The Wild Duck

As has Hjalmar, who idly dreams of inventing a contraption that will return the family to glory. Hardly a word is spoken in the last encounter between Haaken Werle Bjorn Skagestad , the corrupt businessman who has manipulated the Ekdal family to his own ends, and his righteously moral son, Gregers Eindride Eidsvold , who will seek to undo the damage his father has done. The production, which opened last night at the Harvey Theater at the , runs two hours with no intermission, and is performed in Norwegian with supertitles projected above the stage. We can see how the call to live life by higher standards would appeal to a man intimately exposed to the dreary grind, but also how the seductive pull of its daily comforts would draw him back in. He has also cut the text, liberally but with a precision that leaves intact the emotional coloring of the essential relationships.

Kai Remlov

A National Theater of Norway, Oslo production, presented by the 2006 Next Wave Festival, , Karen Brooks Hopkins, president; Joseph V. The apparent shipwreck is met with a placid fortitude tinted with amusement by Ms. Gunshots and slammed doors, rather than silences and sighs, are what we might glibly associate with the dramatic methods of Ibsen, whose influences naturally included the rich stock of melodrama that filled European stages in the 19th century. . Like the wild duck young Hedvig cares for in the loft, he has retreated from the world to live in isolated comfort. Advertisement The dark, laconic intensity of Mr. Relling and Fridtjov Saheim Molvik.

Kai Remlov

And the quiet sigh that breaks the silence could almost break your heart. Stubo and Ole Skjelbred; dramaturg, Olav Torbjorn Skare; assistant director, Oda Radoor; performed in Norwegian with English surtitles, translated by Judith Messick and Katherine Hanson. This stark but perceptive production, directed by Eirik Stubo, is a reminder of just how radically Ibsen had rewritten the rules of theater, introducing a rich vein of psychological truth into the parlors and bedrooms of domestic drama by the middle of his career. Photo Agot Sendstad and Gard Eidsvold in The Wild Duck. The table is carefully set between scenes; the midcentury-modern dining chairs that constitute most of the furniture are briskly rearranged as needed.