In the following review, Brustein talks about the contemporary remake of The Wild Duck. At the Arena Stage, Lucian Pintilie's version of Ibsen's The Wild Duck is a genuinely new look at the play, which pulls it out of canvas realism into a world of poetic metaphor and savage farce. The opening act in old Werle' s house is not altogether promising, but then it's a fearfully difficult piece of exposition (the second act of this five-act play is largely expository too). Pintilie tries to distract our attention from the two servants who provide Ibsen's background material by using strained devices behind a transparent Mylar mirror, including a sumptuous banquet and an anachronistic slide show of vacation photographs, conducted by Mrs. Sorby while the Chamberlains sing "Harvest Moon." (Even in the twenties, the setting of this updated production, Kodak color carousels had not yet been invented.) Here...