Peer Gynt figure quite so exuberant, outrageous, vitalistic as Peer Gynt. He merely "seems" initially to be an unlikely candidate for such eminence: "What is he", we say, "except a kind of Norwegian roaring boy?" – marvelously attractive to women, a kind of bogus poet, a narcissist, absurd self-idolator, a liar, seducer, bombastic self-deceiver. But this is paltry moralizing – all too much like the scholarly chorus that rants against Falstaff. True, Peer, unlike Falstaff, is not a great wit. But in the Yahwistic, biblical sense, Peer the scamp bears the blessing: More life. On 5 January 1867 Ibsen wrote to Frederik
Hedda Gabler Suzman, Diana Rigg, Isabelle Huppert, Claire Bloom, June Brown, Kate Burton, Geraldine James, Kate Mulgrew, Kelly McGillis, Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith, Jane Fonda, Annette Bening, Amanda Donohoe, Judy Davis, Emmanuelle Seigner, Harriet Walter, Rosamund Pike and Cate Blanchett, who won the 2005 Helpmann Award (Australia) for Best Female Actor in a Play. In the early 1970s, Irene Worth played Hedda at Stratford, Ontario, prompting "New York Times" critic Walter Kerr to write, "Miss Worth is just possibly the best actress in the world." Glenda Jackson returned to the RSC to play Hedda Gabler. A later film version directed by Nunn