Presented at London’s Coronet Theatre in autumn 2024, and at Den Nationale Scene in Bergen in January 2025, The Wild Duck marks Alan Lucien Øyen’s first foray into Ibsen. Co-produced by The Norwegian Ibsen Company, Den Nationale Scene, and The Coronet Theatre, the production stages the play on its own terms — faithful to Ibsen’s original text, stripped of period trappings, and performed with an intensity that lays bare the raw humanity of the characters. With a stellar cast of some of Norway’s finest stage and film actors, the result is a naturalistic, psychologically rich production that resonates with audiences in both London and Bergen.
A flawless production: understated elegance and meticulous performances underscore a searing clarity of vision
Øyen’s staging is stark and minimal, opening with thirteen chairs for the dinner party around which the family’s secrets begin to unravel. The spare environment pushes the actors’ performances into focus, amplifying Ibsen’s themes of truth, illusion, and the fragility of human relationships.
At key moments, the score sharpens the sense of unraveling — with the repetitions of Canto Ostinato heightening the tension as Hjalmar’s illusions give way. This subtle use of music underscores the ensemble’s finely calibrated realism, a balance of cinematic intimacy and theatrical immediacy that defines the production.
The Wild Duck is an artistic triumph for the director and the actors.
Critics describe the staging as claustrophobic and devastating, evoking Beckett-like austerity yet grounded in the unflinching truth of Ibsen’s play.
This is Ibsen as we’ve never seen. Idiomatic, unbuttoned, uncompromising, funny, horrible.
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