An Enemy of the People Media Kit

Sep 19–Oct 21

By Henrik Ibsen Adapted by Arthur Miller Directed by Kwme Kwei-Armah

MEDIA KIT features

WYPR (Kwame with Tom Hall) Marc Steiner (Pending) Broadway World Photo Flash What’s Up? Magazine Hartford Stage

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reviews

Washington Post Baltimore Sun (Blog) City Paper (Online) City Paper (Print) WYPR MD Theatre Guide DC Metro Theatre Arts DC Theatre Scene Baltimore Magazine Broadway World (Washington, DC) Broadway World (Baltimore) Chesapeake Taste Aisle Pass The Imitated Life Drama Urge Pikesville Patch Oakland Mills HS

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WYPR: MD Morning

feature (September 17, 2012)

Kwame on Tom Hall Tom Hall Kwame Kwei-Armah took over the reins of Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE in July 2011. Although he started as the theater’s artistic director before last season began, the programming decisions for that season had in large measure already been made by his predecessor, Irene Lewis. This season marks the first collection of plays and programs at CENTERSTAGE that bear the stamp of Kwei-Armah. The 50th season of CENTERSTAGE opens Wednesday night with a play that resonates in this election season: Arthur Miller’s An Enemy of the People. Kwei-Armah is directing that production. Later this season he will direct a play about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called The Mountaintop, and this spring, CENTERSTAGE will present the world premiere of a play he has written, Beneatha’s Place. It’s part of a project called “The Raisin Cycle.” My America, a set of 50 commissioned monologues by leading playwrights from around the U.S., premieres on September 28.

Listen to the mp3 of this interview on this cd.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 2

Marc Steiner

feature (October 15, 2012)

October 15, 2012 - Segment 5: We turn to the arts!

Marc Steiner We turn to the arts! You will hear my interview with Dion Graham and Kevin Kilner, who play the leads in Arthur Miller’s adaptation of An Enemy of the People, which is currently playing at Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE and directed by Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah.

Listen to the mp3 of this interview on this cd.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 3

Broadway World (September 27, 2012)

feature

Photo Flash: First Look at Dion Graham, Kevin Kilner BWW News Desk

CENTERSTAGE’s historic 50th Anniversary Season officially kicks off with An Enemy of the People, directed by Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah, in a landmark production that takes Arthur Miller’s translation of Ibsen’s classic and uses it to examine the contemporary media landscape. The production opens tonight, September 27, and BroadwayWorld has a first look at the show below.

Leading The Cast are Dion Graham and Kevin Kilner as Dr. and Peter Stockmann, two brothers torn apart by a discovery that impacts the whole community. Dion Graham returns to CENTERSTAGE after a long absence (The Heliotrope Bouquet, All’s Well That Ends Well). His many credits include Broadway and touring productions of Not About Nightingales, and the role of State’s Attorney Rupert Bond in The Wire. Kevin Kilner, a Johns Hopkins alum, returns to his hometown of Baltimore after making a name and face for himself both on stage and in extensive film and television roles, including Raising Helen, A Cinderella Story, American Pie II, Home Alone III, House of Cards, Damages, and Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse.

An Enemy of the People, by Arthur Miller, adapted from the play by Henrik Ibsen, and directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah, opens officially on Thursday, September 27, and closes October 21. Tickets start at $10, and can be ordered online at www. centerstage.org/Enemy, or by calling 410.332.0033.

This production is supported by Bank of America, with additional support from KPMG. Photo Credit: Richard Anderson

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 4

What’s Up? Magazine

preview (September 12, 2012)

CENTERSTAGE Performs an Ibsen Masterpiece Leigh hall Now in its 50th Anniversary season, CENTERSTAGE continues to produce provocative and complex plays, serving as a catalyst for controversy, conversation, new ideas, and a variety of experiences. Launched in 1963, CENTERSTAGE, a nonprofit state theater, became a leader in the regional theater community. It has since become Baltimore’s leading professional producing theater, attracting thousands of viewers to each performance.

This September and October, CENTERSTAGE will be putting on Arthur Miller’s adaption of the Henrik Ibsen’s classic, An Enemy of the People. In his first season as Artistic Director, Kwame Kwei-Armah will be putting on this riviting 1800s drama, which exposes themes of majority versus minority, political hypocrisy, and sacrifice for truth.

The story is about two brothers, one a doctor and the other a mayor. When Dr. Stockmann discovers that the community baths—that brought pride and wealth to the town—are contaminated and causing illness, he notifies his brother with a possible solution. But due to the prosperity of the baths, the mayor brushes Dr. Stockmann’s concerns under the rug and turns the people of the town against him. Many theater buffs consider Ibsen and Miller two of the most influential playwrights in history. Director Kwei-Armah pronounces, “Ibsen really is the father of modernism and Arthur Miller is, in my opinion, the father of American modernism”.

Just as Arthur Miller adapted this great work, so has Kwei- Armah. In his opinion, there is no point producing a well-known play if you have nothing to contribute. “It doesn’t mean add or to make better, it just means to augment and play with,” he says. When choosing this play, Kwei-Armah wanted the opportunity to play and dance with two minds that he loves and adores. His personal flavor will be in programming it, “I think it has something to say to the here and now. What I’m trying to move toward is making this play live today, live in Baltimore today, in Maryland today,” says Kwei-Armah, who also points out that the topic of water in An Enemy of the People is current. “Water is a feature in our life, it’s a feature of the harbor; we debate it all of the time. Particularly in Baltimore City, it is part of who and what we are and what we’ve become.”

Another exciting feature of the play is the use of video projections for the purpose of accessing the visual moving world that the projections will hopefully create.

Kwei-Armah’s overarching goal is to simply make the play feel contemporary. He believes An Enemy of the People is a mustsee because it the subject matter relates to Baltimore and Maryland. Ibsen utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality to create great works. Similarly, Mr. Kwei-Armah is hopeful the production itself will leave the audience able to think about the issues and the human dimension in a new and significant way. An Enemy of the People will open September 19th and continue through October 21st at CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

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Hartford Stage

mention (September 1, 2012)

The Ibsen Season Darko Tresnjak In London, there are currently three revivals of Henrik Ibsen’s plays on the boards: Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House, and St. John’s Eve. And another revival of Hedda Gabler is on the way.

In New York, Manhattan Theatre Club is about to open their season with the revival of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.

In Baltimore, Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah is opening the first season that he planned for CENTERSTAGE with his own production of An Enemy of the People.

In Paris, The Lady from the Sea recently closed at Theatre des Bouffes de Nord, and according to Ibsen.net there are at least a dozen productions of Ibsen plays currently on boards in Germany alone (including three productions of Nora oder Ein Puppenheim).

And, here, at Hartford Stage, we are opening our season with my favorite Ibsen play, Hedda Gabler.

Henrik Ibsen In a recent article in the The Guardian, Michael Billington writes that Ibsen “offers a permanent challenge not just to actors, but also to directors, designers, and audiences. We are still catching up with his ideas and still learning that he is never quite what he seems. With his big whiskers and severe specs, Ibsen may look like a pillar of 19thcentury respectability. But underneath that deceptive façade lies a restless demon.”

In another article in The Guardian, Mark Lawson is more specific about the current resurgence of Ibsen and Shaw: “Our culture is in moral chaos, with inquiries, trials, and debates agonizing about over what we should think about politics, money, journalism, medicine, and sex, themes to which Ibsen and Shaw urgently returned.”

Among Ibsen’s plays, Hedda Gabler strikes me as particularly timely. The title character, still a young woman, famously declares: “I had danced my last dance, my dear Judge. My time was up.” In a later conversation, she tells Judge Brack: “This… cheapness. This penny-pinching little world I’ve ended up in.” She also discovers that her new household is founded on staggering loans. Given the toxic combination of our youth-obsessed culture, our broken economy with depleted job opportunities, and our capacity to live on borrowed money, Hedda’s observations and predicament surely strike a chord.

The reasons why ambitious young men and women fail to find an outlet and feel trapped may be different today. But the corrosive effect on the human spirit is the same. Heddas are all around us.

