Tag Archives: Maaike Laanstra-Corn

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH: THE WILD DUCK FLAPS ITS WINGS IN BROOKLYN

A family faces some hard truths in stellar revival of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck (photo by Gerry Goodstein)

THE WILD DUCK
Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Pl. between Lafayette Ave. & Fulton St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 28, $102-$132
www.tfana.org

“Men are the most peculiar creatures,” Gina (Melanie Field) says near the middle of Simon Godwin’s adaptation of David Eldridge’s 2005 translation of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center.

That’s not the half of it.

Over the last fourteen years, Henrik Ibsen’s plays have been experiencing a renaissance, with productions of Ghosts at Lincoln Center, An Enemy of the People on Broadway and at Park Ave. Armory, The Master Builder and John Gabriel Borkman at BAM, and A Doll’s House and Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 on Broadway, along with Charles Busch’s Ibsen’s Ghost in midtown and Will Eno’s Peer Gynt reimagining, Gnit, at the Polonsky. It’s been a while since New York City has seen a major revival of Hedda Gabler and even longer of The Wild Duck, which is at last back in this exquisite rendering.

A dual presentation from Theatre for a New Audience and Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC), The Wild Duck is a complex tale of parents and children, money and power, truth-telling, and the ability to see what’s happening right in front of you. The story takes place in 1880s Norway, where wealthy mill owner Håkon Werle (Robert Stanton) is having a dinner party in honor of his son, Gregers (Alexander Hurt), who apparently would rather be anywhere else. Gregers has invited his old friend Hjalmar Ekdal (Nick Westrate), whom he has not seen in sixteen years; Hjalmar, who is not in the same class as the other guests, has reluctantly shown up and is embarrassed when his bedraggled father, Old Ekdal (David Patrick Kelly), a onetime war hero and partner of Håkon’s who spent several years in prison, walks through the party, muttering to himself, and accepts a bottle from Miss Pettersen (Katie Broad), the housekeeper.

Gregers and Hjalmar have a long conversation that leads to Gregers confronting his father, accusing Håkon of having had an affair and an ulterior motive in helping Hjalmar and his family. Håkon asks Gregers to become his partner, explaining, “I’m not as fit for work as I used to be. My eyes aren’t as good.” Gregers thinks his father, who is preparing to marry his current housekeeper, Mrs. Sørby (Mahira Kakkar), is up to something. “I know how you’re using me,” Gregers says. An angry Håkon replies, “I don’t think there’s a man in this world you could detest as much as you detest me.” A frightfully earnest Gregers retorts, “I’ve observed you too closely and for too long, Father.”

The narrative then switches to the Ekdals’ dusty, rustic studio, where Hjalmar and his wife, Gina, live with their bright, inquisitive fifteen-year-old daughter, Hedvig (Maaike Laanstra-Corn), and her grandfather, Old Ekdal, who was a well-regarded hunter. The old man now resigns himself to shooting animals in their loft, which is populated by birds, rabbits, chickens, and a wild duck that was winged by Håkon, was rescued in the sea by Håkon’s dog, and is now cared for by Hedvig, an avid reader who is losing her eyesight. (The impressive sets are by Andrew Boyce.) Hjalmar believes he will be able to lift up his family with an invention he is working on that will make them rich. For additional income, they have two boarders, Dr. Relling (Matthew Saldívar) and the unseen theologian Mr. Molvik. Gregers arrives to inquire if he can rent a vacant room; despite Gina’s misgivings, he moves in and almost immediately inserts himself into situations that drive wedges between just about everyone. Oh, and then there’s the Chekhovian gun. . . .

Hjalmar Ekdal (Nick Westrate) and his daughter, Hedvig (Maaike Laanstra-Corn), share a happy moment in The Wild Duck at TFANA’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center (photo by Gerry Goodstein)

The Wild Duck centers on the relationships between fathers and children: Håkon and Gregers, Old Ekdal and Hjalmar, and Hjalmar and Hedvig. Håkon blames Gregers’s distaste for him on his late wife; Hjalmar tells Gregers that he wants to save his aging, ailing father. And Hjalmar reevaluates his love for Hedvig after a secret is revealed.

It’s also focused on the concept of truth, particularly as it applies to Gregers, who believes in getting everything out into the open, no matter how much it might harm certain people. But he is not a master manipulator or self-righteous believer as much as he might be mad. “Damn it, can’t you see the man’s insane — He’s disturbed!” Dr. Relling shouts at one point. In addition, sight plays a major role, literally and figuratively, as some characters are losing their eyesight and others refuse to see the truth that’s staring them in the face.

Eldridge (Festen, Under the Blue Sky) and STC artistic director Godwin (Timon of Athens, Man and Superman) get right to the heart of Ibsen’s play with an exquisite rendering that grabs you and never lets go. It’s so on target, so alive and bursting with energy and intrigue, that you’ll wonder why you’ve never seen it before.

Westrate (Bernhardt/Hamlet, Casa Valentina) is a powder keg as Hjalmar, a tortured soul with pipe dreams who loves his family but seems powerless to take action; as a photographer, he takes pictures of others but never looks at himself. Field (The Phantom of the Opera, Uncle Vanya) is touching as Gina, a woman who is determined to move forward, intent on keeping the past behind her. Rising star Laanstra-Corn (Grief Camp, Homofermenters) steals every scene she’s in as Hedvig, an inelegant teenager who worships her father. Kelly (An Enemy of the People, Into the Woods) is affecting as Old Ekdal, a once proud man who has long lost his grip on reality. (He also wears a dazzling multi-patched coat; the fine period costumes are by Heather Freedman.) And Stanton (The Killer, Ink) is steely as the unyielding Håkon, who is unable to connect with his son.

