private theatres or rooms which could be fitted up with a stage, at
which wandering troupes of actors gave performances that were eagerly
attended by "the best people." These actors, however, were exclusively
Danes, and there was an accepted tradition that Norwegians could not
act. If they attempted to do so, their native accents proved
disagreeable to their fellow-citizens, who demanded, as an imperative
condition, the peculiar intonation and pronunciation cultivated at the
Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, as well as an absence of all native
peculiarities of language. The stage, therefore--and this is very
important in a consideration of the career of Ibsen--had come to be the
symbol of a certain bias in political feeling. Society in Norway was
divided into two classes, the "Danomaniacs" and the "Patriots." Neither
of these had any desire to alter the constitutional balance of power,
but while the latter wished Norway to be intellectually self-productive,
and leaned to a further isolation in language, literature, art and
manners, the former thought that danger of barbarism lay in every
direction save that of keeping close to the tradition of Denmark, from
which all that was witty, graceful and civilized had proceeded.

Accordingly the theatre, at which exclusively Danish plays were acted,
in the Danish style, by Danish actors and actresses, was extremely
popular with the conservative class, who thought, by attendance on these
performances, to preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of
"high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the
patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave
suspicion as likely to undermine the purity of national feeling.

The earliest attempt at the opening of a National Theatre had been made
at Christiania by the Swede, J. P. Stroemberg, in 1827; this was not
successful, and his theatre was burned down in 1835. In it some effort