Directing our production of Hedda Gabler is Jennifer Tarver, a talented Canadian director whom I met at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. She is the recipient of Canada’s prestigious Dora Award, and she collaborates frequently with Brian Dennehy (The Homecoming, Krapp’s Last Tape, and the upcoming production of Waiting for Godot) at the Stratford Festival.

Our Hedda is Roxanna Hope. She has been my leading lady in four productions, and I am happy (and a little jealous) to share her with Jennifer. Roxanna’s impressive roster of classical heroines includes Lady Anne, Hermione, Portia, Thaisa, Polixena, Madame de Tourvel, Scheherazade, and Turandot. She played Caroline Cushing in Frost/Nixon on Broadway, appeared in the American premiere of Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink at American Conservatory Theatre, and has shared the stage with Olympia Dukakis, Michael Sheen, Frank Langella, and Vanessa Redgrave.

I look forward to seeing what Jennifer, Roxanna, and our international team of American, Canadian, English, and Italian actors and designers will bring to our very own Hedda Gabler - as we join many theatres around the world in exploring the masterpieces of Henrik Ibsen this season.

Learn more about Henrik Ibsen at ibsen.net

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 6

The Washington Post (October 15, 2012)

review

Onstage in Baltimore and New York, an ‘Enemy’ all around Peter Marks In this year of endless divining of the will of the people, theatergoers might find especially noteworthy the contrarian outlook of playwright Henrik Ibsen, who no doubt would have considered our obsession with majority viewpoints a lot of, um, malarkey.

Public opinion, he declares through his touchstone character in An Enemy of the People, the whistleblower Dr. Thomas Stockmann, veers in the direction of self-interest, regardless of the consequences. “The majority is never right!” Stockmann blurts out indignantly, scandalizing the easily offended Norwegian populace and sealing his fate as a reviled outcast.

Theaters up and down the Eastern Seaboard are pondering in diverse incarnations the voice of Ibsen’s truth-teller, and the tyranny of the majority, in revivals of his 1882 play about a scientist who tries to rally a town after he discovers pollution is poisoning the springs that are vital to the local economy. At Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE and New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club, sometime efficient versions of this drama of social conscience are now on the boards, showcasing performances that give incisive flesh to some the tale’s pragmatic characters — and some not so much.

Still to come is another adaptation, a version set in Israel by playwright Boaz Gaon called Boged (Traitor): An Enemy of the People, starting Jan. 12 at Theater J. Is it a coincidence that so many companies are drawn to the story of a man who’s blackballed for shoving a harsh reality in taxpayers’ faces?

Viewing the two versions of Enemy, staged by directors Kwame Kwei-Armah in Baltimore and Doug Hughes in New York, without an eye and an ear to the sorry current condition of political discourse seems an impossibility. Is there any perceived value in public life these days in leveling with the people? As demonstrated by the case of Stockmann — who in speaking out loses everything except the love of his family — a public figure pays more dearly, the bitterer the pill he seeks to administer.

An Enemy of the People may strike some as prosaic political theater. In the adaptation composed by Arthur Miller (and used at CENTERSTAGE) and a more recent one by British dramatist Rebecca Lenkiewicz at Manhattan Theatre Club, the morality tale unfolds starkly, a linear advance that begins on the night Stockmann (Dion Graham in Baltimore; Boyd Gaines in New York) learns that his fears about the springs have been confirmed in lab tests. What I love about the play is its lean, clean narrative structure, the purity of its outrage and altruism. That Ibsen’s drama prefigured by 100 years the scourge of toxic waste — the springs are tainted by a tannery upstream — cements it as a watershed of voice-in-the-wilderness drama, clearing a path for generations of alarm-bell-ringers on the stage, from Frank Wedekind (the original Spring Awakening) to Clifford Odets (Waiting for Lefty) and even to Mike Daisey (The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs).

Although the unevenly acted Baltimore and New York revivals are not definitively satisfying renditions of the play, KweiArmah’s version at CENTERSTAGE comes closer to mustering the desired stirring effect. Bolstered by Miller’s superior treatment and a terrific embodiment of the slick and craven town mayor by Kevin Kilner, the Baltimore Enemy drives home Ibsen’s lessons in a far more convincing fashion. Richard Thomas, portraying the mayor in the New York production as an effete nasty, telegraphs the evil way too transparently, and some others in the New York cast, such as Gerry Bamman as a local printer and Michael Siberry as the doctor’s father-in-law, are weirdly hammy.

Perhaps, too, the choice by Kwei-Armah, CENTERSTAGE’s artistic director, to push the play forward in time to 1960 eliminates enough of An Enemy of the People’s vintage feel without going overboard with contemporary analogy. This allows the set and costume designers, Riccardo Hernandez and David Burdick, respectively, to apply to the physical production some voguish “Mad Men” elements. (The multiracial casting exudes more freshness.) But the volume of tinkering does become a little selfserving: The display of early TV technology to highlight the way electronic media can amplify the majority’s hysteria proves more distracting than illuminating.

Still, in the crucial scene in which the town turns on Dr. Stockmann during a meeting organized by him, CENTERSTAGE’s version erects with more poignancy a rhetorical monument to that loneliest of campaigners, the leader of an unpopular cause.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 7

Baltimore Sun Blog

review (September 28, 2012)

CENTERSTAGE opens 50th season with revival of An Enemy of the People Tim Smith Walking into the CENTERSTAGE production of Arthur Miller’s An Enemy of the People, his adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen drama, is sort of like entering a swing state where voters are bombarded round the clock with negative political ads on TV. Back and forth fly the attacks on honor and integrity, the attempts to claim ownership of the facts, the charges about who will be more responsible with the public’s money, who more likely to cause a tax increase.

Then with a seismic shudder, the whole darn state suddenly tips decisively to one side — and not the side you favor.

The intriguing CENTERSTAGE venture, the opening salvo in the company’s 50th anniversary season, seizes on the evercontemporary issues in the play with an emphasis on media. The media for Ibsen in 1882 and Miller in his 1950 version was newspapers; here, it’s television.

Updated to 1960 and designed with a cool touch by Riccardo Hernandez, the staging suggests a live version of a TV show.

That chic set and David Burdick’s “Mad Men”-worthy costumes provide a feast of black and white shades, streaked with the occasional, almost glaring touch of red.

In addition to vintage black-and-white footage shown on monitors and projected on the rear wall, live black-and-white video of the actors is used at key points. All of this visual reinforcement drives home just how, well, black and white the issues are at the heart of the play, which concerns the water supply in a Norwegian town.

A doctor has discovered that the water has been disastrously polluted by run-off from a factory, threatening the town’s potential gold mine — a recently built spa that could attract a steady stream of money-spending visitors seeking the water’s supposedly restorative powers.

This being a prophet-in the-wilderness sort of story, the man with the warning, Dr. Stockmann, runs into plenty of trouble as he tries to warn his fellow citizens, starting with his brother, the stony, unyielding mayor, Peter Stockmann.

That mayor, who demonstrates formidable wagon-circling powers, is almost painfully contemporary. He’d be willing to tackle the crisis if it could be done “without financial sacrifice” (the Iraq War, anyone?). He’d happily accept free speech in ordinary times, but not extraordinary ones (Muhammad videos, anyone?). And why give the public new ideas when they should be perfectly satisfied with old ones?

The doctor gets a painful lesson in how easily majority rule can trump minority concerns, how fighting for the truth can leave you on a limb — with an ugly mob below.

If only Ibsen, or Miller, had figured out a way to argue this Good-vs.-Evil case in a less aggressive, obvious and reiterative manner. For all of its noble intentions and heated discussions, An Enemy of the People does run on, and it can be a bit of a bore, which the plethora of gray tones in the CENTERSTAGE production does not entirely alleviate.

But there’s no denying the provocative ideas and ever-timely nature of the play, which, coincidentally, just opened on Broadway in a revival featuring Richard Thomas.

For CENTERSTAGE, artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah has assembled a competent cast — in colorblind fashion, which adds an intriguing layer to such a political play — and he directs the action with generally effective momentum.

This is not one of the more cohesive or involving efforts of recent years, but the visual side of things certainly gives it style.

