The Wild Duck
Play Description
In celebrated playwright Richard Nelson’s bold adaptation of Ibsen’s classic, profound tragedy and surprising comedy combine to tell the story of the Ekdal family. Their peaceful lives are turned upside down when an idealistic family friend arrives. When the secrets unravel, powerful questions are revealed.
Production Info
Cast: 11 total (3 female, 8 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
From Richard Nelson’s Introduction:
“THE WILD DUCK is a play about family life twisted, bent, and knotted into perverse shapes. Everyone seems to have a lifetime’s history with everyone else. Take just one character, Gregers Werle. There’s his father with whom he has been estranged for many years, certainly since the death of his mother. There is Gina who as a maid helped look after the Werle house while Gregers’ mother was dying; his mother accused Gina of have having an affair with Gregers’ father. This we learn was untrue at the time, but prescient. Gina is now married to Hialmar Ekdal, Gregers’ old friend from college. They have a daughter, Hedvig, who is most likely not Hialmar’s but Gregers’ father’s and so is the half sister of Gregers. Hilmar’s father was in business with Gregers’ father. There was a business scandal and Hialmar’s father went to prison, Gregers’ father didn’t. Gregers’ father continues to dole out bits of money to both his old partner and his old mistress. There’s Relling a drunken doctor who had fought with Gregers years before while they were both at the distant saw mill. And there’s Mrs Sorby, who like Gina, used to be Gregers’ father’s housekeeper, but now is his mistress; she once was in love with Relling and may still be. And it goes on and on. This play is structured around learning these relationships and the various secrets attached to them, and thematically propelled by the question: is it better to know or not to know? ‘Truth’ is stood on its head, as we find ourselves rooting for lies and delusions. This is a very disorienting play. And, I believe, a very great one.”
Author(s)
Henrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) was a Norwegian dramatist and is considered the father of the modem drama. He first won worldwide attention with A DOLL'S HOUSE (1879). His next play, GHOSTS, dealt openly with the topic of venereal disease and aroused great opposition. He replied to his critics by writing AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (1881), where he showed that an individual may be right while society is wrong. His other plays include PEER GYNT (1867), THE WILD DUCK (1884), ROSMERSHOLM (1886), THE LADY FROM THE SEA (1888), HEDDA GABLER (1890), THE MASTER BUILDER (1892), LITTLE EYOLF (1894), JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN (1896), and WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN (1899).
Richard NelsonRichard Nelson's plays include the four-play series, THE APPLE FAMILY (THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING, SWEET AND SAD, SORRY, REGULAR SINGING (Nominated for Outstanding Play in Drama Desk Awards 2014; Public Theater, 2010 – 2013), NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS (Lincoln Center Theater, 2013), FAREWELL TO THE THEATRE (Hampstead Theatre, 2012), HOW SHAKESPEARE WON THE WEST, (Huntington Theater, 2008), CONVERSATIONS AT TUSCULUM (Public Theater, 2008), FRANK'S HOME (Goodman Chicago, Playwrights Horizons, 2007), RODNEY'S WIFE (Playwrights Horizons, 2004), WHERE I COME FROM (National Theatre Connections), MADAME MELVILLE (which ran in the West End starring Macaulay Culkin and Irene Jacob and opened in May 2001 Off-Broadway); GOODNIGHT CHILDREN EVERYWHERE (winner of Olivier Award for Best New Play, 2000), KENNETH'S FIRST PLAY (with Colin Chambers, RSC), THE GENERAL FROM AMERICA (at the RSC and the Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York), NEW ENGLAND (RSC and Manhattan Theater Club), MISHA'S PARTY (with Alexander Gelman, RSC and Williamstown Theater Festival), TWO SHAKESPEAREAN ACTORS (Tony nomination for Best Play, RSC and Broadway), COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF JAPAN (RSC Barbican), SOME AMERICANS ABROAD (Olivier nomination, Best Comedy; RSC, Lincoln Center and Broadway), LEFT, BETWEEN EAST AND WEST (Hampstead), PRINCIPIA SCRIPTORAE (winner of Time Out Award, RSC and Manhattan Theater Club), THE RETURN OF PINOCCHIO, AN AMERICAN COMEDY, BAL, CONJURING AN EVENT, RIP VAN WINKLE, JUNGLE COUP, THE KILLING OF YABLONSKI, THE VIENNA NOTES (Obie Award). His musicals include JAMES JOYCE'S THE DEAD (starring Christopher Walken and Blair Brown; Playwrights Horizons, Belasco Theatre, Broadway, Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, Kennedy Center, Washington; for which he received a Tony Award in 2000 for Best Musical Book), CHESS (the book for the Broadway musical), PARADISE FOUND (dir: Harold Prince and Susan Strohman), MY LIFE WITH ALBERTINE (with Ricky Ian Gordon; Playwrights Horizons), UNFINISHED PIECE FOR A PLAYER PIANO (with Peter Golub). His translations and adaptations include TYNAN starring Corin Redgrave (with Colin Chambers, RSC and West End), LOLITA with Brian Cox (National), Molnar's THE GUARDSMAN (Kennedy Center), Carriere's THE CONTROVERSY (Public Theater), Fo's ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST (Broadway), Strindberg's THE FATHER with Frank Langella (Broadway) and MISS JULIE (Yale Rep), Beaumarchais' THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (the Guthrie and Broadway); Molière's DON JUAN, Ibsen's WILD DUCK and ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, Pirandello's ENRICO IV, Goldoni's IL CAMPIELLO, Erdmann's THE SUICIDE. With the esteemed translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, he was co-translated Chekhov's THE CHERRY ORCHARD, Gogol's THE INSPECTOR, Turgenev's A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY and Bulgakov's DON QUIXOTE. Films: Hyde Park on Hudson, staring Bill Murray and Laura Linney (Dir: Roger Michell), Ethan Frome, starring Liam Neeson (Dir: John Madden); Sensibility and Sense, staring Elaine Stritch and Jean Simmons (Dir: David Jones). Television: The End of a Sentence with Edward Herrmann (Dir: David Jones). Radio Plays include: HYDE PARK ON HUDSON, LANGUAGES SPOKEN HERE (Giles Cooper Award), EATING WORDS (Giles Cooper Award), ADVICE TO EASTERN EUROPE, AN AMERICAN WIFE (all BBC).
