Hedda takes every chance to act badly and to hurt others. Sometimes she does so with a languid pettiness and sometimes with malignant determination. By nature all ice and indifference, she accomplishes her delinquencies without a rush of agitation or beating emotion; and that is why it is hard to remember that throughout Ibsen’s four-act play Hedda does not show a single, decent, generous impulse. We consider her at her best when she shows nothing beyond her style. How is it possible that with all these distressing qualities, Hedda Gabler challenges and pleases and is the most fascinating, humanly interesting of Ibsen’s women. Actresses long to play the role and she has had a steady public since 1890. The blurring, the murkiness of her bad nature are themselves dramatic discoveries. The audience, when it is a woman, knows her own George Tesman; and the male is ever willing to risk his peace with a Hedda.