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CHAPTER Two: WHAT Is A DRAMA EVENT Davis sees the burning of the fingers as an incident that connects this action with other historical events, possibly bringing up associations of similar destruction happening in reality rather than fiction. Hedda burning her finger also offers a possibility for the audience to connect on a more bodily level as well, the memory of an incident or even just the sensation of burning one’s finger might come back to those watching, which could create a personal resonance of the action on stage. It is also useful to acknowledge that the action is the physical realisation of an idiom referring to bearing the bad consequences of one’s deeds, so this creates a connection with cultural references as well, which might open further questions relating to the action. Perhaps it is the contradictions between these different levels of connection that the action brings up that open the possibility for the audience to make meaning of the situation for themselves. Looking at the text of the Ibsen play we find that when Hedda starts burning the manuscript she whispers to herself: “Now I am burning your child, Thea!—Burning it, curly-locks!”??® With these lines Ibsen makes the action mean more than it is, ‘cathexing’ the manuscript by calling it a baby. This first step seems very important in the process that can be developed into Hedda burning her finger, as it opens up the possibility for the audience to see the manuscript as something that means more than itself, but the meaning ascribed to it is constantly challenged. The manuscript acquires the meaning ‘child’, but then is read by Hedda giving it back its manuscript meaning. Hedda’s action of trying to find the next page increases the significance and value of the text that is in the manuscript, but also provokes questions about what it could be. Finally, Hedda burning her fingers raises questions about the consequence of her action on multiple levels, but it is important that it remains completely logical within the situation. The Bondian re-working of this situation from Hedda Gabler also shows where and how his thinking diverges from the genre of realism. Another example discussed by Davis is from the Bond play titled Coffee. In one of the scenes in the play two soldiers are making coffee after a hard day’s work shooting prisoners sent onto a ledge from the other side of the ravine. As they are drinking their coffee they are called back to work because some more prisoners are found in the back of a lorry. One of the soldiers pours his coffee out on the floor in his anger at being called back to work. Davis argues that the “action of flinging the coffee across the ground (in fact across the stage with a ‘whoosh’ according to the stage directions) itself has the potential to disturb the audience into a new way of ‘seeing’ what is 399 398 Henrik Ibsen: Hedda Gabler, Kindle edition, New York, Dover Publications, 2012, Kindle location 1723. 39° Edward Bond: Coffee, London, Bloomsbury, 1995. + 100 +
