Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play "An Enemy of the People" remains relevant in today's world of 'fake news' and 'alternative facts.' The production runs at Centenary Stage Company through March 3.
“An Enemy of the People” – at Centenary Stage Company through March 3 – examines how facts are presented differently by people with different interests. It centers on a doctor who discovers the water in his town is contaminated and wants to make sure everyone knows it — to the ire of those who profit from it.
He’s declared “an enemy of the people.”
Important note: This was written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In 1882. More than 100 years and thousands of miles from Flint, Mich. and Washington, D.C.
While the comparisons aren’t exact, “it holds a mirror up to what’s happening today in a way that’s theatrical and extremely relevant and funny,” said Carl Wallnau, chairman of Fine Arts at Centenary University and the company’s artistic director. “People hear ‘Enemy of the People’ and ‘Henrik Ibsen’ and think it sounds heavy and they’re intimidated by it. But while it is very dramatic and very powerful, it’s also very funny.”
That humor was lacking in some earlier translations of the play, Wallnau said. This adaptation was done in the 1980s by John Alan Wyatt, a college professor who was also the translator/artistic director of the American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisc.
Wyatt, Wallnau said, “captured not only the words (Ibsen) was saying but how he said them and their flavor and texture.”
Wallnau also presents a more nuanced portrait of the main character, Dr. Thomas Stockmann, played by esteemed actor Randall Duk Kim, who also starred in the earliest presentation of Wyatt’s translation.
“Is Stockmann a hero? Other versions paint things in black and white. This is a more complex story,” Wallnau said. “Stockmann’s something of a hysteric … He has his own flaws. Ibsen has created real people, real complex human beings. They don’t respond the way we expect them to.”
These works are called “classics” for a reason: When the play was staged in 1990, the headline in the “Wisconsin State Journal” read, “Ibsen’s Play Reflects Today’s Issues.”
The production is directed by Anne Occhiogrosso, who also directed Kim in this show 30 years ago. Occhiogrosso and Kim, who have been married for more than four decades, are long-time Centenary State Company supporters who suggested the theme of this season’s programming and the 2018 Gates Ferry lecture series, “What is truth?”
“We looked to examine truth through the prism of different theater pieces, whether ‘Oediups’ and the pursuit or truth or ‘King Lear’ and truth denied or truth ignored in ‘The Enemy of the People,'” Wallnau said. “What is contemporary truth?”
AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
Centenary Stage Company
715 Grand Ave., Hackettstown
Tickets: $ 17.50-20, available online at http://www.centenarystageco.org/. Through March 3.
Natalie Pompilio is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. She can be reached at nataliepompilio@yahoo.com. Find her on Twitter @nataliepompilio. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook.