Peer Gynt House. In 2006, as part of the Norwegian Ibsen anniversary festival, "Peer Gynt" was set at the foot of the Great Sphinx of Giza near Cairo, Egypt (an important location in the original play). The director was Bentein Baardson. The performance was the centre of some controversy, with some critics seeing it as a display of colonialist attitudes. In January 2008 the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis debuted a new translation of "Peer Gynt" by the poet Robert Bly. Bly learned Norwegian from his grandparents while growing up in rural Minnesota, and later during several years of travel in Norway. This
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