The Wild Duck

Name: The Wild Duck
Start: 2025-09-28T19:30:00-04:00
Location: Polonsky Shakespeare Center

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Location

Polonsky Shakespeare Center

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“The play is an absolute barn burner. Weird and ferocious, very funny and brutally tragic, somehow both sardonic and mysterious, melodramatic yet deeply moving. Godwin’s production…succeed[s] in lighting Ibsen’s long fuse and following the rolling spark all the way to the inevitable bang. It’s a thrill to see The Wild Duck spread its wings.”

― Sara Holdren, New York Magazine

“The production, directed with a fine precision by Simon Godwin, rises to a wrenching climax, illuminating Ibsen’s potent, poetic drama about the dangers of stripping away life-sustaining beliefs—or illusions—in the pursuit of upholding a rigid morality.”

― Charles Isherwood, The Wall Street Journal

“The excellent cast makes The Wild Duck as emotionally involving as it is intellectually intriguing.”

― Kenji Fujishima, TheaterMania

“It’s very much a play for today…Its singular weave of farce and tragedy [is] a thrill to see in a first-class production…Godwin builds the action to a climax likely to haunt you for days.”

― David Barbour, Lighting&Sound America

★★★★
“Simon Godwin directs a first-rate cast…with insightful aplomb—not a weak link among them in a welcome, possibly once-in-a-lifetime revival.”

― David Finkle, New York Stage Review

“Breathtaking…Godwin carefully builds the outrage and the tension…The whole production feels like a small crack in a pane of glass. Once the fracturing begins it cannot be stopped. All we can do is watch until it shatters.”

― Nicole Serratore, Exeunt

“Ibsen’s ‘The Wild Duck,’ at TFNA, assesses the damage wrought by one man’s battle against the illusions people live by. O’Neill would pursue this theme in ‘The Iceman Cometh.’ But as Simon Godwin’s welcome revival reminds us, Ibsen got there first, in singular tragicomic style.”

― Ben Brantley on X

★★★★★
“PERFECTION…A triumphant theatrical revival…The cast is remarkable…Beautifully adapted by David Eldridge and seamlessly directed by Godwin…They have created a true ensemble that makes for great theater.”

― Holli Harms, Front Row Center

“It’s the most honest of Ibsen’s plays…The great theatrical advocate of wisdom-through-argument admits that argument itself has treacherous ramifications.”

― Helen Shaw, The New Yorker

The Wild Duck

Description

Ibsen’s 1884 play The Wild Duck is an accessible, provocative, modern drama centered in a family.

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 “righteousness” however, leads to turmoil and death. Ibsen’s genius was to create complex characters who compel us with their humanity.

Director Simon Godwin observes, “Ibsen was consciously trying to redirect us from the easy classification of 'this is a comedy, this is a tragedy.' And he was following the steps of the late plays of Shakespeare in recognizing that we can move dexterously from something that makes us smile to something that makes us cry. The tragedy and the comedy are a 'mingled yarn' (to quote Shakespeare) of emotional possibility. We are drawn into a very compelling story and left to consider the role of truth in our own lives."

Simon Godwin (Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya starring Hugh Bonneville and Shakespeare’s Macbeth with Indira Varma and Ralph Fiennes), Artistic Director of Shakespeare Theatre Company, returns to TFANA (Measure for Measure and Timon of Athens) to direct this rarely produced Ibsen masterpiece.

David Eldridge’s version had its world premiere at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2005. Michael Billington wrote “Eldridge brings out Ibsen’s permanent relevance without any textual coarsening…The Wild Duck explains why Ibsen is the greatest dramatist after Shakespeare” (The Guardian). This is the first major Off-Broadway production of the play in the Eldridge version.

Time and Place: 1880s, a city in Norway.

Part I
Act I: Håkon Werle’s House, evening.
Act II: Hjalmar Ekdal’s studio, later that evening.
Act III: Hjalmar Ekdal’s studio, the following morning.

