The Wild Duck

Ibsen’s 1884 play The Wild Duck is one of modern drama’s first tragicomedies. George Bernard Shaw said that watching it was like “getting deeper and deeper into that Ekdal home and getting deeper and deeper into your own life all the time, until you forget that you are in a theatre; to look on with horror and shaking with laughter all the time at an irresistible comedy.”

Gregers Werle, the idealistic and dogmatic son of a wealthy businessman, wreaks havoc when he embarks on a crusade to unveil the false foundations of the life of his friend, Hjalmar Ekdal. Ignorant of the adults’ machinations, Hedvig, a young girl, tries to shield the fragile eponymous duck from the injuries of the world. Gregers’ imposition of “rectitude,” however, leads to turmoil and death. Ibsen’s genius was to create complex characters who compel us with their humanity.