As Dr. Stockmann, Dion Graham doesn’t summon quite the gravitas to create a mesmerizing figure, and he gets a little too let-the-hands-do-the-expressing at times. But he limns the character’s mix of sincerity, bravery and unabashed egotism (the one flaw that makes things even tougher on the doctor).

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 8

Baltimore Sun Blog Cont.

Kevin Kilner has the whole haughty demeanor down pat as the mayor, without slipping into caricature. And when emotions flair, the actor makes the anger real and revealing — this magistrate may not have a reinforced steel spine after all. Kilner’s makes the brief display of vulnerability speak volumes.

Susan Rome offers a telling portrayal of the doctor’s wife, torn between standing behind her man and stepping in front to divert his attention back to their threatened family. As the doctor’s daughter, Charise Castro Smith could use a little more personality to make up for the character’s mostly stiff lines.

There are engaging contributions from Tyrone Mitchell Henderson, as the morally slippery newspaper editor Hovstad; and Wilbur Edwin Henry, as the equally evasive, moderation-seeking publisher Aslaksen. Jeffrey Kuhn jumps vividly into the role of Billing, an assistant editor all too eager for revolution, unless it gets in the way of his chances for advancement. And Ross Bickell does a beautifully nuanced job as the doctor’s doubting father-in-law.

John Ahlin is a good fit for the stalwart Captain Horster. Jimi Kinstle, as the drunk who crashes a highly-charged town meeting, is given free rein; his appearance is more comic bludgeoning than relief. (The seemingly oblivious character may be smarter than the mob, but he needn’t be quite so over-the-top.)

The production does not overcome the weaker elements in the play, and some aspects of the imaginative staging raise questions (showing clips of the Nixon-Kennedy debates might be a little more compelling if the play weren’t still set in Norway).

Ultimately, though, CENTERSTAGE provides a welcome reminder of some fundamental political and philosophical points always worth considered, especially in a hotly fought election season.

An Enemy of the People runs through Oct. 21.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 9

City Paper

review (October 2, 2012)

An Enemy of the People: CENTERSTAGE’s season-launching show examines the power of the crowd Geoffrey Himes Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, a kind of fable about one man standing up against powerful interests and an easily swayed mob to tell the truth about a Norwegian town’s water system, is often staged in teeth-gnashing fashion. But director Kwame Kwei-Armah has wisely given the current Center Stage production a healthy dose of irreverent humor, and that transforms Ibsen’s play from a stern lecture into a delicious story.

In this changeover Kwei-Armah gets a lot of help from Arthur Miller, the late American playwright who called his 1950 version of An Enemy of the People an “adaptation” rather than a translation. Miller not only recast Ibsen’s language into American dialect but also trimmed considerable fat from the text and sharpened the conflicts. With less speechifying on stage, Ibsen’s latent humor comes to the fore, and Kwei-Armah’s terrific cast makes the most of it.

At the end of the second act, for example, Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Dion Graham), the scientist who has discovered E. coli in the waters of the town’s top tourist attraction, a health spa, has called a meeting to explain his findings after the local paper has refused to publish them. In a large empty room with nothing more than an upended trunk as a dais, Tom prepares to give a heroic speech. But before he can, he’s interrupted by one laughable surprise after another. These comic bits shed as much light on the play’s themes as the more sober passages.

A nameless drunk (Jimi Kinstle) stumbles into the meeting and demands the right to vote, even though it’s not a polling station. His disorientation is funny enough, but when he shouts, “There’s no law says a man who’s drunk can’t vote,” he’s inadvertently commenting on a crowd intoxicated by mob justice. The line—it’s not in the Ibsen original—is one of Miller’s many inventions to make the play less of a philosophical debate and more of a street-corner argument.

Tom is about to start speaking when the newspaper publisher, Aslaksen (Wilbur Edwin Henry), insists that the meeting elects a chairman. Never mind that this is a private hall lent to Tom for his lecture, the crowd demands a chairman. It’s funny enough that Tom’s political opponents would have the brass to try this gambit; it’s even funnier that the always-too-nice doctor goes along with it. Aslaksen becomes chairman and decides the first to speak should be Mayor Peter Stockmann (Kevin Kilner), Tom’s brother, who also represents the commercial interests behind the spa. It’s as if Mitt Romney showed up at a Barack Obama campaign rally and took over the microphone.

It is, in some ways, an apt analogy. Kilner is a tall white man in expensive suits and neatly combed hair who speaks in smiling bromides that never quite square with the facts. Graham, by contrast, is an African-American with a trimmed afro and rumpled clothes who, in his effort to be accommodating, is often taken advantage of. Before long, the charismatic Peter has called for a vote on whether Tom should be allowed to speak at all.

These two leading actors are key to this production’s triumph. With his gold-topped cane and stiff posture, Kilner portrays Peter as a pompous ass when he visits his brother’s parlor, jutting his jaw and stabbing his finger at Tom. But in public, Peter beams with reassurance and reason, seducing the townspeople into trusting the powers that be. By contrast, Graham makes Tom a bon vivant at home, praising his children, welcoming visitors with drinks. In public, however, Tom’s bumbling efforts to be subtle and reasonable undermine the points he’s trying to make. He’s a scientist, not a politician.

When Peter claims that Tom’s attacks on the health spa are motivated by sibling rivalry, he’s not entirely wrong. With their snide asides and exasperated shouts, the two actors give the animosity between the brothers a raw edge. The actors, along with Kwei-Armah and Miller, are reminding us that science and politics are always more than a battle of pure ideas; messy emotions are always mixed in.

The production is set not in Ibsen’s late 19th century Norway but in Miller’s mid-20th century America. The stage is surrounded by five vintage TV sets showing old clips of the Nixon-Kennedy debates and live-action details that might not be obvious in the balcony. The furniture seems to have been ordered from a 1958 Sears catalog and the actors are dressed in plaid, pleated skirts and loose gray cardigans. It all adds up to a clever conceit that neither enhances nor damages the production very much.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 10

City Paper Cont.

Much more important is the humor that’s injected into every relationship. Catherine (Susan Rome) comes off at first as Tom’s perfect, loyal wife but soon we find her nagging, correcting, and cautioning him even as she retains the wifely mask. Her father, Morten Kiil (Ross Bickell), seems a doddering old fool at first but eventually emerges as a dangerous plotter. Hovstad and Billing (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson and Jeffrey Kuhn) are crusading liberal journalists who rationalize every compromise and surrender they make. Like much of the show, these rationalizations are as funny as they are infuriating.

The show is also notable for Kwei-Armah’s ongoing effort to recast CENTERSTAGE as a true Baltimore theater. The leads both have local roots: Kilner is a Hopkins grad and Graham played State’s Attorney Rupert Bond on The Wire. More importantly, Rome and Kinstle are longtime Baltimore actors, getting their biggest roles yet at CENTERSTAGE.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 11

City Paper (October 3, 2012)

review

An Enemy of the People: CENTERSTAGE’s season-launching show examines the power of the crowd Geoffrey Himes

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 12

WYPR: MD Morning (October 8, 2012)

review

10/8/12: An Enemy of the People Tom Hall/J. Wynn Rousuck (reviewing) “CENTERSTAGE’s swift, engrossing production...seems less about the Fifties or Sixties than it does about right now” -J. Wynn Rousuck.

Theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews CENTERSTAGE’s production of An Enemy of the People, adapted by Arthur Miller from Henrick Ibsen’s 19th century play.

Director Kwame Kwei-Armah chose to set the play in 1960 and focuses on two brothers who have little in common besides their siblingship.

In addition to what Rousuck calls the “brother’s uneven relationship,” the conflict between the role of the press, government and big business creates tension.

An Enemy of the People is up at CENTERSTAGE through October 21.

Listen to the mp3 on this cd.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 13

MD Theatre Guide (October 10, 2012)

review

Theatre Review: An Enemy of the People at CENTERSTAGE April Forrer What if exposing the truth will rip from you your family, friends, home, and in your community’s mind, take your honor, standing and sanity? What would you do? That is what CENTERSTAGE asks its audience in its 50th Anniversary Season kick-off of An Enemy of the People. Kwame Kwei-Armah directs this outstanding production of An Enemy of the People, which Arthur Miller adapted from the play by Henrik Ibsen.

