Theatre
The Wild Duck (Phoenix) Absurd Person Singular (Whitehall)
On the edge of farce
Christopher Edwards
The advance publicity prepared us for Sir Peter Hall's comi-tragic version of Ibsen's play. Nevertheless, the degree to which he had edged the production to- wards the edge of farce still took people by surprise. The programme quotes Shaw's famous remark after seeing the first En- glish production in 1897: `. . . to look in horror and pity at a profound tragedy, shaking with laughter all the time at an irresistible comedy'. We certainly laughed at this production. But does the director retain sufficient balance to register the tragedy or does the comic absurdity dilute the suffering of this painful tale? With a few reservations I felt it worked successful- ly. Like most of Ibsen's tragedies, this play is an account of the sacrifice of a natural good to some false ideal without any real instinctive base in human nature. Here it is Gregers Werle's craze for saving souls that pitches the Ekdal family into tragedy. David Threlfall is a very creepy Gregers indeed: greasy-haired, bearded, his eyes shining with paranoid fixation. There is little doubt that his crusade for moral rectitude flows from resentment against his powerful father. It is unfortunate that he should pick on Hjalmar (whose delusions serve him and his family very well) for Hjalmar's father was brought down by old man Werle. Now young Gregers sets out unconsciously to repeat history. Unfortunate and ironic it may be, but Hjalmar is a perfect specimen for Gregers to work upon. It is through this character, 'It's our World Cup mascot.' brilliantly played by Alex Jennings, that most of the production's comic absurdity is channelled. Jennings plays him as part innocent self-pitying ninny and part culp- able monster of selfishness. This actor's ability to register both sides of the charac- ter simultaneously provides the focus for the production. Just as you start to find his fecklessness quite charming you realise how cruelly egotistical he is. It is these elements that confuse his devoted daughter Hedvig and lead to her suicide.
If some of the audience were also dis- turbed by an apparent incongruity in tone I could see what they meant. The death of Hedvig lacks any numbing sense of shock. We are, as it were, too quickly whisked back into Hjalmar's own sentimental world for the family's grief to strike home with sufficient force. On the other hand, Maria Miles acts the young girl with such piercing conviction that her suffering and growing bewilderment at .her father's rejection are awful enough. The shot heard off stage offers the true climax, and it is fitting enough for us to revert to Hjalmar's world immediately afterwards. I am not sure how far this reading of the play could be sustained, but it has its own coherence on the stage.
The fluid contemporary translation is a collaboration between the director and Inga-Stina Ewbank. Hjalmar's wife Gina (Nichola McAuliffe) is, for once, given a persuasive idiom that allows her a robust, affectionate nature while giving her enough malapropisms to emphasise her lower-class background — an important element in the plot. Alan Dobie is a powerful Werle and Lionel Jeffries a de- lightfully eccentric Old Ekdal. The rest of the cast are excellent and John Bury's set successfully integrates the enchanted loft where the wild duck lives with the mun- dane living-room of the Ekdal household.
At the Whitehall Theatre Alan Ayck- bourn has directed an excellently acted revival of his own early farce (1973). The action takes place in three acts, over three successive Christmases in the kitchens of three married couples who all meet together to 'celebrate' the festive season. The first act is extremely funny. Ayck- bourn anatomises the crippling social un- ease of Sidney and Jane Hoperoft as they entertain the local bank manager to drinks.
The next act takes us to Geoffrey and Eva Jackson's place, where a catatonic Eva tries to commit suicide but is frustrated by the well-meaning insensitivity of the guests. The last and least successful act is set in the home of the bank manager Ronald and his alcoholic wife Marion. Here all the Ayckbourn themes of marital despair, male cruelty to female and social one-upmanship come together, but the result is neither especially funny nor affect- ing nor coherent. However, if the produc- tion ends on a downward turn, there is sufficient compensation in the earlier acts to satisfy the playwright's followers.
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