Part II
Act IV: Hjalmar Ekdal’s studio, late that afternoon.
Act V: Hjalmar Ekdal’s studio, the following morning.

Part I is approximately 70 minutes, and Part II 60 minutes. There will be a 15-minute intermission between Parts I and II.

For a full digital program—including cast and creative team bios, essays on the production, and interviews with the artists—read our 360° Viewfinder.

Design by Paul Davis Studio / Paige Restaino

Additional generous support for this production has been provided by The Arete Foundation, The Brandt Jackson Foundation, Monica Gerard-Sharp and Dominica Wambold, and the Norwegian Consulate General in New York.

By Henrik Ibsen
In a new version by David Eldridge
Directed by Simon Godwin
A Co-Production with
Shakespeare Theatre Company

Creative Team

Scenic Designer: Andrew Boyce

Costume Designer: Heather C. Freedman

Lighting Designer: Stacey Derosier

Sound Designer: Darron L West

Movement and Fight Director: Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum

Voice Director: Andrew Wade

Hair & Wig Designer: Satellite Wigs

Properties Supervisor: Jonno Knust
Music Director: Alexander Sovronsky

Casting Director: Jack Doulin

Production Dramaturg: Jonathan Kalb

Production Stage Manager: Shane Schnetzler

View the performance calendar.

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Artist Bios

Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) is one of the principal progenitors of Modern Drama, seeding a movement that restored drama’s prestige. A Norwegian auto-didact, he led a theater that gave him deep practical experience and then left his country for 27 years, writing all his ground-breaking plays abroad. His masterpieces, in addition to The Wild Duck (1884), include the epic verse dramas Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867) and the prose dramas A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881), and An Enemy of the People (1882) which famously challenged the social and cultural norms of his era.

NEW YORK: Broadway: Festen (Music Box Theatre). INTERNATIONAL: Beginning, Middle, End, Market Boy (National Theatre); Holy Warriors (Shakespeare’s Globe); In Basildon, Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness (Royal Court); Under the Blue Sky (Royal Court & Duke of York’s Theatre, West End); The Stock Da’wa, Falling (Hampstead Theatre); The Knot of the Heart (Almeida Theatre); Summer Begins (Donmar Warehouse). M.A.D, Serving it Up (Bush Theatre) ADAPTATIONS: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre & Soho Place, West End); Miss Julie, The Lady from the Sea (Royal Exchange, Manchester); John Gabriel Borkman, The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse); Festen (Almeida, Lyric Theatre West End). TV: “The Scandalous Lady W” (BBC2), “Our Hidden Lives” and “Killers” (BBC4). AWARDS: Time Out Live Award for Best New Play in West End; Theatregoers Choice Award for Best New Play; Prix Europa for Best European Radio Drama; Off West End Theatre Award for Best New Play.

TFANA debut! Credits include: Tony-nominated An Enemy of the People (Circle in the Square), Strategic Love Play (Audible Theater), Oblivion (Westport Country Playhouse), Karen O’s Stop the Virgens (St. Ann’s Warehouse, Sydney Opera House), Complicity (New Ohio Theater), Animals & Plants (NY Premiere). Proud alum of Circle in the Square Theatre School and repped by WEG Talent. Massive love and gratitude to their family and Jamesworth. www.katiebroad.com

TV: A League of Their Own (Amazon), American Horror Stories (Hulu), Heathers (Paramount), Florida Girls (POP TV), The Angel of Darkness (TNT), Shrill (Hulu), You (Netflix), Killing It (Peacock). Theater: Sonya in Uncle Vanya (Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC). Broadway: The Phantom of the Opera, Evita. National Tour: Wicked. Proud graduate of NYU and Yale School of Drama. For my Kitty Girl and Mr. Wells.