As the play begins, Dr. Thomas Stockmann, played by the talented and charming Dion Graham, is gloriously happy with his beautiful home, wife, children and friends. He enjoys his popularity in his small Norwegian town. The mayor is his brother, Peter Stockmann, played by Hopkins alum Kevin Kilner in a triumphant return to the Baltimore stage after extensive film and television roles. The two brothers grow closer as they spearhead a large investment of private and public funds in their town’s new vacation destination of medicinal baths. The townsfolk are excited about the additional tourism and revenue the baths will bring and take great pride in their new vacation spot.

Soon a dark, heavy cloud moves over the town, arriving in the form of the doctor’s test results of the town’s water that supplies the baths. The waste runoff from the local tannery is contaminating the water, causing serious illness to the townspeople and tourists. Dr. Stockmann believes these findings will be his greatest achievement and joyfully sends reports to his brother and the local paper setting forth a proposed solution to the tainted water problem.

Dr. Stockmann is shocked that his brother does not acknowledge the seriousness of runoff problem and refuses even to address it publically. As Mayor, Peter sees nothing but the prospect of the town’s financial collapse. Unwilling to believe that the townspeople would care more for financial prosperity than the health and well being of their children and others, Dr. Stockmann announces his intent to take his findings directly to the public. The doctor’s brother warns him, “Without power, what good is the truth?” and suggests that he will be fired and lose the town’s respect if he discloses the results.

Dr. Stockmann refuses to relent and holds a town meeting. As predicted, his friends and allies, who had been supporters of his campaign, turn against him all at once. He is denounced as an “enemy of the people,” and the entire town begins to believe that Dr. Stockmann is aggressively working to harm their well-being. His brother does nothing to protect Dr. Stockmann or his family, even as rocks are hurled through the doctor’s windows and his children return home bruised and bleeding from fights at school. In the end, Dr. Stockmann decides to stand his ground and fight for what he believes is right, culminating is his retort to his brother, “Without moral authority – there is no government!”

Kwame Kwei-Armah directs this outstanding production…This well acted, thought-provoking play should not be missed.

Set in the backdrop of 1960’s televised debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the characters are exposed on stage and on screen with live television cameras and camera operators (Alex Braslavsky, William Dalrymple, and Hillary Mazer) broadcasting facial emotions in close-ups on the many television sets framing the stage.

The costumes (designed by David Burdick) were well done, with all the characters in greys, whites, blacks and touches of red on the characters, I think, were the ones that believe in the value of truth. Additionally, Jimi Kinstle, as a very convincing town drunk, provides some welcome comic relief during the intense town meeting.

Graham and Kilner played well off each other, pushing every scene to its emotional limits. When Dr. Stockmann realizes that he must stand alone against his brother, the atmosphere on stage is chilling. At the end of the play, Graham brings a powerful honesty to Dr. Stockman’s declarations, “The strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone,” and “A minority may be right: a majority is always wrong.”

What would you do in Dr. Stockmann’s situation? This well acted, thought-provoking play should not be missed.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 14

review

DC Metro Theater Arts (September 29, 2012) An Enemy of the People at CENTERSTAGE Amanda Gunther

Without power what good is the truth? To celebrate the opening of its 50th Anniversary Season, CENTERSTAGE presents Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Ibsen’s classic An Enemy of the People. Directed by Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah, this particularly adaptation acts as a lens through which we examine the contemporary media landscape in regards to topical political problems in today’s society. The problems addressed in this production echo soundly to many of the modern issues we see in politics: corruption, the truth of one man’s beliefs verses the betterment of the masses, ignorance in positions of power and so on. Ibsen’s riveting saga pits brother against brother in an effort to save a community from a deadly secret each having their own beliefs as to what constitutes protection. Ultimately turning the town inward upon itself this gripping drama will keep you shocked right through the end.

Director Kwame Kwei-Armah sets the style of the translation against the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon debates, taking cues from that moment in history when live television forever changed the political landscape. However, Kwei-Armah’s choice of setting and styles in regards to the adaptation becomes, at times, muddled and unclear throughout the performance. He’s setting us back in time with the very simplistic more formal and traditional dresses for the female characters and humble furniture with no accoutrements or echoes of the modern world – and yet the mannerisms, gestures, even speech patterns of the performers often sound and appear as present day actions. The choice not to adapt the cast’s accents to that of their location would be less confusing if Kwei-Armah had chosen to then adapt the few strong words that notify you of the location.

Both leading brothers speech and argumentation patterns ring true to the tune of American politics, Peter’s echoing Nixon in a defensive manner while Tom’s echoes a more radically charged Martin Luther King Jr. seeking truth without judgment and to make himself be heard. With this American style choice the production’s location gets muddled as they refer to money in crowns and sailing to America to escape the situation. Fortunately these choices are mostly forgotten as the action heats up in the second act, as the principle characters becoming so deeply involved in their side of the argument.

This political drama really drives home the finer points of corruption in power and reminds everyone what great lengths an individual can go to if they are firm in their beliefs to expose the truth, regardless of the cost. The group of actors cast for this production bring a level of raw talent to the performance that is both engaging and compelling, keeping you on the edge of your seat with interest in their stories, which is particularly key as the first act has a slow but momentous build to its pacing.

The two men of the liberal paper create the perfect flip-flop for this show as they continue to do what is best for the readers.

Aslaksen (Wilbur Edwin Henry) and Hovstad (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson) create a unique dynamic between themselves and their interactions with the Doctor. Henry as the cowardly middleman ends up being quite comical, providing that punctuated moment of relief when tensions are building too quickly. His deadpan approach to supporting one side or the other mixes well with his non-existent sense of humor and this makes for a rather quirky and amusing coward of a character.

Henderson is the most pivotal character we see created outside of the two brothers. He starts off young and headstrong with ideas that rumble of revolution. But the moment he’s threatened or forced to see things in a different light he flips over faster than a burning hot cake on the griddle. As this turncoat character, Henderson drives a good deal of the action in scenes with the Doctor giving him great material to spark responses from.

Holding their own in this male dominated script are Catherine (Susan Rome) and Petra (Charise Castro Smith). Wife and daughter to the doctor respectively these women are not without their opinions. Rome is at first against her husband’s exposure of the truth until she finds him challenged unfavorably. Quick as lightning she sharpens her tongue and her approach to defending his notions of truth. Smith, while quieter in her role, has the same tenacity of her character’s mother, only using her staunch physical stance to show it when she storms out of the print office after a conflict with the copyeditors.

The whole play boils down to the heated and intense conflicts that fly constantly back and forth between the Mayor Peter Stockmann (Kevin Kilner) and the town Doctor (Dion Graham) the mayor’s brother. From the moment they first encounter

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 15

DC Metro Theater Arts Cont. one another you can tell the tensions run deep. At first its playful banter but when the real issue breaks out it becomes a deadly battle of slander and struggle for freedom of speech.

Kilner is almost made villainous in his approach to silence his brother, driving the masses of society to turn on him. He resonates the epitome of political corruption – power without purpose – in his sheer stance alone. Strutting like a mafia don onto the stage with his baton and elegant hat his image alone is enough to strike an unsettling loathing and twinge of fear into the audience. He becomes the frightening spitting image of Nixon when he’s at the podium with his black and white image projected behind him, preaching to the masses with conviction, his voice echoing with the tinny backlash of the microphone. Kilner is more than suited for the role and gives a stellar and convincing performance.

Graham is equally impressive playing opposite this corrupt figure. He is grounded in his beliefs and this is reflected not only in the vehemence with which he speaks but also in the firm stances he takes physically, every muscle in his body taut and straining for justice and truth to prevail. Graham sticks to his guns and never once waivers in his convictions, never showing a weakness, and playing up those strengths to inspire uncertainty and fear in the people as well as in Peter’s character. Graham has a fierce passion behind his motivations and his performance matches Kilner’s in intensity every step of the way. Together these two men keep the audience in rapt attention right to the very last moment of the show.

