Today is Thursday, September 27, marking the official opening night of An Enemy of the People, produced by Manhattan Theatre Club, Starring Boyd Gaines. The Ibsen play, newly adapted by British dramatist Rebecca Lenkiewicz, is directed by Tony winner Doug Hughes, plays the Friedman.
LimelightMike's 2010-2011 Theatergoing Schedule:
THE PITMEN PAINTERS
(10.03.10)
A LIFE IN THE THEATRE
(10.10.10)
BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON
(10.16.10)
THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS
(11.06.10)
WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
(11.13.10)
BRIEF ENCOUNTER
(11.22.10)
THE PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW
(11.28.10)
LA BETE
(12.23.10)
A SMALL FIRE
(01.13.11)
THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON
(03.09.11)
ARCADIA
(03.16.11)
BLACK TIE
(03.19.11)
PRISCILLA: QUEEN OF THE DESERT
(03.21.11)
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
(03.26.11)
BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO
(03.30.11)
GHETTO KLOWN
(03.31.11)
HOW TO SUCCEED...
(04.07.11)
ANYTHING GOES
(04.12.11)
JERUSALEM
(04.20.11)
SISTER ACT
(04.29.11)
iHO:
(05.22.11)
"While Doug Hughes' production preserves the play's qualities as a sharp thriller, the text has been severely trimmed to a lean two-hour length at the expense of character development. The set design, which exposes the wooden interiors of each building, is odd and distracting.
"Many cast members, including Gaines and Thomas, have a tendency to scream their lines at maximum intensity. A scene before the Act One curtain between the two actors resembles a shouting match.
But these issues aside, "An Enemy of the People" makes for exciting, politically-charged theater. Gaines, one of our best stage actors, makes a credible transition into a determined dissident, while Thomas is a perfectly smug and dapper villain."
"Another compelling reason for a 2012 revival is the crackling new translation courtesy of Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who navigates Ibsen's wordplay - thorny intellectual arguments and blistering monologues peppered by snippets of banter - with both respect for his time and awareness of our own....
"[T]he most serious flaw of this handsome, classical production is that it burns a bit too hot. Under the direction of Doug Hughes (Doubt), the cast yell through half their lines so that Thomas and Peter's intellectual war ends up being waged with decibels as much as ideals...."
"A fine Manhattan Theatre Club's production that opened Thursday at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre starts shakily but ends as a full-throated defense of the individual.
"Boyd Gaines and Richard Thomas are marvelous as the battling brothers at the heart of the play, but there are terrific turns also by Gerry Bamman, Michael Siberry and Kathleen McNenny. Director Doug Hughes paces it like a thriller, with the heat rising steadily."
"Rebecca Lenkiewicz has transformed Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play 'An Enemy of the People,' an insightful work about the cost of free expression, into a coherent, topical, and thrilling piece that pokes and prods at our own moral fiber. Expertly realized by director Doug Hughes, the production succeeds on merit instead of flashiness or celebrity - with an outstanding cast of theater veterans led by Richard Thomas and Boyd Gaines - and causes us to question just how far we are willing to go to stand up for our beliefs." Backstage
"Gaines is a protean performer (he sings! he dances! he does drama!) adept at physically insinuating himself into a role while playing beyond type. Eyes ablaze with idealistic fervor, the thesp perfectly captures the messianic fervor with which Stockmann triumphantly commits his findings to an incendiary expose to be published in the local liberal newspaper....
"Going into the public forum to justify his findings to the townspeople, Stockmann looks like a fatted fly waiting to be gobbled up by his evil spider of a brother, the town Mayor underplayed to chilling effect by Richard Thomas. Subtle villain that he is, Thomas keeps the Mayor's self-serving manipulations literally hidden under the slouch hat and oversized black overcoat designed by Catherine Zuber."
"Doug Hughes, who directs Enemy so that all its passions are underscored, has assembled a great cast whose leading players interpret their characters with a flair that gives the play a here-and-now feel, even though Lenkiewicz' new version is true to 19th-century social conventions. The supporting cast includes James Waterston as a reporter, Michael Silberry as a tannery owner whose industrial waste is a source of the problem, the excellent Gerry Bamman as a printer, Maite Alina as the whistleblower's supportive daughter and Kathleen McNenny as his wife. They build their characters with remarkable care.
"Catherine Zuber's costumes are handsome period renditions and John Lee Beatty's impressive set changes locations on a turntable. That set becomes moot when toward the play's end, Hughes stages a town meeting at the front of the audience, in the aisles and on the stage apron; it's stark and effective. At that point, though, Ibsen's Enemy turns from an elegantly posited conundrum into a polemic that seems simplistic until the play rights itself in the end." Philadelphia Inquirer
"[L]ittle about this mounting possesses the depth necessary to make this evening meaningful rather than heavy-handed. Hughes and his cast, which is led by Broadway stalwarts Boyd Gaines and Richard Thomas, spend so much of their time making Points that they don't have enough to bother transporting, castigating, and informing you as well....
"[H]ome life, on the other hand, is presented with pristine emotional clarity that gives us part of the anchor we need. It's richly embodied by the excellent Kathleen McNenny as Thomas's wife, Maite Alina as his daughter, and Randall Newsome as the kindly captain who's unwilling to abandon them in their hour of need - in all three cases, the performers chart their characterizations along the usual but effective lines of passing through doubt and disbelief to arrive eventually at honor. They captivate you because you recognize in them how those in the real world think and behave."
"The solid Gaines--who also played the voice of reason in recent revivals of Gypsy and 12 Angry Men--knows how to do decency.
