The play of the day was "An Enemy of the People," first produced in 1882, and written by the aforementioned Henrik Ibsen. It was the story of a family torn apart (Which I'm beginning to think is a recyclable introduction for most of his plays) by wealth built upon an unfortunate premise. One that modern science has come to reveal. The truth, if spoken, will decimate the new wealth in the town. Left unspoken the promise of disease, suffering and death await like a ticking time bomb. Who will win out, the whistle-blower with science on his side, or greedy landed gentry with all manner of investments to lose. As fate would have it, the scientist who feels morally compelled to tell all is the little brother of town's wealthy and greedy mayor.
Written nearly 150 years ago in Norwegian, by definition, every English version is at the least a translation, and otherwise some form of a "New Version". in 1950, a year off his rave reviews of "A Death of a Salesman," Arthur Miller tackled creating a new version of An Enemy of the People. And here we have Amy Herzog's new take on the play. Herzog is no slouch, she has an impressive resume; however, I don't feel like she was able to do much more than create a sort of loud cliche. The original was so controversial that it continued to face censorship and outright bans across Europe some 25 years after its debut. It's hard to imagine why anyone would want to see this version twice.
The use of multimedia was most of the time a huge distraction, and was the floor to ceiling translucent plastic curtain that pulled shut and open for no discernible reason through the play. The single set was meant to evoke a spa or high school locker room, or gas station bathroom...your guess is as good as mine. The props were chaotic and the ad lib-ing at times banal. The lead actor was always on the verge of blowing a gasket in a desperate attempt to salvage things, and his sidekick, one of the most awarded and talented local actors in the DMV delivered his lines with all of the conviction of someone looking to the end and not wanting to miss his supper.
The central idea of Scientists recognizing an environmental crisis and trying to stop it, only to be attacked at every turn by the ruling class/government is a familiar concept. So it is not enough to just have this conceit on your side. It matters that you have something new to say about it. If all you have was written in 1882, then upgrading the duds and digs is a piss poor reason to even bother.
In her rewrite, Herzog took the liberty of removing one character completely, and placing the lionshare of her lines and plot points in the hands of her daughter--a character of lesser import in the original. This leads me to wonder what else was lost. Because the character development for the supporting roles that was present in last weekend's production of "The Wild Duck" were nowhere to be found here. This left performances in the supporting roles flat, at times even bizarre. A huge chunk of the second act found the audience roped in to participate by swinging holiday noise-makers and cat-calling actions of actors on the stage. And this is pretty much where I said, enough and began imagining what I was going to cook for supper myself!
I applaud Theatre J for taking chances, I just wish there had been someone in the room with a few more guardrails.
