Amy Herzog’s Plays Are Quiet, but Audiences Can’t Look Away

She has become known an Ibsen whisper, bringing “An Enemy of the People” to Broadway this spring, along with a play of her own, which stars Rachel McAdams. As she worked on an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play “An Enemy of the People,” Amy Herzog said, “I felt like I was trying to channel him, but also having an argument with him.”Credit…Caroline Tompkins for The New York Times At a rehearsal for “An Enemy of the People,” a Broadway revival of the 1882 play, the actor Jeremy Strong paced around an auditorium, wearing pants that were damp from kneeling in ice. As Thomas Stockmann, a doctor who tries in vain to warn his Norwegian coastal community about contamination in the town’s springs, Strong looked shaken, but hopeful. “We just have to imagine that the water will be clean and safe and the truth will be valued,” said Strong, known for playing the fragile yet ruthless media executive Kendall Roy on four seasons of “Succession.” “We just have to imagine.” To anyone intimately familiar with “An Enemy of the People,” written by Henrik Ibsen, those lines might sound slightly off key. Ibsen ended the play on a more defiant note, with the doctor boasting that he is the strongest man in the world, because the strongest are those who stand alone. Herzog watches a rehearsal of “An Enemy of the People,” which stars Jeremy Strong, right, opposite Michael Imperioli, left.Credit…Caroline Tompkins for The New York Times Instead of ending with Ibsen’s image of a lonely, heroic truth-teller, she changed it. And it isn’t the first time she’s boldly revamped his work. Herzog’s version — directed by her husband, Sam Gold, in their first stage collaboration — cements her reputation as something of a contemporary Ibsen whisperer. Last year, her pared-down, propulsive adaptation of “A Doll’s House,” starring Jessica Chastain , drew ecstatic reviews and six Tony nominations, including best revival of a play. “What Amy did brought you back to the deep radicalism of ‘A Doll’s House,’” the playwright Tony Kushner said. “It’s completely and recognizably Ibsen’s play, but the […]

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