Joe Cobden in An Enemy of the People.Cylla von Tiedemann
Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, in Tarragon Theatre's current copycat version of a celebrated German production by director Thomas Ostermeier, provides an absolutely electric example of audience involvement about two-thirds of the way through.
Scientist Thomas Stockmann (Joe Cobden) has called a town-hall meeting to discuss the contamination of the water in the city baths, a spa for tourists that is the main economic motor in his small Norwegian hamlet.
Thomas's scientific paper about his health concerns has been buried by politicians and watered down in local press coverage, so he's taking his concerns directly to the people – that is, us in the audience.
First, a selection of citizens led by a city councillor named Peter (a rock 'n' roll Rick Roberts, ricocheting off the crowd) hijacks the proceedings. Thomas's findings need more study, he says, asking: Is it really worth putting at risk the entire economy of the town – the property values, the public transit, its public schools – over environmental concerns that may be overblown?
This leads Thomas to fire back, expanding his argument beyond science to excoriate the tyranny of the majority and capitalism. "The economy isn't in crisis; the economy is the crisis," he cries. (This text is interpolated from The Coming Insurrection, a French anarchist manifesto that became evidence in a 2008 terrorism trial.)
Then it was the audience's turn to play their part – and I was skeptical how this participatory section would work in buttoned-down Toronto. Well, perhaps it's because of the wild mayoral race to succeed Rob Ford – or the obvious resonances of the play given wider Canadian debates about the oil sands and the dysfunctional Parliament – but the crowd got engaged and enraged and didn't even wait for permission.
It was thrilling, if somewhat at odds with the dramatic structure. An Enemy of the People was written by Ibsen in 1882 and, in the original play, the fictional citizens of the town turn against Thomas Stockmann at this point. The Tarragon audience, however, was clearly on Thomas's side – and it took certain plants in the crowd to go on the attack, in a way that sees this town hall turn messy (literally, and thrillingly).
An Enemy of the People definitely provides food for thought, but it is served with enough theatrical garnish that it is ever entertaining as well. There's music, played by the cast, and a series of clever staging choices before chalkboards that become a potent visual metaphor as Thomas's equations and writings are whitewashed.
The play begins with most of the townspeople on Thomas's side – his wife, Katarina (a sensitive Tamara Podemski), and friends who work at the newspaper, editor Hovstad (Matthew Edison) and writer Billing (Brandon McGibbon). These four form a band, and the other overarching metaphor for the production is a move from harmony to cacophony.
Having seen the original German production twice, I found it occasionally difficult to get my head around the English imitation. Maria Milisavljevic's translation at times sounds like one, and I sometimes felt that local director Richard Rose was trying to fit square pegs into round holes by following the blueprint too closely. Why not just commission a Canadian adaptation of the original, public-domain Ibsen play and create a new staging, equally potent, rather than follow the route that Broadway musicals do when they open up local franchises of a hit in Toronto?
On the other hand, Toronto's international festivals really dropped the ball by not bringing Ostermeier's version to town. Neither Luminato nor World Stage programmed the show from Berlin's Schaubuehne theatre – and the show has caused waves in New York and Montreal and is currently getting raves at the Barbican in London.
This Enemy of the People is the next best thing and still a must-see, even if I would, ideally, prefer to see Canadian companies imitate German process rather than product in approaching the classics.