The Wild Duck

At the webpage of Trøndelag Theatre the following, among other things, is written about The Wild Duck:

"The force of truth may turn the world upside-down. In Ibsen's perhaps most well-made drama the question of how to manage it is central.

Even in his most perfected, complex play, Henrik Ibsen didn't want to provide clear answers. In The Wild Duck, the writer shakes up his characters, as well as the audience's opinions on right and wrong - with precision sharp as a knife/knife-sharp precision VELG. Nothing is left to coincidence. The different characters and stories seamlessly intertwine. In the centre of the events: A shocking secret.

'Don't press me, friend, to act the necromancer; I'd rather ask; it's not my job to answer', Ibsen wrote in the poem A Verse Letter in 1875*. In The Wild Duck, Ibsen's mystery circle around the question if people will feel better if uncomfortable truths about their lives are revealed. Or could the life-lie and the self-deception be considered medicine? To quote Doctor Relling; 'Rob the average man of his life-lie, and you rob him of his happiness at the same time'**.

To many, The Wild Duck is a familiar play. It has been analysed to bits by Norwegian school children, and has had a unique position in Norwegian and international theatre ever since it was staged for the first time in 1885. However, when The Wild Duck was published as a book in 1884, it confounded critics and audiences. The mix of symbolism and realism, tragedy and comedy was concerned as new, and it spread confusion. After the world premiere at The National Stage in Bergen the next year, the critics concluded success, and today the story of the Ekdal family is among Ibsen's most performed.

The production of The Wild Duck is part of Trøndelag Theatre's Ibsen project, as part of which several of his greatest plays have been performed using a modern, visual theatre expression. Behind this version of The Wild Duck is the team that has given us unforgettable productions of Death of a Salesman and Hamlet."

SOURCES:

Trøndelag Theatre, www.trondelag-teater.no, 17.09.17, http://www.trondelag-teater.no/forestillinger/vildanden/

The Hedda Award, www.heddaprisen.no, 18.06.2018, https://www.heddaprisen.no/nominerte/2018

*English version at Sceneweb.no is quoted from John Northam's translation.

**Quoted from William Archer's translation.