Jeremy Strong as a righteous scientist? Michael Imperioli as his pompous, persnickety brother?

One might initially question this casting. Strong is best known for his recent role as Kendall Roy in “Succession,” an ambitious recovering drug addict riddled with doubt – not what you’d consider a decisive, heroic figure;  Michael Imperioli became popular as Christopher Moltisanti in “The Sopranos,” a go-getting street-wise criminal and (not recovering) drug addict– not exactly a pillar of the establishment.

But their casting  turns out to be director Sam Gold’s most inspiring choice for playwright Amy Herzog’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” which opened tonight at Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theater.

 Strong is  Dr. Thomas Stockmann, the local physician who insists on raising the alarm about the life-threatening pollution in the new local spa resort. This turns the entire town against him, including (especially!) his brother Mayor Peter Stockmann, played by Imperioli in his Broadway debut, because shutting down the spa would ruin the small town’s economy.

It’s the associations we make with these actors’ most famous roles that help complicate our understanding of the characters they are now portraying — and complicate what we take away from the play.

 And complicating our reaction seems to be an aim of this production, the first theatrical collaboration between Gold and Herzog, who are married to one another. 

That director and playwright are husband and wife might make it seem a tad ironic that the revised script has completely eliminated the character of Dr. Stockmann’s wife. It is one of the many liberties Herzog takes with Ibsen, which I found all to the good.

As in her adaptation last year of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” (a Broadway revival directed by Jamie Lloyd that I otherwise didn’t much care for), Herzog uses a modern ear to replace the often-ponderous English translations of Ibsen’s language, paring down the dialogue and the monologues to get more quickly to the point. But she and Gold also go further here, and not just by turning Dr. Stockmann into a widower.

The most memorable change for me is a more subtle one, reflected in a scene that helped me understand why Strong felt right for the character.

Thanks largely to Ibsen’s 1882 play, the phrase “an enemy of the people” has come to connote for many the exact opposite – a hero of the people; somebody willing to stand up for what’s right even when he’s the only one. (The exception that may prove this consensus is the vulgar literalist running to be dictator on day one, who last week posted:  “TIKTOK IS LESS OF A DANGER TO THE USA THAN META (FACEBOOK!), WHICH IS A TRUE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE”) 

Even the radical reimagining of “An Enemy of the People” by director Robert Icke at the Park Avenue Armory in 2021 seemed to uphold that heroic interpretation. The production had us literally vote on each decision along the way – for example, to report the water’s contamination right away or to proceed cautiously so as not to cause public panic – each choice leading to unexpected, and unwanted, consequences. Whether or not this demonstrated our own mob mentality – and I think that was the point, to show us our complicity – it also implicitly drove home how challenging it is to do the right thing in the face of uncertainty and opposition. 

Yet, in a crucial scene in the current Broadway production, where Stockmann confronts the citizens at a town meeting, he doesn’t just argue for the importance of shutting down the spa for the sake of the public health. He argues for his own superiority, in particular when debating with Hovstad (Caleb Eberhardt), the editor of the town’s newspaper. Some human beings are simply inferior to others, such as the ones he treated when he practiced medicine in a rural region of Norway full of poverty where he sometimes questioned “whether it was right to treat those people at all, if some of them would be better off let to die.”

He offers an analogy to Hovstad: How the editor bought a poodle “when you came to our town” rather than taking a stray dog from his home country. “Because there’s a difference between a stray and a poodle, isn’t there.”

Stockmann reveals elitist views in most productions, but making Hovstad an immigrant, and casting him with a Black actor, adds some frisson of racism to what is already the good doctor’s portfolio of class and gender bias.

Stockmann’s invoking of science to argue for his superiority, his comparing immigrants to stray dogs, his suggestion that some of his inferiors are better off dead — which makse him seem to advocate the now discredited “science’ of eugenics – all undercut the image of the unadulterated hero we might have wanted him to be.

But we can’t dismiss him as a complete villain either. He’s still trying to save lives.  In most translations (such as a classic one by R. Farquharson Sharp) “An Enemy of the People” ends with Stockmann in defeat but defiant: “The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.” In this version, he makes an unconvincing stab at being hopeful, his disappointment palpable; in generations to come, he tells his daughter Petra, “we just have to imagine, that the water will be clean and safe and the truth will be valued…”

Strong, who certainly has had experience portraying an often unlikeable character, presents the doctor’s complexity, including his strengths, while subtly suggesting that his stubbornness may have many roots — insecurity, grief, ambition.

As different as they seem, at least to each other, the doctor’s brother may share this poorly disguised ambition. For all his insistence on pomp and propriety, Imperioli’s Mayor Stockmann has the  hint of a street hustler in him, which does seem to fit the character, who’s always angling. 

If there is a nuanced artistic sensibility at work in these characterizations, theatergoers can still view the production as animated by the harsh politics of today – the resistance to the climate crisis, resistance to truth, resistance to sensible public health measures, cancel culture, polarization. (I probably have to mention the protest  by climate activists at last Thursday’s performance – more about it here and here.) And if it’s safe to assume that the casting of Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli are the reason why “An Enemy of The People” has been selling out, one can find  other satisfactions as well. Even the odd in-the-round staging, with a set by the design collective dots that is long and narrow and looks like a railroad flat, offers hints of nineteenth century elegance and showcases  Isabella Byrd’s expressive lighting. It also makes it easier for audience interaction; the lights went up halfway through the play, and audience members were encouraged to take seats as some of the townspeople during the town meeting (This was the convenient time when the protesters appeared.)  

 Having killed off Dr. Stockmann’s wife, Herzog has beefed up some of the secondary characters, and Gold has cast them well,  five of the dozen performers making  Broadway debuts. Let me single out Matthew August Jeffers, who I first saw a decade ago portraying God in a new play called “The Mysteries” at the Off-Off Broadway theater called The Flea.   He’s not God now, but neither is Jeremy Strong.

For those who would resist this version of “An Enemy of the People,” because of the liberties the creative team takes, say, or the high ticket prices, it’s worth pointing out this is the eleventh production on Broadway alone, and if the play is not the most widely produced Ibsen (that would probably be “A Doll’s House”), it seems to have gained currency.

In April, Theater of War Productions will be presenting its own version of An Enemy of The People online for free, as a way to prompt discussion about current issues. As their website points out, “it speaks to the present moment as if it were written for our time.”

Verdict: Jeremy Strong changes our perception of Ibsen’s character in Herzog’s complicating adaptation

An Enemy of the People
Circle in the Square Theatre through June 16
Running time: Two hours including an intermission
Tickets: $275 – $499. Digital lottery: $39
Written by Amy Herzog adapting the play by Henrik Ibsen
Directed by Sam Gold
Scenic Design by dots; Costume Design by David Zinn; Lighting Design by Isabella Byrd; Sound Design by Mikaal Sulaiman; Hair and Wig Design by Campbell Young Associates
Cast: Jeremy Strong as Dr. Thomas Stockmann, Michael Imperioli as Peter Stockmann,  Victoria Pedretti as Petra Stockmann, Katie Broad as Randine, Bill Buell as Townsperson, Caleb Eberhardt as Hovstad, Matthew August Jeffers as Billing, David Patrick Kelly as Morten Kiil, David Mattar Merten as Townperson, Max Roll as Townperson, Thomas Jay Ryan as Aslaksen, and Alan Trong as Captain Horster
Photographs by Emilio Madrid