by For most people, the appeal of Sam Gold’s An Enemy of the People isn’t the same as Amy Herzog’s Broadway adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play, but the chance to see a little-known work by the Norwegian playwright updated for the present time. opportunity to see Jeremy Strong. Ex-Kendall Roy is shedding his brooding, ex-Success boyfriend image – or, more accurately, drowning it, as promotional materials show him underwater in a tent – across the stage, in a seriously provocative morality play about tie in the decoration of distant time.
Related: ‘No theater on a dead planet’: climate activists disrupt Jeremy Strong’s Broadway show
Still, this 19th-century tale of competing agendas has flashes of HBO’s political drama du jour. Strong once again plays a lone wolf in a sibling rivalry on a doomed crusade, although he is more ethical than Thomas Stockmann, a provincial doctor in a small Norwegian town who discovers dangerous microbes in his water system. He suspects that the bacteria, which require (for the time being) advanced scientific instruments to detect, are the result of toxic runoff from new industrial tanneries, partly owned by his father-in-law (David Patrick Kelly); The near-impossibility of a toxic infection – or, worse, bad public relations – affects the town’s spas and thus its local economy, both overseen by his brother Peter (Michael Imperioli), the great mayor.
All this is laid out directly; Herzog, who last year adapted Ibsen’s A Doll’s House with Jessica Chastain for Broadway, is less concerned with the flow of facts and how others can twist them, and with our modern sensibilities. Strong again orders blinkered enthusiasm to elitist shame, as his clear warning is overshadowed by another pressing, personal concern – the economic impact of a two- or three-year shutdown on traders like Aslaksen (Thomas Jay Ryan), the razor. – a thin profit margin for a local newspaper dependent on happy subscribers, the proud triumph of announcing a 19th century superfund site to the town, the fact that no one has gotten that sick yet. Feelings over facts, circa 1882. “Are you serious?!” Dr. Stockmann tells one person at home, who is afflicted with urgent, self-righteous disbelief. For a second, you see a flash of the 21st century nepo kid defiantly declaring his way or his bust. (The play is funnier than you’d expect for such bleak matters, with one running gag mocking Dr. Stockmann’s “tiny invisible animals”. Matthew August Jeffers, as the flimsy liberal Bill, is a comedic highlight.)
Herzog and Gold want you to think about the scene, even though it may not be that specific or scary. Gold skillfully directed this version, on the crowded stage at the Circle in the Square Theatre, to be performed as old-timey; scenic design at the communal points invokes the Nordic aristocracy – bespoke meals, heritage cutlery, oil lamp lighting used as natural, evocative transitions. (I must note that Strong still wears all brown, even in the 19th-century robe designed by David Zinn.) But Herzog has changed the text significantly. There are shocking changes – Dr Stockmann is now a widower, for one, his wife Katherine’s gentle character is now wrapped in that of his loyal, overburdened daughter Petra (You’s Victoria Pedretti), school teacher and staunch supporter, although there is a lot of speech, this part is only a side role in the text and the performance.
And there are more not-so-subtle inflections that would appeal to our modern milieu of competing loyalties, psychic markets and political threads; the startling basic truth that we all act as much, if not more, on feeling than on reason. And if you’re right, you can be wrong too – a famous quote in which a frustrated Dr Stockmann compares the suitability of mutton to pure powders to defend his integrity as a scientist, edited and delivered to the newspaper editor Hovstad, played by the Black actor Caleb Eberhardt, not only for excellence but for eugenics.
That speech is given with the lights up, a strong position on top of the bar used for intervention, a mixed audience among the townspeople – as obvious as any invocation on the spot, and sure to be a polarizing degree decision. It could be seen as tacky (Linie, its Nordic spirit, is clearly a sponsor; the transitions are soundtracked by members singing Norwegian folk songs). But there’s something to be said for blurring the line between stage and stands, spotlight and shadows, performer and audience, for seeing the reaction of people – wide-eyed shock, grimace, gasp – who know just as much. on what to do. come as you do. Just because a point is very on the nose doesn’t make it any more impressive (although that may have been lost on the climate activists who have been disrupting recent shows).
Perhaps that directness will achieve something beyond the enjoyment of a live performance – the cascading second half is, as expected, a demonstration of Strong’s ability to portray a man on the edge – b the audience might succeed. The appliqué of the dialogue that clearly invokes our current denial to Norway in the 1880s is sometimes stilted, sometimes moving, but in the hands of some ancient actors and an immersive stage, at least a good night of New York theater.
