Le Canard Sauvage (FR)
The Wild Duck reveals the very basis of our existence, according to the French director and artistic director of the Théâtre National de la Colline, Stéphane Braunschweig.
Directed by Stèphane Braunschweig / Théâtre National de la Colline, Paris
When Hjalmar learns that Hedvig may not be his daughter, he shuns her and does not want anything more to do with her. She believes that if she sacrifices what she holds most dear, it will bring him back. Then Hjalmar finally changes his mind, but it's too late. In The Wild Duck, Ibsen's favourite contradiction is at play. The idealist Gregers want to restore the truth in Hjalmar's world. Ibsen places the opponents with their backs against each other and makes the realism in the play vibrate.
According to director Stéphane Braunschweig at the French National Theatre, La Colline, The Wild Duck reveals the very foundation of our normal existence – the lives, dreams and thoughts that we use to maintain its structure. As always in Ibsen's plays, denial is simultaneously the driving force in life force and the key to unhappiness. Between denial and clarity, truth and falsehood, we find our challenges, the things that make us see and feel. Between our need for illusion and our desire for truth: That is also the place where we find the necessity of theatre.
Production: Théâtre National de la Colline, Paris. Translation: Éloi Recoing. Director and set designer: Stéphane Braunschweig. Cast: Suzanne Aubert, Christophe Brault, Rodolphe Congé, Claude Duparfait, Luce Mouchel, Charlie Nelson, Thierry Paret, Chloé Réjon and Jean-Marie Winlings.