‘An Enemy Of The People’ Broadway Review: Jeremy Strong & Michael Imperioli In Battle For Our Times
deadline.comWhether or not the climate activists who interrupted a critics preview of Broadway’s An Enemy of the People last week persuasively made their “water’s coming for us all” message isn’t for me to say, but I will note that the disruption spoke very well for this production.
The first, there’s Amy Herzog’s smart, sharp and relevant adaptation of Ibsen’s 1882 classic about a Norwegian town doctor deemed “an enemy of the people” for his truth-telling about an environmental health hazard.
The science vs. commerce debate is uncannily current, as Herzog thoughtfully makes clear. Ibsen created an archetypal situation here – I’d be willing to bet a trip to the beach that Peter Benchley was more than a little familiar with Enemy when he created that spineless, shark-denying mayor of Jaws, and if the activists at last week’s show hadn’t already seen a performance of this production, they certainly recognized a kindred spirit (not to mention the perfect scene to disrupt).
And the disruption also pointed up another strength of the production: The cast. Staying in character, going with the flow and tapping into some truly impressive improv skills, and demonstrated their complete grasp not only of their individual characters but of the play and its themes as well.
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