Since Hjalmar's motives can seem ambiguous at times, it is important that his tone and manner are not so. .
In this passage, the reactions of the listening characters to the dialogue take as important a position as what is actually said. As the stage directions do not detail many reactions in the play, it is up to the director and actors to decide what reaction and what level of attention should be paid to the speaker by each character. The implications of such choices are paramount to the understanding of the relationships between each of the characters. An example of this idea is shown when Hjalmar asks Gina whether someone has been in to look at the room they plan to let. If Gina's reaction to this question is to "obviously lie" - to look uncomfortable, speak with an insecure tone, etc - then we as an audience will understand quite clearly that she is lying. We may also understand that Hjalmar is quite ignorant if he cannot see that Gina is clearly lying. However, if the choice is made for Gina to be quite flippant in her response to Hjalmar's baited question, answering in a seemingly honest way, she may come across as being naturally deceitful and secretive. Also, if the audience did not understand from previous dialogue that someone had been in to look at the room, they may believe that Gina is not lying, and the following dialogue will take on a different spin. .
It can be argued that Hedvig and Ekdal, in this passage, are very honest in their reactions. However, in this scene particularly, their dialogue tends to be a little ambiguous. The exchange between Hjalmar and Ekdal at the beginning of the passage is very vague - who is the "she" that has "gone into the basket"? A director may choose for one of the men to gesture towards the attic during this exchange; while this does not clarify the identity of the "she", it does remove the possibility of the audience believing that the "she" in question is either Hedvig or Gina.
