Review by Ron Fassler . . .
The last time I attended a production of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music forty-eight years ago. The second time, in a full circle moment, was last week at the Polonsky Theatre Center right around the corner. Having read most of Ibsen and seen multiple renditions of A Doll’s House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, Hedda Gabler, and The Master Builder, I confess to remembering little to nothing about The Wild Duck in the nearly fifty years since first encountering it. In the Ibsen canon, it doesn’t share the producibility of his more famous titles, I think, for a reason: as a mystery it contains secrets far too easy to guess and, as a morality play, its major theme of a truth-teller whose thoughtless actions lead to tragedy and death is put to better use in Ibsen’s later masterpiece, The Master Builder. As the father of modern playwriting, it’s always fascinating to spend time with Ibsen’s characters as they are his children that begat other children, influencing generations of playwrights. As but one example, the seeds Eugene O’Neill planted in Hickey’s demand that the sad-eyed denizens of Harry Hope’s saloon in Iceman Cometh face up to their pipe dreams were firmly planted first in The Wild Duck.
Adapted from the original by David Eldridge and first produced at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2005, this Wild Duck is being presented by TFANA/Shakespeare Theatre Company. New to the Eldridge translation is director Simon Godwin, who has wisely kept the play in its original setting, smartly straddling the difficult task of bringing out the comedy in this tragicomedy whenever possible. Ibsen can get awfully serious and any respites from that are always welcome. Even the darkness of the character of Hedda Gabler offers some good comedy if an actor and director are willing to mine for it. In a recent interview, Godwin emphasized how “Ibsen was constantly trying to redirect us from the easy classification of this is comedy and this is tragedy. And he was following in the steps of the late plays of Shakespeare and recognizing we can move dexterously from something that makes us smile to something that makes us cry.” To that goal, Godwin and company are wholly successful allowing this Wild Duck to not get bogged down with being preachy and didactic but more lived in and conflicted, reflecting life in its most honest terms. His direction provides a proper mix of pain and pleasure, joyfulness and regret, all of which bring these characters to vivid life. Tonally, he gets it right.
The play’s central plot concerns the Ekdal family who have built their meager existence on secrets and falsehoods. The deepest bond shared by husband and wife Hjamal (Nick Westrate) and Gina (Melanie Field) is a devotion to their teenage daughter, Hedvig (Maaike Laanstra-Corn). Overprotective due to the creeping blindness that she is experiencing, they have also unwisely kept it secret from Hedvig. What we come to realize is that nothing is really as it seems and it falls to Hjamal’s boyhood playmate, Gregers Werle (Alexander Hurt), who shows up after many years away working at his wealthy father’s mill in the country. A spoiled child who has never grown up, Gregers is at odds with his tyrannical father (Robert Stanton) and revels in his self-appointed role as a messianic truth-seeker. Constantly in his own head, his efforts to help his old friend are as welcome as gasoline to a raging fire.
Other characters who add to the conflagration are Hjamal’s father (David Patrick Kelly) and Dr. Relling (Matthew Saldívar), a drunk who nonetheless gives Gregers a run for his money in the truth-telling department. Their final confrontation is the real meat and potatoes of all Ibsen has strived for in the story.
While doing a little research, I discovered that The Wild Duck, first produced in 1885, had a 1918 Broadway premiere that featured the Russian-born Alla Nazimova—often billed as simply “Nazimova.” A key interpreter of Ibsen, she brought her star quality to the supporting role of the fourteen-year-old Hedvig at age thirty-nine (possibly older as actresses lying about such things have a long history). Here, Maaike Laanstra-Corn plays the part with genuinely touching results. A graduate of Brown University, however old she may be, that reality is obscured by Laanstra-Corn’s all-too-real portrayal of a conflicted teenage girl. Nick Westrate brings pompousness and priggishness to Hjamal while still making us care for his impossible predicament. As his wife, Melanie Field underplays with welcome restraint and Alexander Hurt manages the tricky role of Gregers with a no-frills delivery combined with a vibrant backstory of pain and suffering. And Matthew Saldívar is not only pitch perfect as the cynical doctor but manages a splendid cameo as a completely different character in the play’s first scene. I also enjoyed the fine work of David Patrick Kelly, Robert Stanton and Mahira Kakkar as well.
Design values feel simple and true, mainly due to an expansive yet claustrophobic space provided by Andrew Boyce, where much of the play takes place. Costumes by Heather C. Freedman and lighting by Stacey Derosier make excellent contributions to the world inhabited on the Polonsky’s Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage.
The last time Broadway had The Wild Duck on its boards was in 1967, produced by the well-respected APA-Phoenix Repertory Company. The fine actors rotating in selected roles included Rosemary Harris, Donald Moffat, Ellis Raab, Will Geer, Keene Curtis, and Sydney Walker. This cast lives up to those actors and provides the chance to see this seldom produced play. It’s an easy trip to Brooklyn, another reason to take a chance on Ibsen, dodgy as that may be sometimes. For here it is rendered in a clear and concise production that brings all that’s funny about life’s drama to the fore.
TFANA/Shakespeare Theatre Company’s The Wild Duck is at the Polonsky Theatre Center, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY in a limited engagement through September 28th. For ticket information, please visit: https://tfana.org/events/the-wild-duck-2025-09-14-200-pm.
Headline photo by Gerry Goodstein: Maaike Laanstra-Corn as Hedvig, David Patrick Kelly as Old Ekdal, Nick Westrate as Hjalmar Ekdal, Melanie Field as Gina Ekdal, Alexander Hurt as Gregers Werle.
