[2] "The play aroused a storm of hostility," Ibsen wrote in its preface three years later, "more violent and more widespread than most books could boast of having evoked in a community the vast majority of whose members commonly regard matters of literature as being of small concern.

The same group had premiered Shaw's Philanderer there in February, with the same key women performers: Gwendolen Bishop, Millicent Murby, Louise Salom.

Ibsen called Love's Comedy an extension of his poem "On the Heights" ("Paa Vidurne"), insofar as both works explore a need for liberation; both, he suggested, were based on his relationship with his wife Suzanna.

Lind’s proposal of marriage to Anna is accepted, but Svanhild rejects the chance to become Falk’s muse, as poetry is merely writing, and he can do that on his own and without really risking himself for his beliefs.

When Lind is persuaded by Anna’s friends not to leave as a missionary but stay in a cosy existence looking after his wife, Falk denounces the lot of them – saying that their marriages have nothing to do with love.

Falk leaves to write songs which celebrate an untainted love and Svanhild sits gloomily amongst the world of convention – a housewife who once had passion and now lives on its memory.