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In a clever stunt that brings us to the community about to witness the spectacular fall of the public figure fighting for the truth at the center of An enemy of the people, a bar descends from above during the break between acts, with theatergoers taking to the stage for shots of aquavit while musicians and singers perform traditional Norwegian songs. Several members of the audience remain seated on the periphery when the action resumes. The house lights also remain on, giving us no escape from our complicity as the town doctor, Dr. Thomas Stockmann, played with bristling intensity by Jeremy Strong, is ridiculed with taunts that lead to physical violence.
Sam Gold’s crackling production up to that point has been deceptively traditional, beautifully staged at the Circle in the Square, with a first act that sets the stage for a festering conflict in the warmth and cozy domesticity of Stockmann’s house, lit by oil lamps. and traveled by a constant flow of dinner guests. Unlike some of Gold’s revivals that have presented classic texts in modern dress, the setting here is still a small town in late 19th century Norway. But the questions raised by Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 drama have dizzying echoes in contemporary America.
The highly condensed adaptation is by Amy Herzog, who last year crossed the centuries in her forceful update of Ibsen’s play. A doll’s house, starring a crippling Jessica Chastain in Jamie Lloyd’s spectacular Broadway revival. Herzog’s sharp dialogue is fluent and identifiably American in the vernacular, but it is not riddled with anachronisms.
Without even criticizing the astonishing current relevance of this play, the new production deftly underlines the parallels of our current ugly political divide; the risks of being a whistleblower; distrust of science by people whose ignorance is manipulated by those in power; judgment by public opinion; and a conflict between environmental and economic concerns, all of which will be familiar to 21st-century American audiences.
The drama follows Stockmann’s attempts to spread information about the dangerous bacterial contamination in the waters of a spa that is the lifeblood of the city. The plot recalls everything from the 2016 water crisis in Flint, Michigan, to the COVID denialism that spread during the pandemic, even as the national death toll surpassed one million. A laugh that is both knowing and nervous runs through the audience as the disillusioned Stockmann considers fleeing the country: “In America, we won’t have to worry about any of this.”
Part of what keeps it interesting is the play’s refusal to liberate liberals from attitudes ranging from naïveté to belligerent superiority. Strong’s Stockmann is a flawed man, as compelling in his uncompromising arrogance as in his righteous indignation.
Working together for the first time, husband and wife Gold and Herzog compress the original five-act structure into a tight two hours, interrupted only by that drunken pause, shorter than the usual Broadway intermission.
Some choices are not entirely beneficial to the work, such as the too abrupt change of the young editor of a left-wing anti-authoritarian newspaper Hovstad (Caleb Eberhardt), who goes from being an enthusiastic supporter of Stockmann to a vehement detractor. But there are also clever changes like eliminating Stockmann’s wife, making her a composite character of him with her teacher daughter, Petra (Victoria Pedretti), and giving the doctor the lingering sadness of a recently widowed man.
At first, Stockmann feels validated and alarmed when reports from the university lab confirm his suspicions that the spa, where he works as a resident doctor, has been contaminated by industrial contaminants, most of them coming from a tannery owned by his cranky father-in-law. , Morten Kiil (David Patrick Kelly).
He has no trouble getting Hovstad and the latter’s almost radical colleague Billing (a very funny Matthew August Jeffers) to team up to publish the findings in The people’s messenger, a name that goes from symbolic to bitterly ironic as the play develops. Hovstad has long been eager for a changing of the guard, and the old rich at City Hall should be pushed aside in search of new blood with more progressive ideas. He believes the resort disaster and investors’ cost-cutting will be enough to discredit them.
Even the most conservative printer who finances the publication, Aslaksen (Thomas Jay Ryan), is on Stockmann’s side and promises to use his considerable influence to rally the support of merchants’ and property owners’ associations. But Aslaksen shows enough signs of being an ingratiating weasel that his about-face is no surprise.
The person whose opposition Stockmann least expects is his brother Peter (Michael Imperioli), the town’s important mayor, demonstrating how little the two men understand each other. Hints of an old sibling rivalry fuel Peter’s anger when he accuses Thomas of irresponsibility by threatening to make public speculative findings that will bring exorbitant costs, close the spa for three years or more, and probably cause the collapse of the spa-driven economy. city tourism.