Alexander Hurt recently starred in the lead role in Larry Fessenden’s film Blackout and was also recently seen in Maria Schrader’s film She Said. In television, he was a regular in the hit Netflix series Bonding. Other TV credits include Homeland, Super Pumped, Billions, Law & Order: SVU, and The Good Fight. He was nominated for an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Digital Drama Series for The Rehearsal. Alex has been a mainstay on the NY stage. Most recently, he played Alexander Litvinenko on Broadway in Peter Morgan’s Patriots opposite Michael Stuhlbarg and starred off-Broadway in Scenes from a Marriage directed by Ivo Van Hove, Hamish Linklater’s The Whirligig, Placebo directed by Daniel Aukin, Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love directed by Michael Mayer, and Continuity directed by Rachel Chavkin.

Mahira Kakkar is thrilled to be back at TFANA, where she was previously in The Winter’s Tale. Mahira is an award-winning actor and a writer. A recent recipient of a NYSCA grant, Mahira has written for publications in India and the US. As an actor: Broadway – Life of Pi. Off-Broadway – Waterwell, LCT3, Primary Stages, Atlantic, NYSF, Ripe Time, Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick, NAATCO. Regional – Huntington Theatre, Old Globe, Denver Center, OSF, Baltimore Center Stage, Hartford Stage, McCarter, and others. Film and TV – Manifest, A Suitable Boy, Hank and Asha (Slamdance Best Actress award), Sweet Refuge, Law and Order: CI, New Amsterdam, and others. www.mahirakakkar.com

David Patrick Kelly has appeared in films by Walter Hill, David Lynch, Spike Lee, Wim Wenders, and Clint Eastwood. Onstage he has appeared in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Gogol, Euripides, Buchner, Pirandello, Molière, Brecht, and Ibsen, directed by Richard Foreman, Nicholas Hytner, and Karin Coonrod. He was awarded an Obie for Sustained Excellence.

Maaike Laanstra-Corn is a New York City-based actor. Recent credits include: Grief Camp (Atlantic Theater), Homofermenters (ARS NOVA ANTfest), When the Other Mary Celeste Sank (WP Theater), Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California (The Tank), Button Lake Band Camp (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks), and Ms. Lily (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks). BA: Brown University. @_mcorn

TFANA debut. REGIONAL: Peterborough Players (Margot in Dial M for Murder, Gretchen in Boeing Boeing). Utah Shakespeare Festival: 3 Seasons (Hermione in The Winter's Tale, Annabella/Pamela/Margaret in The 39 Steps, Joan la Pucelle in Henry VI Pt. 1). Asolo Repertory Theatre (Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers). Orlando Shakes (Vanda in Venus in Fur). A number of seasons at the American Shakespeare Center and Houston Shakespeare Festival. OFF-BWAY: Play On! Festival at Classic Stage Company (Elizabeth/Exeter/Rutland in Henry VI Pt. 3). FILM/TV: The Good Fight. Juilliard MFA. Proud member of AEA.

Bobby Plasencia is making his Theatre for a New Audience debut. Stage: La Ruta (Working Theater), American Jornalero (INTAR), Luz (LaMama), Julius Caesar (Drilling Company), In her Bones (FACCS), Somewhere Over The Border (Syracuse Stage, Geva Theater, City Theatre, People’s Light), American Mariachi (Goodman Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center, Old Globe, Alabama Shakes, Cleveland Playhouse, Two River Theater), Recent Alien Abductions (Humana Fest), Water & Power (San Diego Rep, Craig Noel Award), Vesuvius (South Coast Rep), Blood Wedding (La Jolla Playhouse), Down Past Passyunk (Interact Theater), The Tempest, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night's Dream (ISCLA, Los Angeles), Water & Power (Understudy, Mark Taper Forum). Film & TV: House of Cards, General Hospital, Fidel, Maria full of Grace. MFA NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

