Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – David Eldridge’s assured, intentionally acted adaptation dusts off the cob webs from Ibsen’s THE WILD DUCK

• By drediman
• September 15, 2025
• No Comments

Last night, Theatre for a New Audience’s fall presentation of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck — a co-production with Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company — opened at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood. Utilizing a superb adaptation by David Eldridge (which was first seen twenty years ago at the Donmar Warehouse in London), the production is a relatively rare opportunity to see one of Ibsen’s more curious works. Essentially, The Wild Duck tells the story of Gregers Werle, a man whose uncompromising idealism and ruthless truth-saying trigger some dire consequences to the lives of those around him, particularly his financially struggling friend Hjalmar Ekdal and his family.

Eldridge’s adaptation is assured and surprisingly contemporary — but not aggressively so — dusting the cob webs off the play to more fully reveal its relevance to today’s theatergoers without having to sacrifice its underlying DNA. Indeed, this is still very much Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, just an intelligently re-calibrated version of it that more potently raises a mirror to audiences. While the adaptation doesn’t do away with Ibsen’s underlined symbolism, Eldridge does a skillful job of weaving it more thoroughly into the play’s overall naturalistic fabric. As a result, the symbolism doesn’t land as heavily (thankfully) as it typically does, thereby minimizing any unintended melodrama. Eldridge also keenly brings out the observational humor built into Ibsen’s play, most of which spring organically from the play’s confrontational situations.

Just as well judged is the staging by director Simon Godwin, whose handsome period production (kudos to the solid work by scenic designer Andrew Boyce and costumer designer Heather C. Freedman) feels very much grounded in everyday realities rather than aloft expounding philosophical treatises. The play’s central performances are all lived in and intentionally wrought — Alexander Hurt brings a quiet ruthlessness to Gregers, while Nick Westrate is both maddening and appealingly gregarious as Hjalmar. And in a steady performance, Melanie Field ideally highlights resilience and unshakable fortitude as Gina, Hjalmar‘wife. But perhaps best of all as Hjalmar’s daughter Hedvig is Maaike Laanstra-Corn, whose raw, nervous performance brings visceral punch to Ibsen’s coolly intellectual musings.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE WILD DUCK
Off-Broadway, Play
Theatre for a New Audience
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through September 28