – Dalila Rocha,
Madalena Braga, Alda Rodrigues, and Nita Mercedes, respectively – had the task of being able to
“communicate” with the audience, neither opposing nor criticizing it. In other words, one could say
they had to represent their female characters with “performative honesty”, reinterpreting only through
gestures and movements. This is why Madalena Braga plays the role of Juliane displaying the
humbleness and the passivity that was needed from the character, as Rui Pina Coelho (1973) says in
Porto’s volume while complimenting the actress on the job she had done; these are the directions
followed by Alda Rodrigues, who portrayed Thea Elvested, embodying the character with the naivety
and hope dictated by Correia Alves' text translation; Nita Mercedes, in the role of Berte, also delivers
a remarkable performance for the caution and attentiveness with which she characterizes Berte, a
secondary character in herself but one that still provides another feminine perspective in the social
dynamics at play in the interactions between characters (GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017:
39). In this way, Guedes's production presents a collective of subordinate women, in some way, both
out of kindness and out of fear of standing up in defense of themselves, a portrayal that fits well into
the Portuguese feminine context of the Salazar era.
Hedda is the sole exception among the female characters who, unlike her peers, uses and
asserts her voice in an attempt to achieve her goals. This fact has often been interpreted in various
ways by critics. Porto states in his volume that, according to a part of the critics, the protagonist of the
play is a monstrous being that rises above good and evil (PORTO 1973: 80). This aligns well with the
interpretation of critics who even see something “demonic” in Hedda’s character17. With Guedes,
Dalila Rocha brought about a change in the representation of this peculiar protagonist. Porto already
attests that Rocha did not convey a monstrous interpretation at all but rather portrayed Hedda almost
timidly as a poor woman from a lower class compared to the other socially-elevated male figures in
the drama (PORTO 1973: 80), emphasizing a gap between the world of women and that of men that
Guedes wanted to be clearly visible in his production. Rocha then maintained the dissimulation that
characterizes Hedda Gabler’s attitude in expressing what she truly thinks, but was nudged to add a
tone of seriousness to her character’s interpretation (GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017: 56),
which some critics interpreted as rigidity at the time. However, this seriousness can also be thought as
a performative medium that led the audience to take seriously the possibly controversial speeches of a
woman subordinated to a social order that did not even consider her equal to her peers. Hedda’s
seriousness leads her to handle what is going on around her with a certain degree of cautiousness, and
this is the case with her relationship with men. Rocha managed to convey the dangerousness that,
being a woman, can come from being around a powerful man. This was achieved by her use of
language, weak and unsure, especially when in front of a character as powerful as Dr. Brack is
(GRASSI TREMENTOCIO TOSTA 2017: 49). A meaningful example is an episode in the third act
where Dr. Brack willingly and admittedly shows jealousy Hedda when suggesting Løvborg should no
longer come to his household:

Hedda - (The smile disappearing) At certain moments, you must be a dangerous person. […]
Hedda - I'm glad that you have no power over me, and I hope you never will.

16
O.T.: ‹‹Acentuar as características dessas figuras, torná-las rigidas e inteiriças oferece, é evidente, os seus
riscos. O encenador deve, pois, usar de uma certa maleabilidade que permita dar a cada personagem o seu
carácter próprio […] sem deixar de formar com elas um conjunto de relações humanamente válidas››.
17
Cf. Ali, Batool, Niazi, Tayyab, Asghar 2015; Zhiyi 2002.
 Brack - (With an ambiguous smile)18.