There are some people that money just can’t buy, and while you may not be able to buy your beliefs, you can buy a ticket to see An Enemy of the People at CENTERSTAGE this fall season.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 16

DC Theatre Scene (October 7, 2012)

review

An Enemy of the People Tim Treanor The Sage of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, said it most succinctly: Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

In An Enemy of the People, now playing at Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE, the people of an unnamed Norwegian town, led by their fierce, aggressive mayor Peter Stockmann (Kevin Kilner), sure know what they want. Arthur Miller, riffing on an original script of the same name by Henrik Ibsen, allows us to imagine the consequences: disease, lawsuits, economic ruin.

See, the dilemma is this: a group of investors, led by the Mayor, have turned the local hot springs into a Mecca for the sick and the lame – and by so doing, have developed the economic fortunes of their otherwise unremarkable town. The future seems limitless. But the corporation’s physician – Mayor’s own brother, Tom (Dion Graham) has discovered massive amounts of toxic bacteria in the springs. The waters will not bring health to the tourists who seek them out. It will make them sick. Maybe kill them.

Tom receives the confirmation of this alarming development with great joy. He told them that they should have engineered the baths differently, put the intake higher in the river, and so on. They didn’t listen to him, and now they’ll pay. Tom’s sycophantic friends – the newspaper editor Hovstad (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson) and his underling Billing (Jeffrey Kuhn) – fall over themselves to publish Tom’s findings in their paper (The People’s Daily Messenger!); and the next day their publisher Aslaksen (the golden-voiced Wilbur Edwin Henry, radiating authority even when he is at his most craven) concurs. Hovstad’s brain is full of imperial glory; they will use Tom’s report to oust Peter and his band of conservatives from power.

Peter, of course, has other ideas. Utilizing his own brand of truth and consequences – the repairs Tom’s report recommends will cost two million crowns (about $3.5 million in today’s money), requiring an unpopular tax on the townspeople, and would also shut down the baths for two years – the Mayor dragoons the town, including Tom’s hypocritical newspaper friends, into a campaign to silence the doctor. Peter hijacks a meeting which Tom has called at the home of a sympathetic ship’s captain (John Ahlin) to warn about the ruinous consequences to the Town of allowing Tom to make his report – without revealing exactly what that report is. By an overwhelming majority, the Town votes to silence Tom. All of this will seem familiar to those who labor to bring unhappy truths to light – about global warming, certainly, but also about the upcoming collapse of Medicare, the challenges to Social Security and the nation’s spiraling debt. As Scripture says, the truth will make you free (John 8:2), but who will make the truth free?

But Miller, like Ibsen before him, puts art before advocacy and insists that we see the whole picture. Tom spent impoverished years ministering to the sick in the Northern part of the country before Peter brought him back and gave him a position with the syndicate which owns the baths, and Tom has never forgiven him for it. Did Tom subject his findings to rigorous scientific testing, as his dyspeptic father-in-law (Ross Bickell) asks? Or is his crusade to publish based on his desire to oneup his brother, and to assuage his own considerable ego? And when he denounces the Town meeting that silenced him, he denounces both the people he served in the North (“they didn’t need a physician,” he said. “They needed a veterinarian”) and the people he lives with today (“the minority is always right,” he insists, citing the crucifixion of Jesus and the torture of Galileo as proof). Can we trust Tom, whose being seems to radiate cold disdain for the people around him, to be the man who saves his community from the consequences of environmental poisoning?

By choosing to emphasize Tom’s flaws, CENTERSTAGE’s production enlarges Miller’s play from a narrow focus on our inability to hear bad news to a much broader examination of the fundamentals of democracy itself. It is an examination which is going on, sotto voce, even today as we tussle over the question of the extent to which government “elites” should manage market choice. Democracy’s first premise is that the people possess sufficient wisdom and common sense to secure their safety and prosperity, but as we come to deal with increasingly technical questions, requiring specialized knowledge, does the premise still hold? Miller had the good sense not to try to answer that question, and neither does CENTERSTAGE.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 17

DC Theatre Scene Cont.

CENTERSTAGE achieves its exquisitely complex objective largely through superb performances, particularly Henry, Bickell and the two wonderful leads (Jimi Kinstle also puts in a brief, irrelevant, but supremely funny performance as a drunk who wanders into the town meeting). Kilner and Graham succeed by going against type. Kilner’s Peter is no simple villain; he is a fabulously vigorous and effective leader, who sees the whole chessboard and is five moves ahead of anybody else. He, like most political leaders, does what he has to, and what he can. Kilner gives off decisiveness like a fine mist on a hot day, and despite the horrible and desperate decision he makes, his Peter might win an election even if yesterday’s audience was the voting public.

As for Graham, he does an even more difficult thing: his Tom is no simple hero. From the moment he steps on stage, his brashness and arrogance is apparent. When the University confirms his suspicions about the spring water, he is more than vindicated; he does a little victory dance, and when Hovstad and Billing heap their oleaginous praise on him, he takes it as his due. This is, remember, after he has received news which is catastrophic to the town, but great (he thinks) for him, which is all that matters. The portrayal at first dismayed me, but as more and more of the play revealed itself, I realized that this is exactly the Arthur Miller had in mind. Tom, after all, is a man who calls the family domestic servant “what’s-her-name.” Graham, by making the hero of this play into a man who is also a vain fool, answers the actor’s highest calling. He puts himself in the service of the play.

Director Kwame Kwei-Armah makes a bold interpretive choice with this approach, and has selected actors who could deliver the goods. I am not entirely certain that his other decisions add to the production. It is done more modern-dress than Ibsen contemplated, which jars every time the Mayor talks about the fine new carriages that have come to town (or when Tom eagerly shows his visitors his great prize – a slab of roast beef – in the kitchen). It also disturbs a generally flat first scene, in which Tom’s wife (Susan Rome) refers to their guests by their formal names. The set is festooned with black-and white TVs (all functioning well, thanks to video and projection designer Alex Koch), which may be meant as a commentary on the ubiquity of media, but if it supports Miller’s actual text in any way, it has escaped me.

But these are small objections. When Kwei-Armah trusts his material, and his actors to deliver it, he succeeds beautifully. And when he harmonizes with Miller’s treatment (as with Ryan Rumery’s beautiful original music), rather than attempts to add to it, it is sublime.

For some reason, An Enemy of the People is undergoing a popular revival, with a brand new interpretation playing in New York (Richard Seff’s incisive analysis is here) and Theater J is staging another adaptation – Boged: An Enemy of the People – in January.

I do not know what this sudden interest in Ibsen’s play and its derivatives is about, but I do know this is the political season, in which no one is an enemy of the people. Everyone is your friend. So my recommendation is that for the next month or so is to avoid your friends and look up your enemy – that arrogant little twerp who’s saying the things you can’t stand to hear. He’s most likely to lead you to the truth.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 18

Baltimore Magazine (October 17, 2012)

review

An Enemy, A Drunk at CENTERSTAGE John Lewis Artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah took the stage before last night’s production of An Enemy of the People at CENTERSTAGE and told the audience that cast member Jimi Kinstle, who had been playing the Drunk, could not appear due to a family emergency. Kwei-Armah, who’s directing Arthur Miller’s adaptation of the Ibsen classic, said actor Thom Sinn stepped up and assured him he had the experience to handle the role. With the timing of a stand-up comedian, Kwei-Armah got a few laughs by pausing a few beats and letting folks wonder if Sinn was referring to experience on the stage or on the sauce. Then, he noted that Sinn had never played the role and urged the crowd to show him some love.

When Sinn appeared in a pivotal and dramatic scene in the second act, he did a great job, and you’d never suspect he was a last minute replacement. That is, until he exited the stage, and the audience burst into applause and showed him plenty of love. Sinn will likely continue in the role for the next two nights, and Kinstle is expected to return for Friday’s performance.

