A harmful and potentially fatal pathogen is discovered, and its eradication involves essentially shuttering an entire city for two to three years—destroying small businesses and crippling the local economy. Where have we heard this before?
Director Sam Gold and adapter Amy Herzog (of this season’s Mary Jane) don’t have to work hard to make An Enemy of the People, just opened at Broadway’s Circle in the Square, feel fresh and immediate. Even if you don’t see the parallels to the pandemic—Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Jeremy Strong, fresh from four seasons on HBO’s King Lear–esque drama Succession), wearing eyeglasses not unlike Anthony Fauci’s, is vilified by a group of science-denying, head-in-the-sand blowhards—it’s impossible to watch a play about contaminated water without thinking of Flint, Michigan. Quietly switching the city’s water source to the Flint River in 2014 (a money-saving move) had devastating effects—everything from headaches, hair loss, and rashes to Legionnaires’ disease, lead poisoning, and even death; learning disabilities, depression, and other side effects are still being discovered, and to this day the EPA tells Flint residents to filter their water.
As long as there are greedy, short-sighted people in the world, it will never be a bad time for Ibsen’s man-against-the-world drama. In this production—set, per usual, in late-19th-century Norway—the world is led by Thomas’ brother, Peter Stockmann (The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli, appealing but not too appealing), a power-mad, top-hat-wearing politico whose self-importance is matched only by his cunning.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★☆☆☆ review here.]
For better or worse, the siblings are unofficial partners on the town’s star attraction and biggest moneymaker, the Baths. And when Thomas confirms a nagging suspicion—that those “wonderful, miraculous, much-praised Baths” are “utterly contaminated”—he naturally expects his brother’s support. “The source is poisoned, man! It’s poisoned! We’re going to have an epidemic on our hands!” Thomas pleads. But Peter won’t hear it: “That’s just speculation—or maybe even wishful thinking!”
At first Thomas has a few people behind him: Hovstad (Caleb Eberhardt), the firebrand editor of The People’s Messenger, who’s eager to print Thomas’ damning scientific discovery; Billing (Matthew August Jeffers), who works at the Messenger; and Aslaksen (Thomas Jay Ryan, wonderfully slippery), a famously “moderate” tradesman, head of the Property Owners Association, and temperance society member (“I know a lot of people,” he humblebrags). But then Peter oh-so-helpfully explains the “major” monetary “sacrifice” that the community will be making to repair the water system. If the taxpayers are footing the bill, reasons Aslaksen, “well that changes everything.”
So the only person in Thomas’ corner is his daughter, Petra (Victoria Pedretti), a teacher who after a long day at school tends to her (offstage) brother, serves supper and drinks to her father’s friends, and puts up with some pathetic attempts at flirting. Hovstad suggests she work for the Messenger. “You could cover women’s issues, the progress women are making in our town, in the workforce and—” suggests Billing. “What progress?” she dryly asks.
Ibsen purists might be wondering, what about Thomas’ wife, Katherine? In this new version by Herzog, who also adapted last season’s A Doll’s House, her role has been eliminated, and most of her lines—greeting and chatting with friends such as Captain Horster (Alan Trong), for instance—have been assigned to Petra. Katherine did do a lot of finger-wagging and questioning her husband, but he never paid her any mind anyway…so no great loss.
Herzog’s cracking adaptation runs just a little over two hours, with no official interval—only a 10-minute pause where you can go onstage and grab a (free) bracing shot of aquavit. All the milling around also enables Gold to smoothly transition into the Act 4–opening speech-turned-attack in which Thomas tries to speak about his discovery, Peter and Aslaksen attempt to silence him, and angry citizens eventually beat Thomas to a pulp. Perhaps “our society is built on a heap of lies” was what riled them up. Or maybe it was the bit about the “incredible stupidity of the authorities.”
The night I attended, during that scene, as has now been widely reported, three separate climate-change protesters popped up within the audience, their unifying cry being “no theater on a dead planet.” Part of the show, or actual protest? (We eventually realized it was not part of the show.) Their mid–mob scene timing was impeccable, and thankfully, didn’t destroy the mood. Strong—a seasoned stage actor whose credits include David Ives’ New Jerusalem, Theresa Rebeck’s Our House, and, most memorably, Amy Herzog’s The Great God Pan, in which he played a journalist delving into dark childhood memories—didn’t break character for a moment; after all, Thomas, a scientist himself, probably would be curious about the science behind it all.
An Enemy of the People opened March 18, 2024, at Circle in the Square and runs through June 23. Tickets and information: anenemyofthepeopleplay.com
