Hedda Gabler is among those plays where it doesn’t matter what fancy sets you slap onstage or who else is milling around in the background: the fate of a production of this play rests on the woman playing the title character.

Luckily, Julie-Ann Elliott is up for shouldering such a burden.

Elliott’s performance is the main reason why Olney Theatre’s elegant production of the Ibsen classic works rather well. In Hedda Gabler, the playwright sets out to show us what happens when a gargantuan woman is thrown into the most mundane of circumstances: namely, a life of humdrum domesticity. Sure, there’s a plot in there somewhere, involving a man with a past and a missing manuscript, but what we’re really interested in is Hedda’s journey.

And Elliott’s Hedda is just what we want to see: a woman who is mischievous, imperious and at times unhinged. When Elliott wildly grabs ahold of her former classmate, Mrs. Elvsted (Maia DeSanti, sufficiently innocent for the role and with a quiet strength behind her performance) and exclaims, “I think I must burn your hair off after all!” we have no doubt she’s capable of it. Elliott is not afraid of being unsympathetic when the role requires it, but her performance is dynamic enough that we’re drawn to her just the same.