MetroWeekly
- Highly Recommended
"...And kudos to Godwin (and adapter David Eldridge) for seeing how relevant The Wild Duck is for a 21st century audience. Even if Ibsen writes as a man of his times, it's still true that a single mother today might push her daughter towards financial security, a young man might make an ideological break from an overbearing father, and a destabilized family might forget to protect its fledgling."
Talkin Broadway
- Recommended
"...Henrik Ibsen's play The Wild Duck is seldom performed because of its difficult subject matter, but the production now onstage in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's intimate Klein Theatre in Washington is well worth seeing. This production, directed by Simon Godwin, originated at Theatre for a New Audience in New York City."
Washington City Paper
- Highly Recommended
"...The central performers are all sturdy: Westrate gets Hjalmar's contemptible frailty just right, and Hurt lets Gregers' essential sociopathy-or "chronic righteousness," in Dr. Relling's informal diagnosis-reveal itself to us by degrees. Best of all is Field, who shows us Gina's frustration at being held to a higher standard than anyone around her only in flashes, her anger usually outweighed by fear of losing her daughter, and what seems like genuine sympathy, if not romantic love, for her husband. Naturally, it's Gregers, not his devoted wife, to whom Hjalmar admits there is no invention forthcoming."
Stage and Cinema
- Highly Recommended
"...Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck, now at Shakespeare Theatre Company's Klein Theatre (in a co-production with Theatre for a New Audience), is an excellent, superbly acted rendering of one of his rarely produced tragedies - a work as cynical and heavy-handed as it is symbolic. It poses an age-old question: is truth really better than illusion?"
MD Theatre Guide
- Highly Recommended
"...Henrik Ibsen, arguably the forerunner of theatrical realism, did like to take little expressionistic leaps now and then, blending the bleak workaday world with a more surrealist spin on the human condition. "The Wild Duck" is a perfect example of this realist-surrealist dichotomy at play. Taking audiences on a wild ride of dysfunction, deception, and deliverance, Ibsen (as adapted by David Eldridge) delivers a familiar refrain-you could potentially swap out Hedda and Lovborg for Gregers and Hjalmar, but he does so with a stark, visionary energy that leaves theatregoers gasping."
BroadwayWorld
- Highly Recommended
"...The attention to detail in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's terrific production of "The Wild Duck" extends to preshow atmospherics, with a distinct chill not attributable to the cooling autumn temperatures outside. Indeed, ushers walk the aisles before curtain time armed with blankets to distribute, in case anybody requests one. "The Norwegian cold," one explains."
DC Theater Arts
- Highly Recommended
"...October brings a rare and remarkable production to Washington, DC's Shakespeare Theatre Company: The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen. Directed by Artistic Director Simon Godwin and performed by a tight-knit ensemble, the production balances humor and tenderness, bringing both avian and human follies into sharp focus."