Enemy is Kwei-Armah’s first play as artistic director, and he couldn’t have chosen a more topical and timely story. It dovetails perfectly with the presidential campaign and resonates on a variety of levels thanks to his lively direction, nuanced performances from the actors, Riccardo Hernández’s amazing set, and Alex Koch’s video design. The use of technology subtly enhances the action and provides, at times, sly commentary on our media-drenched culture. Enemy closes this Sunday and comes very highly recommended.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 19

Broadway World (DC) (October 18, 2012)

review

BWW Reviews: An Enemy of the People at CENTERSTAGE Charles Shubow I recall with reverence the last time I saw this wonderful play at Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE. It was the spring of 1990, over twenty-two years ago, and then Artistic Director Stan Wojewodski directed a splendid production. It was clear what century it took place. It was clear where it took place (Norway). Everything about it was clear.

CENTERSTAGE is celebrating it’s 50th season by presenting a different take on this classic and new Artistitic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah has gone way out on a limb in leading this cast in a very different way.

I recently attended a week-day matinee with a group of theater-goers who I believe were perplexed about where the action of the play actually occurred.

As one enters the theater, the inner-lobby is packed with paraphernalia from the 1960’s. There are photos of Walt Disney on a tea cup, Joe McCarthy, and Walter Cronkite. There are parlor games like Charles Gorin’s “Bridge for One”. There’s a magazine rack with the March 1957 “Seventeen” magazine. Another mural has photos of James Dean, Willie Mays, Dick Clark, and Chubby Checker. There are two And finally a 15” RCA deluxe portable black and white television.

There is also a quote from Philospher Jean Baudrillard that says, “Television knows no night. It is perpetual day. TV embodies our fear of the dark, of night, of the other side of things.”

One then enters the Pearlstone Theater and sees five large television monitors and a huge circular back wall that is used for photos and videos (reminded of the old Cinerama screens). On the video screens is the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960.

THE BEST MAN recently on Broadway used the same technology successfully since the play concerned the race for President.

However, this play takes place in Norway and does not deal with an election!!

When the play begins the actors are in modern dress with no accents. The Mayor talks of the fine new carriages coming to town. Money is mentioned but they are not dollars but “crowns”. The first time I heard “crowns” I noticed many in the audience wondering “Where is this taking place?” Many in the audience were confused about when the play took place and where it took place. That is a serious hindrance.

The play concerns a town that relies on his water supply that has been known as healing the sick and is faced with the prospect that the water supply is in reaility going to get people sick and possibly cause death. This is the conundrum facing scientist Dr. Stockmann (played by Dion Graham) and his brother, the mayor of the town, Peter Stockmann (Kevin Kilner).

Kilner’s portrayal is one of an egotist. He doesn’t consider the ramifications of his findings to the town or his wife and two three children. His characterization just doesn’t work.

Kilner as Mayor is played like a Donald Trump. He knows how politics works and how to handle his brother to make sure his accusations look unfounded to his constituents.

It’s a wonderful play that just has too many gimmicks which detract from the story. In many instances, I found it boring. The audience in fact gave what I considered a tepid response.

I was impressed with the technology utitilzed by Alex Koch. Maybe he could have used the back wall as a canvas for the small town in Norway. Tara Rubin, the famous casting office so successful on Broadway, is the casting director and I found some of her choices troubling.

The costumes where all in gray by David Burdick and could be used on the set of Mad Men. The lighting by Michelle Habeck worked well.

All in all, it was not an impressive debut for Kwei-Armah.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 20

review

Broadway World (Baltimore) (September 27, 2012) BWW Reviews: Recipe for Disaster–CENTERSTAGE’s An Enemy of the People Daniel Collins

A town on the brink of international fame and fortune… a naïve man of science saddled with a severe care of sibling rivalry… toss in evidence that might turn the town to ruin, layer with idealism, political positioning, and more proof that money is the root of all evil…and you have a recipe for disaster, not to mention a riveting evening’s entertainment as Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE presents Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s famed work, An Enemy of the People.

CENTERSTAGE’s production of this didactic play is particularly timely, given the looming national U.S. Presidential election, when men stand before podiums making promises, making accusations, spieling stats and stories, conflicting facts, conflicting lies, while powerful figures meet in back rooms and the public doesn’t know what to believe, concerned only with the answer to the all-consuming question, “What does this mean to ME?” Yes, in this setting, An Enemy of the People fits just fine. As CENTERSTAGE artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah notes in the theater’s press release, “ I thought when we were running up to the election, that this was a wonderful piece to investigate the role of the citizen, the role of the individual, and to have the debate about the majority and the minority,” says Kwame.

In case audiences might miss the connection, Kwame leaves nothing to doubt as he projects portions of the famed 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate on the stage backdrop prior to curtain. Kudos to scenic director Riccardo Hernandez and to video and projection designer Alex Koch, who, along with costumer David Burdick created a 1960s era look complete with strategically placed Kennedy era black and white TV sets which projected behind-the-scenes action to complement the action on stage.

In Ibsen/Miller’s play, the titular “enemy” takes multiple forms. Actor Dion Graham’s Dr. Stockmann vacillates between town hero and town enemy as he declares evidence in the first act that the town’s soon-to-be-famous springs have been poisoned by runoff from a nearby tanning factory.

Graham’s Stockmann is an idealist, believing that the matter is as simply resolved as a math equation. Rebuild the health institute and water facility to avoid running afoul of the factory, and everything’s put right.

Town newspaper men Hovstad (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson) and Billing (Jeffrey Kuhn) and local business leader Aslaksen (Wilbur Edwin Henry) first feed Stockmann’s ego, praising the doctor as a town savior until they realize that to make the changes he proposes will require a huge tax levy upon the people, including themselves.

If Stockmann is an idealist, his brother, Peter (Kevin Kilner), the town mayor, is a strict pragmatist, who realizes the huge financial burden of his brother’s findings should they go public. When Stockmann insists on telling his story, the battle between the truth and self-interest is joined and which will win is the stuff of after-curtain conversation and debate.

As always, a CENTERSTAGE production is impeccably acted; Graham’s Stockmann shifts from pride to pain to anger to near insanity while never losing a look of clear astonishment at his fellows’ inability to see what seems so apparently plain to him. Kilner’s Peter, with his gold-topped cane, represents wealth and power, and is blinded by both, believing his actions are actually for the greater good, for both the town and his brother.

Aslaksen campaigns eternally for “moderation,” while John Ahlin’s Captain Horster steers clear of all politics before ultimately siding with Stockmann and his family, explaining, “I have been to a lot of place where people can’t say unpopular things.”

Clearly in Enemy the concept of “majority rules” is put to the test; as Stockmann notes, “the majority is never right until it does right.”

Susan Rome, Charise Castro Smith, and Ross Bickell as Stockmann’s wife, daughter and father-in-law do exceedingly well in their limited supporting roles; Smith’s Petra has the indignant outrage of passionate, idealistic youth; Rome’s Catherine supports her husband up to the point when the choice appears between truth and family; and Bickell’s Morten is, in many Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 21

Broadway World Cont. respects, the most nuanced character, appearing at first somewhat backward and befuddled—stuffing apples in his pockets, referring to Stockmann’s news of poisonous bacteria as “cockroaches in the water”—but actually incredibly savvy to the situation as it develops, realizing the opportunity to make a fortune. Seemingly a clown, he is in fact, cynical and clever.

As a side note, I could not help but consider, given my 25 years as a public relations professional, that things might have gone considerably better for the Stockmanns if they had simply had some decent PR counsel! In PR, we always ask, what are the ramifications of any significant action, how might the townspeople react to this news, do you have additional research to back up the claims of tainted water, what would it cost to make changes to the water system and where would this money come from? And that big question--what does it mean to ME--which Stockmann naively decides to ignore, believing everyone would hold the truth as sacred as he.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 22

Chesapeake Taste (September 30, 2012)

review

Review: An Enemy of the People at CENTERSTAGE Christopher J. Patrick An Enemy of the People will be a hard production for CENTERSTAGE to top this year. The opening show for the 2012/2013 season is a story about standing up for what you believe is right when you are alone, outnumbered, and everyone is telling you that you are wrong. The main character, Dr. Stockman, played by Dion Graham, has discovered a terrible truth, one that will be his greatest scientific achievement. He has discovered irrefutable evidence that pollution from a tannery is creating a human health hazard in the town baths. The town has invested everything in building the rejuvenating baths with the hopes of becoming a major tourist destination and the first summer tourist season is just around the corner. The conflict is set: Ruin the town or sicken the tourists.