Thomas remains unwavering in his conviction that the health of the population and the high risk of illness or death are of greater importance than any financial concerns. But his disdainful brother is quick to weaken him. There’s no warmth in the brothers’ relationship, but at the same time, Peter’s willingness (played with icy composure and gleeful insincerity by Imperioli on top form) to destroy Thomas is impressive.
Denied an official means to publish his report, Thomas declares his intention to speak directly to the people at a town meeting. That assembly is an increasingly strident affair, and anyone who has ever been irritated by bureaucratic obstructionism will shudder at the insidious efficiency of Peter and Aslaksen, working together to prevent Thomas from speaking. The scene unfolds like a somber crescendo, the result of which is chilling.
Through all of this, Strong goes from calm certainty to feverish indignation; until a numb resignation and, later, a strange optimism for a future vindication appears, he is so tense that he makes his Succession The character, Kendall Roy, looks calm.
The role of Thomas Stockmann seems tailor-made for the actor’s dangerous energy. But he is no glib martyr in a post-truth world. Herzog has chosen to retain one of Ibsen’s thorniest speeches, a diatribe on social evolution in which Stockmann discusses the difference between mongrel dogs and pedigree breeds as an analogy for the uneducated masses and the elite intelligentsia.
It’s a rant that veers toward eugenics, suddenly showing the character in an unsympathetic light. The fact that she can never remember the name of the family maid, Randine (Katie Broad), also calls into question her respect for the servant class.
Strong has never been an actor to shy away from an abrasive edge, but he maintains enough poise to keep us in Thomas’ corner. The striking image of his complete physical submission after the brutality of the encounter also lends true pathos to the treatment the character receives from the townspeople. While Herzog’s Chekhovian adjustments at the end of the play seem less certain, he still leaves us with a sickening sense of moral rot and the isolation of those who speak against it in a corrupt society.
While Gold’s revivals of classics have tended to be less consistent than his incisive work on new works (the sets of his King Lear and Village At times, the two seemed to be acting in different productions: their uniformly excellent cast here is on the same page, many of them acting as singers and musicians in scene transitions.
In addition to Strong and Imperioli, standouts include Ryan, the epitome of slippery prudery as Aslaksen; Kelly as Kiil, the drunk and evil old man; Eberhardt as the traitorous editor, whose opportunism costs him any romantic advance he made with Petra; and Pedretti in the latter role, a young woman with as much spunk as her father but perhaps clearer vision. Alan Trong also impresses as Captain Horster, a sailor unique in his loyalty to Thomas’ family.
The sets from the design collective known as “dots” make ingenious use of staging in the round to guide us to a 19th-century living room and dining room or the offices of The people’s messenger, with remarkably authentic-looking furniture. (Fans of Scandinavian design will salivate over a beautiful carved wooden rocking chair.) Isabella Byrd’s lighting and David Zinn’s finely detailed costumes evoke the era, while Gold boldly returns us to our contemporary world with his ingenious solution to the town meeting. What could have been a gimmick serves instead as a bridge between then and now.
It’s far from the first time Ibsen (and this work in particular) has been dragged into the present, but it is urgent and effective. Ultimately, one of the strengths of this invigorating revival is that it presents a classic drama as a play for our times.
Location: Circle in the Square, New York
Cast: Jeremy Strong, Michael Imperioli, Victoria Pedretti, Caleb Eberhardt, Thomas Jay Ryan, Matthew August Jeffers, Alan Trono, David Patrick Kelly, Katie Broad, Bill Buell, David Mattar Merten, Max Roll
Director: Sam Gold
Playwright: Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Amy Herzog
Scenic designer: points
Costume designer: David Zinn
Lighting Designer: Isabella Byrd
Sound designer: Mikaal Sulaiman
Presented by Seaview, Patrick Catullo, Plan B, Roth-Manella Productions, Eric & Marsi Gardiner, John Gore Organization, James L. Nederlander, Jon B. Platt, Atekwana Hutton, Bob Boyett, Chris & Ashlee Clarke, Cohen-Demar Productions, Andrew Diamond, GI6 Productions, Sony Music Masterworks, Triptyk Studios, Trunfio Ryan, Kate Cannova, DJL Productions