Alexander Hurt (left) is the wealthy Gregers Werle, who meddles in the life of the bourgeois Hjalmar Ekdal (Nick Westrate), in Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck at Theatre for a New Audience. (This photo and banner by Gerry Goodstein.)
Henrik Ibsen’s play The Wild Duck received a confused reaction from most critics after it was published in 1884. Almost alone, George Bernard Shaw acclaimed it, and while its reputation has gradually grown, it isn’t performed nearly so much as A Doll’s House or Hedda Gabler or Ghosts: the last New York City production in English was in 1987. For a play that the stern critic John Simon called “one of the finest tragicomedies in all dramatic literature,” the neglect is shocking, so Theatre for a New Audience deserves kudos for resurrecting it. The result, however, is often disappointing.
Gregers resists the overtures of his father, Håkon Werle (Robert Stanton), whom he mistrusts and despises. Photograph by Hollis King.
Ibsen’s play has dual protagonists, former classmates in their youth, and neither character is particularly likable. Gregers Werle (Alexander Hurt) is the son of a timber baron and despises his father for mistreating his mother. For years he has worked at the family’s distant sawmill, but he has returned to town at his father’s behest and insisted that his school chum, Hjalmar Ekdal (Nick Westrate), now a local photographer, be invited to a party. The social dynamics involve more than class: Hjalmar’s father was convicted of timber theft and sent to prison, although Gregers’s father, Håkon (Robert Stanton), was his business partner, and, Gregers suspects, equally culpable.
As Gregers surveys the landscape, he learns his father plans to marry again to a Mrs. Sørby (Mahira Kakkar), a lively woman whose past includes an affair with Dr. Relling (Matthew Saldívar), a lodger with the Ekdals. As in all Ibsen, the plot is tightly wound together, and the prevailing mores constrict the characters. “I’m afraid she won’t put up with it for much longer,” Håkon tells Gregers of public murmurs about Mrs. Sørby’s dating habits. “She’s ignored common gossip and downright slander out of sheer devotion to me.”
Gina Ekdal (Melanie Field) tries to shield her daughter, Hedvig (Maaika Laanstra-Corn), from Gregers. Photograph by Hollis King.
More important, Gregers learns that Hjalmar’s wife, Gina (Melanie Field), was his family’s former maid—and an object of Håkon’s lust. In David Eldridge’s streamlined 2004 translation, the butler describes Håkon as “a bit of a goat.”
Eldridge has trimmed the text wisely, including incessant references to the wild duck, whose rescue from being shot by Håkon has come at the cost of its freedom; it is now a household pet of Hjalmar and Gina’s daughter Hedvig (Maaika Laanstra-Corn). Ibsen tends to hammer home the bird as a symbol, so the paring is welcome.
The Wild Duck is about whether it is better to live in a pipe dream—Hjalmar is working on an invention to help restore his father’s reputation—or, as the self-righteous Gregers believes, to face absolute truths that will lead to an ideal marriage.
Gina and her husband, Hjalmar, discuss his plans for a great invention. Photograph by Gerry Goodstein.
Gregers: You’ve invented something?
Hjalmar: Not yet, but I’m working on it. You don’t think I decided to
sacrifice my life for the sake of photography so I could take portraits of ordinary people?
Gregers: That’s what your wife’s said.
Hjalmar: I swore I’d dedicate myself to it to the point it became art—a science even. And then I decided to begin work on this—remarkable—invention.
Gregers: What is it? What’s its purpose?
Hjalmar: Don’t ask me too many questions yet. It’s a mission that I’m living for day and night.
Such a passage could be hilarious, because Hjalmar hasn’t thought of anything yet, but the comedy feels muted, and director Simon Godwin’s production leans more toward tragedy—when it’s not just flat.
David Patrick Kelly plays Old Ekdal, Hjalmar’s father, convicted of a crime for which Håkon Werle may have escaped punishment. Photograph by Hollis King.
A key problem is an unevenness in the acting. Some actors’ stagecraft assures they’ll be heard at the rear of the orchestra—Westrate and the three women especially. But others, especially Hurt, are often barely audible. In an early confrontation with his father, one strains to hear him, and Stanton lowers his register as well; Hurt, who has worked in many larger spaces successfully, is here inexplicably at a disadvantage—or else he is playing as if for a camera two feet away. The result is an imbalance between the two protagonists, for which Godwin is ultimately responsible.
It’s left mostly to the women to salvage the evening. Field is a sturdy, dynamic presence, and her Gina becomes the heroine of the piece, the one person who deserves sympathy. Laanstra-Corn as Hedvig, even with occasional screaming, sidesteps the typical bratty teenager; she’s just a teenager. And Kakkar’s lively Sørby provides the ultimate irony of the play. Sørby has told Håkon all about her past, including the affair with Relling. Heading now to the hinterlands, the couple is embarking on a true marriage with absolute honesty, and Gregers cannot acknowledge it.
The Theatre for a New Audience production of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck plays through Sept. 28 at Theatre for a New Audience (Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit tfana.org.
Playwright: Henrik Ibsen; adaptation by David Eldridge
Director: Simon Godwin
Scenic Design: Andrew Boyce
Costume Design: Heather C. Freedman
Lighting Design: Stacey Derosier
Sound Design: Darron L. West
