In One Person

imperfect.)
    On that Friday casting call, when Richard Abbott would change many futures, Nils announced that
this
fall’s “something serious” would again be his beloved Ibsen, and Nils had narrowed the choice of
which
Ibsen to a mere three.
    “Which three?” the young and talented Richard Abbott asked.
    “The
problem
three,” Nils answered—he presumed, definitively.
    “I take it you mean
Hedda Gabler
and A
Doll’s House
,” Richard rightly guessed. “And would the third be
The Wild Duck
?”
    By Borkman’s uncharacteristic speechlessness, we all saw that, indeed,
The
(dreaded)
Wild Duck
was the dour Norwegian’s third choice.
    “In that case,” Richard Abbott ventured, after the telltale silence, “who among us can possibly play the doomed Hedvig—that poor child?” There were no fourteen-year-old girls at the Friday night casting call—no one at all suitable for the innocent, duck-loving (and daddy-loving) Hedvig.
    “We’ve had …
difficulties
with the Hedvig part before, Nils,” Grandpa Harry ventured. Oh, my—had we ever! There’d been tragicomic fourteen-year-old girls who were such abysmal actors that when the time came for them to shoot themselves, the audience had
cheered
! There’d been fourteen-year-old girls who were so winningly naïve and innocent that when they shot themselves, the audience was
outraged
!
    “And then there’s Gregers,” Richard Abbott interjected. “That miserable moralizer. I could play Gregers, but only as a meddlesome fool—a self-righteous and self-pitying clown!”
    Nils Borkman often referred to his fellow Norwegians who were suicidal as “fjord-jumpers.” Apparently, the abundance of fjords in Norway provided many opportunities for convenient and unmessy suicides. (Nils must have noticed, to his further gloom, that there were no fjords in Vermont—a landlocked state.) Nils now looked at Richard Abbott in such a scary way—it was as if our depressed director wanted this upstart newcomer to find the nearest fjord.
    “But Gregers is an
idealist
,” Borkman began.
    “If
The Wild Duck
is a tragedy, then Gregers is a fool and a clown—and Hjalmar is nothing more than a jealous husband of the pathetic, before-she-met-me kind,” Richard continued. “If, on the other hand, you play
The Wild Duck
as a comedy, then they’re
all
fools and clowns. But how can the play be a comedy when a child dies because of adult moralizing? You need a heartbreaking Hedvig, who must be an utterly innocent and naïve fourteen-year-old; and not only Gregers but Hjalmar and Gina, and even Mrs. Sørby and Old Ekdal and the villainous Werle, must be
brilliant
actors! Even then, the play is flawed—not the easiest
amateur
production of Ibsen that comes to mind.”
    “
Flawed
!” Nils Borkman cried, as if he (and his wild duck) had been shot.
    “I was Mrs. Sørby in the most recent manifestation,” my grandfather told Richard. “Of course, when I was younger, I got to play Gina—albeit only once or twice.”
    “I had thoughts of young Laura Gordon as Hedvig,” Nils said. Laura was the youngest Gordon girl. Jim Gordon was on the faculty at Favorite River Academy; he and his wife, Ellen, had been actors for the First Sister Players in the past, and two older Gordon daughters had previously shot themselves as poor Hedvig.
    “Excuse me, Nils,” my aunt Muriel interposed, “but Laura Gordon has highly visible breasts.”
    I saw I was not alone in noticing the fourteen-year-old’s astonishing development ; Laura was barely a year older than I was, but her breasts were way beyond what an innocent and naïve Hedvig should have.
    Nils Borkman sighed; he said (with near-suicidal resignation) to Richard, “And what would the young Mr. Abbott consider an
easier
Ibsen for us mortally mere
amateurs
to perform?” Nils meant “merely mortal,” of course.
    “Ah …” Grandpa Harry began; then he stopped himself. My grandfather was enjoying this. He had the utmost respect and affection for Nils Borkman as a business partner, but—without exception—every keenly devoted and most casual member of the First Sister Players knew Nils to be an absolute tyrant as a director. (And we were almost as sick of Henrik Ibsen, and Borkman’s idea of
serious drama
, as we were of Agatha Christie!)
    “Well …” Richard Abbott began; there was a thoughtful pause. “If it’s going to be Ibsen—and we are, after all, only amateurs—it should be either
Hedda Gabler
or A
Doll’s