Dr Stockman’s character is assaulted on all sides by the moral majority, lead by his own brother, the smarmy mayor masterfully played by Kevin Kilner. The majority don’t want his truth because the consequences are too great. As each of his friends turn on him, you feel the pain of betrayal as if they were your own friends. The emotions the play stirred were so powerful, that in one scene where there is a mob, I wanted to jump up and join the fight against this unjust majority. When you’ve lost yourself in the show so much that you’ve become, in your own mind, a bit player in the drama on stage, you’re in the presence of great theater.

An Enemy of the People is an adaption by Arthur Miller of a work by the same name by Henrik Ibsen. The original play was set in Norway in the late 1800s. The update by Miller, famed writer of “Death of a Salesmen” and The Crucible, set the performance in the 1960s. In his update Miller incorporated themes about the American condition and the dangers of McCarthyism and the obstruction of civil rights.

The play is wonderfully handled by Director Kwame Kwei-Armah and the parts are well cast. While the main characters drive the conflict of the show, the supporting characters, particularly Ross Bickell as Dr. Stockman’s father-in-law, Morten Kiil and newspaper men Hovstad and Aslaksen, played by Tyrone Mitchell Henderson and Wilbur Edwin Henry, are marvelous as well.

The issue of pollution affecting human health is just as pertinent today as it was 50 years ago. The question of whether the majority is always right is perhaps even more important a question today than it was when Henrik first put pen to paper. This show is worth seeing, go get your tickets.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 23

Aisle Pass (September 28, 2012)

review

Theatre review: An Enemy of the People - 4 stars!

“Cultural Critic” at the Baltimore Guardian Fifty years ago this season, CENTERSTAGE launched its first show, as did the neighboring Spotlighters Theatre. Both theatres will celebrate this shared occasion with non-competing versions of Spotlighter’s first play “Bus Stop” later this season, but CENTERSTAGE is opening their season with Arthur Miller’s translation of An Enemy of the People directed by Kwame KweiArmah.

The plot follows Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Dion Graham, who bears a striking resemblance to Kwei-Armah) who has just discovered that toxins from a local tannery owned by Morten Kill (Ross Bickell) have poisoned the town’s newly built “health spas.” He expected to be exalted as a hero for sparing the lives of innocent tourists who come to experience the healing effect of said spas, but instead is earns the ire of his corporatist brother Peter (Kevin Kilner) who is both mayor and head of the spa’s governing board (of which Tom is also a member), but the townspeople as well (who earn their living off said tourists).

It is in this backlash that the play falls apart into a mess of melodramatic moralizing and philosophical grandstanding. I get that it’s an “idea play,” but Ibsen tells it with such a heavy hand, that it feels like he’s trying to beat his message into you with a seal club rather than tell an actual story (especially in the second act). This is a shame since his actual “idea” is worth exploring, but told during an election year it risks coming off as propaganda.

The acting while strong in places wasn’t perfect – particularly Graham who was good in scenes when he had to be angry and pound his fists against the almighty political machine, but otherwise bled into the stark white background. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Kilner, who steals every scene he’s in with his larger than life persona (if this play had scenery he’d chew right through it). Though the supporting cast was nearly flawless, it was the two kids (Holden Brettell and Jory Holmes in the production I saw) that got the most applause at the end of the show.

As stated above, the set for this show is stark white background (which they use to project various images throughout the play) and the stage is decorated with simple modernist furniture for the Stockmann living room and a desk and table for the newsroom (in which the white backdrop works really well). The lighting was simple and effective, but the canned “murmuring” seemed a little too soft for an “angry mob” (especially one close enough to lob rocks onto the stage).

I’m not sure if this factored into Kwai-Armah’s selection of this play, but Silent Spring turned 50 years old on September 27th – opening night of this play.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 24

The Imitated Life (September 30, 2012)

review

An Enemy of the People stage review Larissa Melone “It happens to be a fact. Plus another fact—you’ll forgive me for talking about facts in a newspaper office.”

An Enemy of the People uses the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon debate as its inspiration, with a clear political connection felt throughout. The show begins by highlighting the first close-up camera views used on candidates, with clips and similar camera styles used in parts. Yet even with the historical setting, many of the issues feel close to the present political climate.

“The public doesn’t need new ideas—the public is much better with old ideas.”

The main characters are pulled back and forth over who is a friend of the people and who is an enemy of the people. Dr. Stockmann (played by Dion Graham – The Wire) is torn between the telling the whole truth about what is going on in his town or protecting his family. Peter Stockmann, the town’s mayor (played by a fantastic Kevin Kilner – Raising Helen) believes he is doing the best thing for the town by trying to cover up the truth, and silence his brother Dr. Stockmann.

The artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah effectively combines both a modern and retro feel. Despite being new to Baltimore, he was able to create a production that showcases our city’s diversity. The production relates to our current political climate leading up to the national election, and makes viewers question the role of individuals. Kwame Kwei-Arwah has created a show that almost all ages can enjoy and connect with.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 25

Drama Urge (October 3, 2012)

review

An Enemy of the People: One is the Loneliest Number John Francis Glass Henrik Ibsen’s outsider classic receives a provocative makeover at CENTERSTAGE with Kwame Kwei-Armah’s 1950s-60s restaging of An Enemy of the People.

Big themes, problematic truths, and tragic falls mark the Norwegian playwright’s career, so it was a natural fit when Arthur Miller chose this play for adaptation. While Ibsen was examining the repressive forces of his time, with a Nietzschean clarion call for a new order, Miller was concerned with the societal effects of McCarthyism, particularly on the average individual. The adaptation compresses a five-act play into a two-hour drama, stripping away some of the expository and symbolic elements and rearranging the action. You’re left with a melodrama of sorts, though the full-court press of the dialogue gives it more immediacy and tension.

Mr. Kwei-Armah’s production - by degrees both probing and subtle - gets at the truth through a wide-angle lens. Scenic designer Riccardo Hernández has configured a panoptic set, tending toward minimalism, and Alex Koch splashes projection video against an expansive backdrop and deploys overhead TV monitors; both give the prospective of observing a live broadcast. David Burdick’s period costumes harmonize with, if not set the tone of, this gray color palette.

For those who haven’t seen the play - where one person’s bad news threatens to close a resort town - think Jaws (in fact, inspired by Enemy) or any shoot-the-messenger saga where money’s at stake. But Dr. Stockmann is enmeshed in a curious nexus of political and familial intrigue well before the findings arrive and the hammer comes down. For one, he’s aligned himself with a liberal leaning press, embodied by Hovstad and Billing, whose paper is published by Aslaksen, a representative of small business owners (a voice of moderation, his mantra becomes a tagline). Each has an agenda which shifts as frequently as the plot twists unravel. And standing opposed is the old-guard - the vested interests - in the guise of the doctor’s brother mayor Peter Stockmann. Whether sibling rivalry is the instigating factor or the search for truth or the struggle for political power is an open question for the good doctor as well as the audience. And the wild card (or joker), Dr. Stockmann’s father-in-law Morten Kiil, comes in to stir the pot with a strange inheritance for his daughter Catherine and grandchildren - Petra, Morten, Jr., and Ejlif.

On one level, Enemy takes a number popular notions prisoner and holds them without bail. Democracy, impartiality of the press, and the wisdom of crowds will look different after the play whatever your political inclination. No strangers to shaping the narrative by manipulating the discourse - at the polls or in the emerging media - the power brokers of yore look pretty current by today’s standards. The manipulation of public opinion by the local paper and incumbent party with the intent of swaying the masses - mobs, if you like - will resonate with those looking aghast at- Groupthink from “Ditto-heads” to “Man on the Street.”

On another level, the play can, and should be understood symbolically or metaphorically: the pollution in the springs is representative of the pollution of the body politic (much as Albert Camus did in The Plague). And “genetic” or generational effects of evil (as in Ghosts) are passed on by the owner(s) of the tannery as a tainted bequest. To the extent you can keep these and other seemingly contradictory ideas in place - the motives are many and varied for all parties - you’ll appreciate the depth of the work.