Through Correia Alves’ translation, the use of body language and of tone, Rocha and the
other actors from the play needed to represent the fact that Hedda was never going to take control of
her destiny, because another male figure would always have a plan in store for her and he was already
hatching it. Therefore, Rocha’s Hedda was not just plainly the main character from Ibsen’s play: the
Portuguese actress wanted to bring Hedda to life in the actual Portuguese context of the 1960s and
have her interact with it through Guedes’ production.
Guedes’ production of Hedda Gabler achieved the success it deserved among its audience,
partially due to the nature and composition of that audience, as Francisca Salema asserts, ‹‹composed,
for the most part, of artists, writers, and poets››19 (SALEMA 2023: 32). In regards to its reception, it
can certainly be believed that, if Ibsen was considered an unwelcome author to the Estado Novo as
well as ignored as simply irrelevant or too unknown for the regime, the possible political and cultural
implications within his works make him a symbol of resistance to social injustices perceived by
certain social groups. Guedes’ audience had surely appreciated the staging of a work like Hedda
Gabler, and more generally any work from Ibsen’s repertoire, in a cultural context as repressive and
stagnant as Salazar's Estado Novo. They had praised the quality of the interpretation, the carefully
drawn figures by the director (SALEMA 2023: 32). It should not seem so strange then that the
interesting but controversial work of Hedda Gabler found success among those who wanted change
and the end of dictatorship. This fact is given by the essence and nature of the artistic phenomenon of
theater inserted into a specific historical, cultural, social, and political context. The connection
established between the work of the experimental Portuguese theater TEP and Ibsen’s Norwegian
dramaturgy is based on an interplay of theater cultures that reflects the dynamic and generative nature
of cultural exchanges. This cultural fact is recognized by Erika Fischer-Lichte as the “Interweaving of
Theatre or Performance Cultures” (ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE 2008: 98). According to
Fischer-Lichte, all processes of “Interweaving” are to be considered as “political processes”, within
entities she recognizes as “doers” and “onlookers” act. These two interact with each other until power
struggles arise within or between these groups; it is at that moment that theater as a form of art
transforms from a purely artistic space into a social and political one. Theater becomes a platform
where ‹‹new forms of social co-existence are tried and tested›› (FISCHER-LICHTE 2008: 100). As
João Guedes had conceived his production of Hedda Gabler by TEP, this production aimed to reflect,
reexamine, and condemn the complete subaltern condition in which women found themselves in the
Estado Novo. It is in this model that the “historical necessity” of representing Ibsen, as mentioned by
Porto, fits, as the TEP had become a field of political and cultural discussion where spectators were
led to reflect on the situation and context of which they were a part, the true recipients of the dramatic
action of the TEP and Guedes. In doing so, cultural ties and connections were woven between the
world of letters in Portugal and Norway, where the Portuguese theater saw an occasion for a social
fight they had seen being already fought in Ibsen’s works.

Conclusion

After having examined TEP’s production of Hedda Gabler in the peculiar context of Salazar’s
dictatorship, we have come to an understanding of what it means for art to get political when needed.
Not only TEP’s theater was able to bypass Estado Novo’s censorship by deciding to work with plays
that went “under the radar”, but it also managed to make a statement and initiate a discussion on what
women’s rights were not being respected during Salazar’s regime. Ibsen’s work was crucial to Guedes
and his colleagues for achieving such a goal. This is because they used Hedda Gabler to propose a
18
O.T.: ‹‹Hedda - (Desaparecendo o sorriso) Em certos momentos o senhor deve ser uma pessoa perigosa. (...)
Hedda - Sinto-me satisfeita que o senhor não tenha qualquer poder sobre mim e espero que nunca venha a ter.
Brack - (Com um sorriso ambíguo)›› (ALVES, 1961, p. 84).
19
O.T.: ‹‹composto, na sua maioria, por artistas, escritores e poetas››.
situational context that was not recognizes as “Portuguese-relevant” by Salazar, although this
situational context was already present in Portuguese society, waiting to be analyzed and criticized.
With Guedes’ production, moreover, a precedent was set in establishing a cultural bond between
Portugal and Norway. This means that the importance of this play needs to be recognized not just in
its political value, but also in the fact that it links two cultural universes, Portugal’s and Norway’s,
apparently so different from each other, but actually share more similarities than it seems at a first
glance.

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