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
This translation of THE WILD DUCK was commissioned by Court Theatre, Chicago, Illinois,
Charles Newell, Artistic Director, Dawn Helsing, Executive Director,
and received its first public performance on January 15, 2009
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
Related Plays
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
A selfish, cynical woman bored by her marriage to the scholar Jorgen Tesman, Hedda Gabler's father's pair of pistols provide intermittent diversion, as do the attentions of the ne'er-do-well Judge Brack. When Thea Elvestad, a longtime acquaintance of Hedda's, reveals that she has left her husband for the writer Ejlert Lovborg, who once pursued Hedda, the latter becomes vengeful. Learning that Ejlert has forsworn liquor, Hedda first steers him to a rowdy gathering at Brack's and subsequently burns the reputedly brilliant manuscript that he loses there while drunk. Witnessing his desperation, she sends him one of the pistols, and he shoots himself. Brack deduces Hedda's complicity and demands that she become his mistress in exchange for his silence about the matter. Instead, she ends her ennui with the remaining pistol. The work is remarkable for its nonjudgmental depiction of an immoral, destructive character, one of the most vividly realized women in dramatic literature.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (4 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 160 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
MORE LIES ABOUT JERZY explores the life of a celebrated Polish writer, who comes under fire when the veracity of his award-winning Holocaust memoir is questioned. A startling meditation on art, truth, celebrity, and the artist’s responsibility to his subjects and himself.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (2 female, 5 male, doubling)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Ibsen's characters from HEDDA GABLER, who know the play insanely well after centuries of performances, try desperately to keep the play afloat. At the same time Hedda, just as desperately, tries to sabotage the plot in order to avoid her demise. The misadventures that ensue continue to raise the stakes of hilarity to a fevered pitch. And if Hedda succeeds in her quest to live, will this classic theatrical work ever be performed again?
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 140 minutes)
Single Set
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Kafka for kids? Is that a good idea? Fortunately, with a slight change in tone, it is. The fantastical elements of The Metamorphosis strike a chord with adolescents who are often experiencing their own struggles with changing bodies. DANCING ON THE CEILING is an expressionistic fairy-tale about identity and role expectations. It’s scary, funny, and moving.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 75 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$50.00
Play Description
A musical presentation of magical and possible events in the lives of two women born in the 19th century.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (4 female, 4 male, up to 20+ actors)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
Play Description
Veteran journalist Ambrose Bierce, whose wit is as sharp as a scalpel, is sent by yellow journalist William Randolph Hearst to the Pacific Western Railroad, the symbol of big business corruption at the turn of the century. Bierce has his hands full, not only with bought-off senators and railroad goons but with a son who has a dangerous proclivity for the ladies and a weariness with his incessant battle against “goodness.”
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)Full Length Comedy (about 85 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Welcome to Karlovec, a small town that the Soviets had started to build a nuclear plant in, but it was never completed. Now in the post-Soviet era Western firms are desperate to take over and build the plant. They turn their attention to the town’s mayor who finds himself courted on all sides
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Eric Bentley’s adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s classic LA RONDE.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (5 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
The story of a young woman forced into an unhappy marriage to her dull, sickly cousin and smothered by her overbearing aunt. When her husband’s childhood friend enters her life, it leads Thérèse into a torrid affair that sets her spirit free for the first time but with shattering consequences. Steeped in the atmosphere of 19th-century France with a darkly rich foreboding.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (3 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 110 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
The classic 1851 farce. Fadinard is on the way to his wedding when his horse eats a straw hat hanging on a bush. The owner of the hat is a former girlfriend who insists that Fadinard buys her a new hat instantly. He sets off to find a replacement hat, followed by his fiancée and all their guests. The play develops into a delirious chase as Fadinard hunts the hat and the guests hunt Fadinard and comic misunderstandings litter every scene.
Production Info
Cast: 18 total (6 female, 12 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Lord Loveworthy has a problem. His only daughter is soon to be married. And the only way to pay for her wedding is to blackmail the vicar who’s seducing his wife. But how does a Victorian pornographer commit extortion, without inordinate discord, at tea?
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 120 minutes)
Single Set
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A groundbreaking masterpiece of the modern theatre. The play tells the tale of a poor soldier, a barber in the army, who is overwhelmed by the military and forced to become a human guinea pig for quasi-medical research. Consumed by jealousy over his lover’s infidelity, Woyzeck is driven to despair, to madness, and to murder. Poignant and grotesque, insightful and all-too-human, the play broke every theatrical mold of its time, paving the way for theatre as we know it today.
Production Info
Cast: 16 total (4 female, 12 male, doubling, bit parts, children, extras)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes