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Broadway Review by Adam Feldman
It’s not easy to be Strong. Licking her wounds after a divisive profile of him in 2021 magazine, Succession Star Jeremy Strong found he could identify with the maligned and embattled hero of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 social drama. one andenemy of the people: Thomas Stockmann, a doctor who discovers that the spa water in his small Norwegian resort town is contaminated with deadly bacteria. “Doing enemy of the people It is my response to what I experienced since New Yorker article,” he told New York Times in a recent interview, noting that Ibsen wrote the play out of a feeling of betrayal by people he trusted. “I am an actor: I want to channel the things I feel in a play, and that is why I am doing this play.”
The actor’s aggrieved but steadfast self-image is perfectly suited to his role in this fascinating new production. Stockmann’s refusal to back down on his findings, even though they could destroy the town’s economy, alienates him from the locals at every level: the managers, led by his stuffy brother, the mayor (Michael Imperioli, imperiously derogatory); the industrialists, like his intractable father-in-law (David Patrick Kelly); the merchants, embodied by the president of the homeowners association (a hilariously accommodating Thomas Jay Ryan); and the working class, represented by the firebrand editor of a local socialist newspaper (Caleb Eberhardt). Only his daughter, played with luminous composure by Victoria Pedretti, is reliably on his side.
As your spiritual grandson The normal heart, Ibsen’s drama fights real social ills while also suggesting that a passionate crusader can sometimes be his own worst enemy. But the revival of director Sam Gold’s work, adapted by Amy Herzog (mary jane), leans firmly on Stockmann’s side. Yes, he’s an imperfect messenger for his cause: as his frustration grows, Strong’s tweedy manner gives way to righteous indignation that doesn’t help his case. And his rhetoric is impolite: too broad in his denunciation of a society “built on a bunch of lies,” too insulting in his anger at “the incredible stupidity of the authorities,” too personal in his attitude toward his brother (“this bigot , man with blinders”). But there is no doubt that he is right, and his errors seem less problems of character (pride, elitism, recklessness) than of what we now call optics.
An enemy of the people | Photography: Courtesy of Emilio Madrid
In this sense, Gold An enemy of the people—despite its 19th-century costumes (by David Zinn) and sets (from the design collective dots) and its elaborate period businesses (the loading of pipes, the heating of drinks, the turning on and off of lamps)—it feels markedly modern, a quality This comes to the fore in the production’s pivotal scene: a public meeting in which Stockmann attempts to share his findings directly with the population. The scene takes place after a brief intermission during which audience members take the stage for free shots of aquavit at a bright, modern bar emblazoned with the logo of the brand that provides the liquor. Breaking with the cozy naturalism of the production’s first half, Gold introduces elements of ambient theater: he turns on the house lights and treats the audience as part of the gathering; the characters address us directly, and some spectators even sit on the stage to pad out the crowd. Circle in the Square’s circular seating design is ideal for this scene, a public plaza within a circle of observers.
It is in this bright corporate space, which contrasts sharply with Stockmann’s warm, candlelit private home, that the doctor’s thoughts are silenced. The mayor of Imperioli is indeed the boss of the mafia, but they are all accomplices. In a clever adaptive choice, the editor of the leftist newspaper is now an immigrant of mixed ethnic heritage, so when Stockmann dismisses him with an ill-advised comparison between scientists and non-scientists (“there’s a difference between a street poodle and a poodle”) ), the comment takes on racial connotations that inflame the situation. The end of the scene is chilling.
Climate change protesters interrupted this sequence in a press preview last week, but the scene itself is already making its point. So far this century, An enemy of the people has been revived in New York more than any other Ibsen play, including A doll’s house. I have seen productions that laid out counterarguments and personality conflicts more convincingly, but none that focused so intently and sadly on the underlying theme of pollution, both of the environment and of public discourse. This version of the work is a plea to the public. Ibsen’s text ends on a note of hero worship, with Stockmann declaring himself the strongest man in the world. Strong, in this revival, seems more aware of the limits of personal strength. His Stockmann ends, instead, with a wish for the future from which we are looking: “We just have to imagine that the water will be clean and safe and that the truth will be valued…” he says, falling asleep. “We just have to imagine.”
An enemy of the people. Circle in the square (broadway). By Henrik Ibsen. Adapted by Amy Herzog. Directed by Sam Gold. With Jeremy Strong, Michael Imperioli, Victoria Pedretti, Caleb Eberhardt, Thomas Jay Ryan, David Patrick Kelly, Matthew August Jeffers, Alan Trong. Duration: 2h. An intermission.
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An enemy of the people | Photography: Courtesy of Emilio Madrid