And Thomas is good as the priggish, misguided mayor who considers himself the town's moral center (though he seems to recede as his character does).
But for all the punched-up theatrics and speed, some texture seems missing, to the point where the quieter moments, when everyone shuts up and ponders, are the evening's most effective ones." Michael Musto Voice Blog
"Rollicking" is not a word that usually springs to mind in connection with Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, but it's the best way to describe the Manhattan Theatre Club's revival of his 1882 classic An Enemy of the People. This "new version" by playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz and directed by Doug Hughes runs about an hour shorter than the original, features updated and colloquial language, and frequently accentuates the play's comic elements. It's sure to annoy purists and divide audiences, but there's little doubt that this is a highly accessible and entertaining rendition of this rarely produced drama."
"Those of us who know the drama well are likely to find this revival a surprisingly crude effort. The overall tone of the production uncertainly wavers between dark comedy and melodrama. David Van Tieghem's metallic music lends a portentous air to the proceedings.
"British author Rebecca Lenkiewicz's 2008 adaptation, for all of its modern-day expletives, sounds obvious and declamatory ('I have truth and honor on my side!') and the actors too often tend to shout their speeches. The border between forceful acting and simply acting forced is frequently crisscrossed by the 14-member company in Hughes' roughshod staging of the play."
"Ms. Lenkiewicz has made no attempt to paper over the play's contemptuous antipopulism. She has, however, cut the script ruthlessly, modernized Ibsen's language with four-letter words and ramped up the humor (such as it is) to the point of cartoonishness.
"Doug Hughes, the director, has gone the rest of the way and then some. The result is a too-broad comedy whose climax swerves unsurely toward dead seriousness. Mr. Gaines, Richard Thomas and the rest of the cast give caricaturish performances, which seems to be what Mr. Hughes had in mind."
"Gaines gives it his fiery all and Thomas hands in another of his considered performances - even if there are times when Hughes asks them and their colleagues to shout more than necessary to get their - and Ibsen's - timely points across." Theatermania
"If Lenkiewicz's blunt, sometimes crass choices sap Ibsen's language of some of its seductive lyricism, she and director Doug Hughes also mitigate Enemy's pedantic leanings by emphasizing the haughtiness that mingles uncomfortably with Thomas' virtue....
"This Manhattan Theatre Club production also has a huge asset in leading man Boyd Gaines, whose Thomas is a distinctly earthbound but still mesmerizing force of nature....
"The actor has a worthy foil in fellow stage stalwart Richard Thomas, whose Peter is at once convincingly petty and paranoid and smooth enough to be an authentic player. The supporting cast is mostly excellent, particularly John Procaccino as a jaded editor and Gerry Bamman as his cynical printer." USA Today
A day before the opening on Broadway of “An Enemy of the People,” which is a play about the efforts to silence a difficult man, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange lashed out at Obama in a video presented at the U.N. General Assembly, for what Assange said was the president’s attempts to deny him his freedom of speech. Henrik Ibsen’s play may be 130 years old, but it proves timely time and time again. .. An Enemy of The People Review: The Faster Times
"[The translator,] director Doug Hughes and this first-rate cast -- headed by Boyd Gaines and Richard Thomas -- are true to both the playwright and to theatergoers hungry for a play as wise about human nature as it is entertaining....
"Hughes, in his most muscular, richly ambiguous work since "Doubt," revels in the conscious and unconscious duplicity of these characters." Newsday - Possiibly Limited Access
Daily News is negative, in my view, even though it gave *** of *****.
"[T]his 1882 play by Ibsen, a pioneer in realism, has never seemed more simplistic and black-and-white than in this version. Its 11th-hour twists come off as contrived....
"Shortfalls are magnified in this staging ... from a streamlined and strident adaptation by British playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Changes in characters' attitudes come abruptly.
"The Act II crowd scene in which townfolk decry Dr. Stockmann as 'an enemy of the people' comes off as noisy....
"But screaming isn't always the best way to present an argument - or a play."
Up until intermission, "An Enemy of the People" seems like your run-of-the-mill Roundabout period revival. The casually paced production is dignified, well-acted by likable stars such as Boyd Gaines ... and Richard Thomas ... and competently directed by Doug "Doubt" Hughes.
So you settle into your seat, ready for an innocuous, snoozy night out.
But it's another story after the break. With the exposition out of the way, it feels as if somebody had applied defibrillator paddles to the show and shocked it into life.
I haven't seen it and am looking forward to, but I'm curious. Does anyone who has seen it think the high pitched yelling may be a probing comment on contemporary punditry and political "discourse", which is ordinarily strident and high pitched; and if so, do you think it works?
***
Just read Brantley who seems to have embraced my theory and does not think it works. His last line conveys that the last thing we need this season are exclamation points. I'm wondering if this production holds up a mirror of exclamation points and so profoundly reveals something about ourselves. My experience with Brantley is that he often misses out on what's driving a production, which is not to imply that he did so here or that this production succeeds; hence my question.
Regarding the theory mentioned above, I think it's reasonable. However, given that Gaines' character as written likes exclamation points, he might justifiably be played as shouty without any bigger commentary about current events being implied.
My own guess is that Hughes was mainly trying to keep a supposedly "stodgy," "old-fashioned" play moving along in a supposedly "exciting" manner, and that approach resulted in a generally over-broad, superficial production. In other words, as I think one or two of the negative reviews suggested, Hughes' approach may be more a symptom of a coarse, unreflective society than a comment upon it.
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Posted: 9/27/12 at 06:45pm