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
Hedda Gabler was released as "Hedda" (1975) for which Jackson was nominated for an Oscar. In 2005, a production by Richard Eyre, starring Eve Best, at the Almeida Theatre in London was well-received, and later transferred for an 11½ week run at the Duke of York's on St Martin's Lane. The play was staged at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater starring actress Martha Plimpton. British playwright John Osborne prepared an adaptation in 1972, and in 1991 the Canadian playwright Judith Thompson presented her version at the Shaw Festival. Thompson adapted the play a second time in 2005 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in