Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 10).djvu/15

 *tion of Ibsen in England, the first being the Charrington-Achurch production of A Doll's House in 1889. Miss Robins afterwards repeated her fine performance of Hedda many times, in London, in the English provinces, and in New York. The character has also been acted in London by Eleonora Duse, and as I write (March 5, 1907) by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, at the Court Theatre. In America, Hedda has frequently been acted by Mrs. Fiske, Miss Nance O'Neill and other actresses—quite recently by a Russian actress, Madame Alla Nazimova, who (playing in English) has made a great success both in this part and in Nora. The first French Hedda Gabler was Mlle. Marthe Brandès, who played the part at the Vaudeville Theatre, Paris, on December 17, 1891, the performance being introduced by a lecture by M. Jules Lemaître. In Holland, in Italy, in Russia, the play has been acted times without number. In short (as might easily have been foretold) it has rivalled A Doll's House in world-wide popularity.

It has been suggested,[1] I think without sufficient ground, that Ibsen deliberately conceived Hedda Gabler as an "international" play, and that the scene is really the "west end" of any great European city. To me it seems quite clear that Ibsen had Christiania in mind, and the Christiania of a somewhat earlier period than the 'nineties. The electric cars, telephones, and other conspicuous factors in the life of a modern capital are notably absent from the play. There is no electric light in Secretary Falk's villa. It is still the habit for ladies to return on foot from evening parties, with gallant swains escorting them. This "suburbanism," which so distressed the London critics of

1 See article by Herman Bang in Neue deutsche Rundschau, December 1906, p. 1495.