TFANA: The Merchant of Venice (Edinburgh, Scotland), Julius Caesar. BROADWAY: Junk, Act One (LCT), Peter and the Starcatcher, A Streetcar Named Desire, Saint Joan, Bernhardt/Hamlet, Honeymoon in Vegas, Grease, The Wedding Singer. Other productions include: MTC, Classic Stage Company, Long Wharf, The Public Theater, Williamstown, NY Shakespeare Festival, Blue Light, Atlantic, NYTW, Shakespeare Theater Company, New World Stages, Primary Stages, Hartford Stage, Kennedy Center, Pittsburgh CLO, Bay Street, 2nd Stage, Chautauqua, City Center, Signature Theater NYC, Mark Taper Forum, 1st National tour LCT’s South Pacific, 6 productions for The Guthrie Theater. Recent TV: Dying for Sex. MA/BA Middlebury College, MFA NYU.

A NYC-based actor/multi-instrumentalist and composer, Alexander last appeared in TFANA's 2009 production of Othello directed by Arin Arbus. Other NYC theatre credits include Cyrano de Bergerac (Broadway starring Kevin Kline); Romeo & Juliet, Mother of the Maid (The Public starring Glenn Close); Women Beware Women, Volpone (Red Bull); Bottom of the World (Atlantic); Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Marat/Sade, King Lear (Classical Theatre of Harlem). Regional credits include Arena Stage, Barrington Stage, Seattle Rep, Hartford Stage, KC Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Shakespeare & Co, Denver Center, Milwaukee Rep, American Shakespeare Center, and many others. For a good time, check out @Alexander.Sovronsky and www.AlexanderSovronsky.com

TFANA: The Killer. Broadway: includes Uncle Vanya, Ink, Saint Joan, A Free Man of Color, Mary Stuart, The Coast of Utopia. Off-Broadway: two-dozen credits include Love Child (written/performed with Daniel Jenkins), All in the Timing (Obie Award). Off-Off-Broadway: The Gold Room. Extensive regional credits include this year’s world premieres Millions (Alliance) and The Thing About Jellyfish (Berkeley Rep); STC: The Critic & The Real Inspector Hound (Emery Battis Award), Strange Interlude. Films: many, from A League of Their Own to Jason Bourne. Recent television: Your Friends and Neighbors, Blue Bloods, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, Mr. Mercedes.

Broadway: Bernhardt/Hamlet, Casa Valentina, A Moon for the Misbegotten. Off-Broadway: Barrow Street, Public, NYTW, Transport Group, CSC. Recently: Frankenstein in Frankenstein (STC) and Prior Walter in Angels in America for Jánosz Száz (Arena: Helen Hayes Best Ensemble, Nom. Best Actor). Select TV: Robert Townsend on Turn: Washington’s Spies (AMC), Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce (HBO), Bruno Barreto’s The American Guest (HBO), and Manhunt (AppleTV). Film: American Insurrection and Jonathan Demme’s Ricki & the Flash opposite Meryl Streep. He's a Drama Desk Award Winner, a NYTW Usual Suspect, a graduate of Juilliard, and the co-founder, director, and designer of The Streetcar Project. www.thestreetcarproject.com

Artistic Director of Shakespeare Theatre Company. STC: Uncle Vanya; Comedy of Errors; Much Ado About Nothing; Timon of Athens with Kathryn Hunter (co-production, TFANA); King Lear with Patrick Page; Macbeth with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, which also played in Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London. Upcoming: Othello with Wendell Pierce. Associate Director at the National Theatre in London: Man and Superman with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, Antony and Cleopatra with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo, and the film of Romeo and Juliet with Jessie Buckley and Josh O'Connor. Royal Shakespeare Company: Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu. TFANA: Measure for Measure.

For nearly 40 years, the Tony Award-winning Shakespeare Theatre Company has been recognized as the nation’s premier classical theatre. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Simon Godwin and Executive Director Angela Lee Gieras, STC tells vital stories in audacious forms, stories that are Shakespearean in the deepest sense, even if they are not written by Shakespeare. Based in Washington, D.C., STC stages epic stories in exhilarating style.