The Wild Duck (1884) is the red-headed step-child among Henrik Ibsen’s classic plays. It seems every time a high-powered actress best known for her film or TV work wants to establish her stage chops, we get a fresh production of A Doll’s House or Hedda Gabler, or sometimes Ghosts. In fact, Duck has not flown over Broadway since 1967 when it was part of Ellis Rabb’s legendary APA repertory. This is probably because Duck is an ensemble work while the previously mentioned Ibsen dramas provide Tony-bait female star-vehicle opportunities. (I’ve only previously seen Duck in a BBC TV staging.) This is a shame because the play is a shattering naturalistic depiction of the effects of illusion on a downtrodden family, prefiguring American treatments on the subject such as Miller’s Death of a Salesman and O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. Ibsen displays compassion for the Ekdal household which manages to struggle decently along despite deeply hidden secrets and deceptions. The most destructive character of the piece turns out to be a well-intentioned, but misguided idealist whose insistence on exposing the family’s hidden truths leads to tragic consequences.
Alexander Hurt and Nick Westrate in
The Wild Duck.
Credit: Gerry Goodstein
Simon Godwin’s staging in a co-production from Theater for a New Audience and Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theater Company (where Godwin is artistic director), is a refreshing and intense take on this neglected classic, which strikes the perfect balance between humor and pathos. There are no high-tech concepts or gimmicks in the staging which, along with first-class acting, humanizes all of the characters. There are no villains or heroes here, just flawed, earnest human beings trying to cope the best way they can in difficult circumstances. Godwin allows us to laugh at their foibles, and this makes their sad ends all the more devastating. David Eldridge’s lucid translation, which premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in 2005, blows the dust off Ibsen’s play and makes it speakable and contemporary.
Maaike Laanstra-Corn, David Patrick Kelly,
Nick Westrate, Melania Field and
Alexander Hurt in The Wild Duck. Credit:
Gerry Goodstein