Dion Graham as Dr. Stockmann captures the naïveté, exuberance - he’s a Peer Gynt kind of a guy - and integrity of his character. He’s torn in many directions - Job-like calamities descend on his shoulders in mighty numbers - but his fortitude is fully realized in Mr. Graham’s declamatory performance. Kevin Kilner, playing the mayor as a dapper “Mad Men” executive, gives him a sinister charm and a believable degree of rage. Indeed, one of the strengths of the production is its ability to convey wide ranges of emotions in almost conversational tones. Mr. Kilner looks for opportunities to raise the stakes for his character and finds almost all of them.

Miller has freshened Ibsen’s limited characterization of Mrs. Stockmann and her daughter Petra - you won’t mistake them for Mrs. Alving (in Ghosts) or Nora (in A Doll’s House). Susan Rome is a warm presence as the wife/mother offering a reality check to her husband’s unbridled enthusiasms and pushback to his scheming adversaries, while keeping the home front intact.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 26

Drama Urge Cont.

Charise Castro Smith is convincing as the winsome Petra who inwardly yearns to take her father’s mission to the next level.

Holden Brettell and Jory Holmes have nice turns as the Stockmann children who listen (Zion Jackson and Lucas Pelton are scheduled to alternate as Morten, Jr. and Ejlif, respectively).

Tyrone Mitchell Henderson as Hovstad - a stand-in for the press - gives the waffling portrayal necessary to reveal the new techno-man: adaptable, opportunistic, and manipulative. Jeffrey Kuhn as his underling Billing plots both sides against the middle as he works his way up the food chain.

Comic relief is provided in a strong performance by Ross Bickell as the sprightly and eccentric Morten Kiil while Wilber Edwin Henry wrings the most out a limp rag portrayal of Aslaksen. And a calculated series of stumbling turns as the town drunk is delivered by Jimi Kinstle. Though these are clearly character types, you’ll marvel over the way the excellent supporting actors create their personae out of whole cloth.

The show has a nice look in terms of presentation. Blocking and movement for each scene, including the climatic town meeting, have good flow, with actors dressing the stage to best advantage. The director’s assured handling of entrances and exits and adroit pacing maximize the dynamics, while moving the story along. Michelle Habeck’s mostly static lighting emphasizes the constraints of the social world while the original music and sound by Ryan Rumery effectively foreshadows some impending action or underscores unfolding events.

In his day Dr. Stockmann might have been like Ibsen himself, an artist and creator, while in Miller’s time I see him more as a pundit and gadfly. Today, this man in the vanguard - under attack from all sides - looks like a whistleblower, a not disinterested one: a martyred saint or condemned sinner, with no hope of understanding or redemption. In the play, the doctor saves a few life lines before casting away: his family and a friend (the steadfast Captain Horster played by John Ahlin).

Maybe in the end that’s all you need.

Additional actors: Townspeople - Richard W. Blank, Kerry Brady, Alisa Brock, Robert Samuel Harris, Kyle A. Jackson, Hillary Mazer, and Thomas Eric Sinn. ************************************************************************************* Applause meter: 41/4 hands (out of 5), Highly Recommended - classic script which receives an entertaining and well conceived updating. Well-cast and acted, clear direction with mostly consistent design, and good ensemble performance. Adaptation feels overdetermined in places as the result of text revisions. AV was hit or miss at times in terms of relevance, and delay led to real time-video matching problems. Otherwise, a visual and aural treat.

Stars of the play: 1) Dion Graham as Dr. Stockmann & Kevin Kilner as Peter Stockmann (tied), 2) Kwame Kwei-Armah, director, and 3) Riccardo Hernández, scenic designer & David Burdick, costume designer (tied).

Special mention: Ross Bickell as Morten Kiil, Susan Rome as Mrs. Stockmann, and ensemble cast.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 27

Pikesville Patch

review (October 18, 2012)

Play: An Enemy of the People Eddie Applefeld I usually don’t go to plays that I think might be too heavy.

I prefer comedies and musicals, but I was glad I took the time to see An Enemy of the People at CENTERSTAGE. This is Eddie Applefeld, on theatre.

The play, originally written in 1882 by Norwegian Henrik Ibsen, was adapted by playwright Arthur Miller and set in the late 1950s.

Believe it or not, it was not a hit, due in part, as Miller said, ‘To the overwhelming Orthodoxy of the time.’

In his introduction to An Enemy of the People, Miller wrote “There is one quality in Ibsen that lies at the ver center of his force: It is his insistence that he is going to say what he has to say.”

The play, set in Norway, tells the story of the Stockmann family, especially Dion, a doctor who discovers a certain resort area in the town, a resort the town is looking to be a major money maker, has poison water.

In his attempts to warn the town, including putting an article in the local paper, he is met with stern objections by the mayor and eventually the entire town fears it will ruin all of them.

In short, I had a very pleasant night at the theatre.

Before the show I took advantage of Sascha’s Restaurant, located on the second level, to have dinner. The chicken curry was very good.

By the way, CENTERSTAGE is the state theatre of Maryland. And this year it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

An Enemy of the People closes Sunday, but now playing in the upstairs theatre through Nov. 25, is The Completely Fictional— Utterly True—Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe. For more information, visit the CENTERSTAGE website.

This is Eddie Applefeld.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 28

Oakland Mills HS

review (October 17, 2012)

A Hero No One Believes CENTERSTAGE Opens Fiftieth Season with An Enemy of the People Jordan Long From September 19 to October 21 CENTERSTAGE celebrates the beginning of its Fiftieth season with Arthur Miller’s adaptation of An Enemy of the People. The play was originally written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1882 and was adapted for a modern audience by Arthur Miller in 1950. The lead role of Tom Stockman was played by Dion Graham, Kevin Kilner played Tom’s brother Paul, and treacherous reporter Hovstad was portrayed by Tyrone Mitchell Henderson.

Tom Stockman is the naive and less successful brother of mayor and politician Paul Stockman. They live in a small town that is financially dependent on their biggest tourist attraction - the amazing healing waters of Kirsten Springs. People who bath in the water can be cured of any number of ailments, but Tom’s research leads him to discover that the water that the town is so famous for is being poisoned by a nearby factory. The naive Tom thinks that as soon as his brother is informed of the problem, he will immediately work to make the springs safe for people again, no matter the financial strain this will put on the local government. Instead, Tom is thrown into a battle against his overly political brother, conniving reporters, an ignorant public, and the disappointment of his own family. As Tom’s name is dragged through the mud by everyone he once trusted and he is labeled an enemy of the people, he struggles to hold on to his convictions and do the right thing even if everyone hates him for it.

Oakland Mills junior Emma Brand says, “CENTERSTAGE always puts on marvelous shows and they always stick in my mind for weeks, but this one seems to have resonated more deeply with me...probably because it addresses a situation that is very real in today’s society that I also feel is wrong. And it made me think quite a lot about how to give the power back to the people.

Or if it’s even possible.”

As always with CENTERSTAGE, the scenery was gorgeous. The diamond-patterned wall and the smooth white floor added a sense of sophistication to each scene, even as the furniture changed around and the locations of scenes changed. The televisions above the stage that displayed what was going on onstage in black and white added to the feeling of most of the characters acting like shady politicians and working to preserve their images.

Emma says, ” I absolutely loved the set it inspired me so incredibly much for our own play, Twelve Angry Jurors.”

The cast did an impressive job. Kilner was well cast as refined politician Paul Stockman. With his slicked-back hair, refined suit and cane, and professional way of speaking fit perfectly with the image of a heartless politician. Graham as Tom Stockman was able to show off his skills toward the end of the play by showing how desperate and hopeless his character was growing, and how he was beginning to crack under the strain of so much betrayal. The way he showed Tom finally snapping was heartbreaking.

Emma says, “I think this was a very strong show to perform for their 50th. The acting was strong, the set was intriguing, the directing was riveting. I just thought all of it was amazing.”

A personal favorite for me was Charise Castro Smith as Tom’s daughter. She has clearly inherited Tom’s firer and desire to do right, but has also gained something of her uncle’s shrewdness. Smith made someone strong and memorable out of her character.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

An Enemy of the People Media Kit | pg. 29