‘An Enemy of the People’ Review: An Actorly, Broadway Face-Off Between Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli
variety.comDaniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic At various points in “An Enemy of the People,” the Jeremy Strong-led production of Henrik Ibsen’s classic, the greatest entertainment comes from watching the faces opposite you.
That’s not a critique of director Sam Gold’s work. It’s hard to think of a show that could put to better use the unique in-the-round structure of Circle in the Square Theatre than this one.
In the story, society closes in on and consumes an innocent man; in the staging, we the audience are society. Strong plays Dr.
Thomas Stockmann, a widower who’s landed back home in what’s intended to be a cozy sinecure, acting as the chief physician for the town’s newly-opened spa. (As adapted by playwright Amy Herzog, the script has been substantially altered; Ibsen’s original Thomas, for instance, is married.) Both man and town have seen better days, but both, too, are buoyed by optimism: the doctor, with his daughter Petra (a luminous Victoria Pedretti), opens his home to the town’s strata of young and open-minded folk to take his mind off of things.
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