Hedda Gabler Munich at the Königliches Residenz-Theater on 31 January 1891, with Clara Heese as Hedda, though Ibsen was said to be displeased with the declamatory style of her performance. Ibsen’s work had an international following, so that translations and productions in various countries appeared very soon after the publication in Copenhagen and the premiere in Munich. In February 1891 there were two productions: Berlin and Copenhagen. The first British performance was at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, on 20 April 1891, starring Elizabeth Robins, who directed it with Marion Lea, who played Thea. Robins also played Hedda in the first US production,
Hedda Gabler protagonists of literature. By that, Krutch means that Hedda is neither logical nor insane in the old sense of being random and unaccountable. Her aims and her motives have a secret personal logic of their own. She gets what she wants, but what she wants is not anything that normal people would acknowledge (at least, not publicly) to be desirable. One of the significant things that such a character implies is the premise that there is a secret, sometimes unconscious, world of aims and methods — one might almost say a secret system of values — that is often much