Hurt (Continuity, Love, Love, Love) is an enigma as Gregers, a complex character whose motives are not always clear. The night I went, it was difficult to hear him; none of the actors use microphones, which is a special treat, but Hurt delivered his lines at a significantly lower decibel level. His body movement was also rather stiff and his eyes often distant, reminiscent of Jeremy Strong’s performance as Dr. Stockmann in Amy Herzog and Sam Gold’s recent adaptation of An Enemy of the People. Although the interpretation was generally successful, it called too much attention to itself in an otherwise stellar and memorable production.

And as far as the duck goes, it’s an extraordinarily salient metaphor not just for all the characters in the play but for the audience as well, a potent reminder of who we are, what we’ve done, and where we’re going.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CABIN FEVER: FACING GRIEF AT SUMMER CAMP

Six campers and a counselor search for healing in Grief Camp (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

GRIEF CAMP
Atlantic Theater Company, Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 11, $56.50-$111.50
866-811-4111
atlantictheater.org

There has been a surfeit of plays about grief the last few years, most of them involving children and/or adults sitting around in circles in group or family therapy, sharing their personal stories. In her off-Broadway debut, twenty-seven-year-old Eliya Smith, who is in her final semester in the University of Texas at Austin’s MFA playwriting program, takes a different approach in the fiendishly clever Grief Camp, continuing at the Atlantic through May 11.

Bereavement camps have been popping up all over, offering healing for those who have lost loved ones; they have such names as Camp Good Grief, Comfort Zone Camp, and Camp Hope. Smith sets her tale at an unnamed summer camp in the real town of Hurt, Virginia. (It was named for a local landowner and attorney, not the pain of loss.)

Louisa Thompson’s set is a large, somewhat disheveled cabin with four double bunk beds, two electric box fans on the floor, a bathroom in the back, and a small porch with a swing chair outside. On the natural wood walls are pages torn out of magazines, postcards, and a string of colored pennants.

It is home to six campers and one counselor: Bard (Arjun Athalye), who is addicted to Duolingo; Luna (Grace Brennan), a Los Angeles vegetarian who wants to be an artist; Blue (Maaike Laanstra-Corn), who is writing the rather strange musical untitled mansion island purple house project for her high school; Gideon (Dominic Gross), a cool dude who can’t swim and is worried about his missing green dinosaur; Olivia (Renée-Nicole Powell), who doesn’t look forward to any of the scheduled activities; her younger sister, Ester (Lark White), who hates grief camp; and Cade (Jack DiFalco), a former camper who is now a counselor, living and working with the others in the cabin.

Grief Camp continues at the Atlantic through May 11 (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Each morning, everyone is woken up by the camp’s founder, the never-seen Rocky, who blows a terrible reveille on the trumpet, makes announcements, gives the weather report, and advises some form of “Rise and shine, kids! Welcome to another perfect day from which to begin the rest of your lives.” It’s not the most encouraging or original bromide.

Over the course of about ten days — the script calls it a “time soup” — the campers bond, argue, battle with the counselors, and avoid getting caught up in woe-is-me self-pity. Esther is afraid she is a terrible person and confides in Luna. Blue holds readings of her ever-morphing musical. Campers are sick of chores, pray to the toenail god, and fight over the bathroom. A guitarist sits in the swing chair and sings Debbie Friedman’s rendition of “Mi Shebeirach,” the Jewish prayer for healing. The campers don’t mope around in mourning or compare one another’s tragedies, although there is a palpable feeling of grief permeating the atmosphere.

In a one-on-one with Olivia, Cade tells her to take out her journal and address the following prompt: “Sometimes, in our grief, we invent guilt in order to feel control over a situation. Sound familiar? Of course it does. So go ahead. Address that guilt head on. Apologize to the person to whom you feel guilt. Explain how you would —”

Olivia cuts him off, wanting to just talk instead. They discuss college, flirting, and Olivia’s different-colored eyes. Olivia asks Cade why he keeps coming back to the camp; he replies, “This place saved my life.” A moment later, Olivia says, “If I had to come back here I suspect I would kill myself.”

Blue (Maaike Laanstra-Corn) discusses the high school musical she’s writing in Eliya Smith’s off-Broadway debut at the Atlantic (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

In another scene, Cade strongly advises, “At some point, Olivia, you’re gonna have to stop acting like you’re broken.” That line serves as the centerpiece of the ninety-minute play. Smith and Tony-nominated director Les Waters (Dana H., Big Love) carefully avoid any lapses into sentimentality or solipsism, treating Cade and the campers like unique characters in their own right and not as plot points to rhapsodize about grief. In fact, we don’t even learn the specific loss that each camper experienced, only some of them. In addition, Blue’s oddball musical slowly twists into focus but without becoming obviously metaphorical.

The ensemble, several of whom are making their off-Broadway debut, engagingly portray complex characters about to move on with their lives but not yet ready to face the world. The realistic costumes are by Oana Botez, with sharp lighting by Isabella Byrd and terrific sound design by Bray Poor, from rainstorms to Rocky’s staticky announcements to Luna singing into a floor fan.

Early on, Luna encourages Bard to curl up in the fetal position. He is tentative at first, but when he eventually tries it, he declares he is the biblical Moses in a basket on a river. “Why can’t you just be like a regular baby,” Luna says. Smith explains in the script, “The children are not precocious wunderkind iconoclasts or tiny prophets. They are not special. Something extraordinarily bad happened to each of them. They are ordinary.”

In other words, just like the rest of us.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]