★★★★☆ An Enemy of the People
Between those overgrown mutton-chop whiskers, tiny wire-rimmed spectacles and cold, thin-lipped glare, portraits of Henrik Ibsen suggest that the Norwegian playwright is likely the oldest and deadest white guy in world literature.
Looks are deceiving. Although Ibsen departed the planet in 1906, right now he’s got a major Broadway hit with An Enemy of the People. On top of that, our venerable Father of Realism rates a comical tribute in Ibsen’s Ghost currently at an Off Broadway house.
As a lover of works old and new (aren’t we all?), it made me happy to note so many spectators standing in the rear of a sold-out Circle in the Square to see Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, a drama that proves to be both old and new. Ibsen composed his play some 140 years ago and now Amy Herzog provides a fresh version of this dark comedy about a maligned whistleblower. Last week, the production packed the 828-seat theater to 103% capacity
The marquee allure of TV series favorites Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli, who face off as siblings clashing over the truth, no doubt initially fired up An Enemy of the People as a hot ticket for its 16-week stint. Smartly staged by director Sam Gold in a relatively intimate in-the-round space, the well-acted production subsequently won many positive reviews. (My good colleague Frank Scheck did not think so highly of the show.)
Count me as somebody impressed. Theatergoers able to nab a ticket to sit (or even stand) will witness a bold drama that proves to be terribly current in its depiction of public mistrust, moral corruption and civic failure as environmental disaster threatens. While the story unfolds in Victorian days and is performed in 1880s clothes, the drama has been pointed to reflect our troubled social and political times all too clearly.
In the same way Herzog sharply adapted A Doll’s House last season, she trims and Americanizes this knotty Ibsen text into a quick, cogent two hours. Herzog mostly sticks to Ibsen’s story set in a Norwegian resort town. A well-meaning physician/scientist with zero social skills, Stockmann discovers the water supply is tainted by upstream industries. Trying to warn the public, the doctor expects his bad news will compel the community to correct the problem.
But the city government — whose mayor is Stockmann’s antagonistic brother — proves unwilling to bear the vast expense. Fearful of losing a lucrative tourist trade, the council rejects the doctor’s report.
As the drama reaches its climax during an increasingly hostile town meeting whipped up by the press and elected officials, phrases familiar to our Covid-19 weary ears like “unproven science” and “theories as facts” are madly flung around. “Ask yourselves,” Stockmann implores the angry crowd, “Is what I am saying dangerous? Or is ignorance dangerous?” His motives impugned and his findings canceled, the ostracized doctor finally retreats from the struggle.
Having read and seen the play a dozen times since encountering it in college, Ibsen’s final ironic plot twist involving the citizenry during the closing scene still somehow startles me. It’s so nasty! Younger viewers new to this drama may be shocked by such cynicism. Underlining Ibsen’s bitter theme about the craven, self-serving nature of most individuals, Herzog’s adaptation might well be retitled The Enemy Is the People.
In his original closing moments, Ibsen at least allows the disillusioned Stockmann to realize a moral victory in which he utters the quotable declaration, “The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.” No such assertion rings out in Herzog’s conclusion as the doctor merely expresses vague hopes for a better world in the faraway future. It is an oddly Chekhov-like fadeout to an otherwise characteristically combative Ibsen social drama.
Much as in his immediately preceding A Doll’s House and Ghosts, Ibsen similarly explores in An Enemy of the People multiple variations on the truth: Discovering the truth. Telling the truth. Obscuring the truth. Facing the truth. Disbelieving the truth. Not to mention twisting the truth, social or otherwise, sometimes beyond reality.
Oh, that Ibsen: A great playwright on the cutting edge. What can be more current in our doubtful national conversation nowadays than the debatable subject of truth?
★★☆☆☆ Ibsen’s Ghost
Meanwhile back in 1906, Suzannah Ibsen is frantically dealing with the skeletons falling out of her newly deceased husband’s closet in Ibsen’s Ghost.
Playwright Charles Busch, always his own finest leading lady, subtitles his latest comedy as “an irresponsible biographical fantasy” in which he depicts Ibsen’s not-so-very merry widow during a revelatory week following the funeral.
Reminiscing about their 50-year marriage, Suzannah admits that existence with the Norwegian genius could be bleak. “After I gave birth to our only child, a visit to my bedroom was as tantalizing to Ibsen as an amateur production of Peer Gynt,” she confesses.
Suddenly confronted by numerous inconvenient truths about rivals, dalliances and illegitimate offspring, Suzannah hustles to do away with incriminating evidence; perhaps most amusingly in a letter burning episode that reeks of Hedda Gabler. Although the overlong Ibsen’s Ghost is nowhere near Busch’s top tier comedies, quintessential Ibsenites can at least have some fun in spotting various references and spoofs as they pop up in this Primary Stages production. Yes, of course a gun materializes.
An elaborate parlor setting (love that Scandinavian porcelain stove) and opulent 1900s clothes deck out the production that is brightly enacted within a dark 19th century proscenium frame at 59E59 Theaters. These plush visuals lend considerable weight to a pretty staid piece of literary foolery. Had Busch composed this saga back during his naughtier Theatre in Limbo days, Ibsen’s peccadillos and Suzannah’s intrigues probably would have been bawdier and a lot funnier.
Interpreting even lesser material, it is always a treat to see Busch evoke his transcendental magic as a humorous specialist in female characterizations. Glowering beneath an auburn pompadour and striking grand attitudes in widow’s weeds (later a peach-colored negligee) as the distraught, rivalrous and sometimes randy Suzannah, Busch recalls at times the late, great Uta Hagen at her hammiest.
Speaking of great artists, Judy Kaye splendidly leads a sterling supporting company who manage to give the wonderfully false impression that everything they are saying and doing is hilarious.
If his latest comedy is not among his best, it is apparent that as a theater scholar Busch knows Ibsen’s favored themes well enough to spin Ibsen’s Ghost around matters involving the truth. Here the keeper of a great artist’s flame desperately strives to hush up incipient scandal, much like the civic leaders, muckrakers and businessmen of An Enemy of the People try to deny the pollution seeping into their lives.
An Enemy of the People March 18, 2024, at Circle in the Square and runs through June 23. Tickets and information: anenemyofthepeopleplay.com
Ibsen’s Ghost: An Irresponsible Biographical Fantasy opened March 14, 2024, at 59E59 and runs through April 14. Tickets and information: 59e59.org
