Jeremy Strong and Team Open Up About What to Expect from AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

hello I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World successions Jeremy Strong is returning to Broadway alongside soprano star Michael Imperioli in a brand new Revival of Ipson an enemy of the people it will run for 16 weeks at Circle Lima square with a beautiful new translation by Amy hog directed by her husband Sam gold and we're here at the addition hotel for the show's press conference moderated by Tony Kushner how did this production come about what Drew you to the play when did you start thinking about uh doing ity with people um well the honest answer is that um the director approached me um Sam gold um he had because I was working on a dolls house and I had all of these books about Ipson biographies books of all his plays lying around because I was doing a kind of Deep dive and I think I should I'm sorry that I'm taking your story but since we're married I think I own half of it um uh so at some point Sam picked up one of the volumes of plays and read an enemy of the people and immediately thought of Jeremy who's a dear old friend and collaborator of both of ours um and spoke to Jeremy about doing it um and and he told me this and I said do you have a translator in mind um and he said would you like to translate it and I'm going to admit right now that I actually didn't know the play very well before then um I was uh there are a lot of IBS and plays that were so important to me growing up up but this one was kind of a new discovery to be honest uh uh returning to the stage was was not something uh uh sort of on my radar it's been a long time since I've done a play the the last play was a little over 10 years ago and was Amy's play the great God pan that was the last time that was the last time which feels like a met that's when we met went and backstage and stalked you after after that a and you know uh I've known Amy since 1997 in college I've known Sam since 2001 I think um so there was always a hope that we would find something to do together but I read the play that day I read the Miller translation and and it really struck me like a bolt of lightning the play um the the sense of I I've heard it described as as as a man confronting the necessity of action at the same time as the impossibility of action and I thought that that was an incred inedible uh dilemma and engine of a play the last play I did on on Broadway the only play I did on Broadway um was a man for all seasons and you know similarly a play about sort of speaking truth to power um and I was so I was so moved by the Sam says the sort of allegory of the play this idea of a man discovering that the water system that is feeding the health spa of the town but in a sense the Wellspring of Life the moral ethical spiritual Wellspring of life is poisoned and you see the powers that be in the town uh have a ve you know they have a vested interest in protecting uh the status quo and in economic interest and and and and reading the play it just ricocheted across every single thing that we're uh uh living through and confronting from from the court of public opinion to The Climate crisis which really struck me when I read the play this idea of an ineluctable fact uh someone presenting an objective empirical fact pointing to the destruction of a town and seeing the powers that be uh uh ostracize that man I think it's more timely now than it was since probably since it was written in a strange way I mean Miller kind of leaned into the McCarthyism and and and and that aspect of was very pressing and important at the time but it really seems to hold much more weight now than it definitely than it did back then yeah and I mean I've admired Jeremy's work for a long time so you know the idea working with him was very exciting and thrilling same what I love the most about Sam's production are the visual look of them what will this show look like it's a period production so we um we're really getting very detail oriented about Norway in 1882 it's going to play it Circle in the Square completely in the round I really love working in the round I do it whenever someone lets me I love putting the audience that close to the actors and in different relationships to the actors there isn't one way exactly to see it's it's a lot there's something very live and and almost improvisational about the way the the evening can work in the round because everyone has a slightly different experience and you sort of can't control it um so it'll it'll be um it'll be like the audience is looking through the candle lit Windows of a beautiful home in 1880s Norway and getting to sit ve very very close to the to the dining room table of a of a family and and colleagues who are um yeah having a really important political debate that is going to destroy Thomas and potentially you know uh sicken or just or or kill people in the town it's a really great space to that that theater in the round the only time I've I've done I've worked there was on funhome and obviously that was a really uh it was a really good feeling to be in the building to to feel the audience's energy and I'm really excited to be back there I I have to say also just on a on a personal note when they did uh when when the late great Phil Hoffman and John C riy did true West there uh I was still in college but I went to see it five or six times and you know sat in the back row and I still to this day remember the feeling of the lights going down the anticipation and the flutter of programs and a great wish of mine to one day get to be an actor and get to do a play Maybe here so it's a real fulfillment to be working there