Word: hedvig
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...rest of the play takes place in the Ekdal apartment, a modest but comfortably homelike apartment of which we see only the kitchen and studio. Here Hjalmer rules as king, with a devoted wife (Karen MacDonald) and adoring daughter Hedvig (Emma Roberts) who lavish their care on him and serve him almost slavishly. Here, too, his aged father (Jerome Kilty) can forget his disgrace in alcohol--when he can get it. There is a storeroom which he has converted into a small forest with a few pine trees and some rabbits, where he can relive his days as a great...
...character's obsession with Hjalmer and the Ekdal family--and the wild duck, its most obvious metaphor. Even down-to-earth, matter-of-fact Gina Ekdal, somewhat heavily played by Karen MacDonald, shows signs of guilt and unease about her past, despite her assertions to the contrary. Hedvig, with her luminous innocence and child's intuition, is the one truly pure and simple character in the ensemble--and is therefore doomed...
There are some fine visual moments that evoke the more serious themes embodied by Hedvig: for example, the transition from the first to second act, when the movable stage representing Werle's study gradually sinks out of sight while the guests are playing (symbolically?) Blindman's Buff; or the moment when the lighting in the Ekdal apartment gradually alters to create an image of a deep pine forest against the backdrop walls. And again, just as powerful is the suggestion of what is not seen--the wild duck, who at intervals is heard faintly quacking, and the room in which...
...Adams House the symbolism is suitably accented. Whenever a character should chance to mention the wild duck, he does so in deeply serious tones. And when Hedvig, the Ekdals' daughter, talks about the duck and the dog which fetched it out of the water, she talks as if, yes, true insight is something known only to youth...
Elizabeth Traube, who plays Hedvig, imparts a lot of energy to the role. What's more, she is a convincing 14-year-old. But she sometimes sounds a notch too intelligent even for such an obviously precocious girl, while sometimes her movements seem overly childish...