Hedda Gabler more important than the rational one. Ibsen was interested in the then-embryonic science of mental illness and had a poor understanding by present-day standards. His "Ghosts" is another example of this. Examples of the troubled 19th-century female might include oppressed, but "normal", wilful characters; women in abusive or loveless relationships; and those with some type of organic brain disease. Ibsen is content to leave such explanations unsettled. Bernard Paris interprets Gabler's actions as stemming from her "need for freedom [which is] as compensatory as her craving for power... her desire to shape a man's destiny." The play was performed in
The Play What I Wrote Branagh. The play proved a prolonged success and earned positive reviews. Michael Billington, reviewing for "The Guardian", wrote: "The real joy of the evening, however, is that the gags come thick and fast, producing a kind of comic delirium. Matt Wolf, reviewing for "Variety", wrote "...it’s the innocence of “The Play What I Wrote” (the grammatical inaccuracy of the title is part of its point) that represents the evening’s best calling card...the evening trades in old-fashioned verbal jokes...and visual ones." It won Foley and McColl a joint Best Actor nomination at the 2002 Laurence Olivier Awards and, although they did