An ‘Enemy’ for Our Troubled Era

When Henrik Ibsen wrote “An Enemy of the People” in 1882, the world had yet to experience Nazi collaborators, American tobacco companies that enhance the addictive properties of cigarettes, and French doctors who knowingly sell HIV-contaminated blood. But in some ways the world is exactly the same as it was then: Human beings will sell anything, including their souls.

And so “An Enemy of the People” remains enduringly relevant. British director Trevor Nunn chose the play as his debut production when he took charge of the Royal National Theatre last year. Now, Los Angeles is fortunate to host its only U.S. engagement.

The production, which opened Wednesday night, is so large and teeming a canvas that it makes the Ahmanson Theatre seem like an intimate space. And at the center of the maelstrom is an outsize performance by Ian McKellen as Tomas Stockmann, a doctor in a Norwegian coastal town who discovers that the water supply for the town’s just-completed spa and potential gold mine is crawling with harmful bacteria. It has been poisoned with tannery waste and is now, in his opinion, deadly.

Stockmann brings this matter to the attention of the town, expecting to be declared a hero for saving lives. Instead, he is declared an enemy of the people, and his punishment is merciless and vast. Stockmann is often depicted as a virtuous martyr, a lone truth teller standing firm against the corrupt mass. Nunn and McKellen, using a new Christopher Hampton adaptation, take a more complex tack. They find something unnerving and weird in Stockmann, a grandiosity that makes us question the purity of his self-sacrifice, and one that hints at megalomania.

With the almost unbearably poignant face of a silent comedian, McKellen’s physicality--the external trappings of his character--far outweighs any internal insight he brings to the role. His Stockmann seems to need to be hugged a lot, and when he weeps he looks remarkably like Stan Laurel. He is constantly fussing, thrusting his tongue around, waltzing back and forth on nervous legs, giggling musically, gesticulating with long, eloquent hands. Behind all of this activity, perhaps causing it, is a serious misapprehension of the world around him.

Early in the play, Stockmann gleefully contemplates the attention his terrible discovery will bring him. “This’ll really show them,” he crows. “There’s going to be such a hoo-ha!” He expects a salary increase. A parade, he thinks, is not out of the question. At this point, the audience gets too far ahead of the play, so clear is it that something is wrong with the messenger.

But McKellen catches up and then runs past us. The worse it gets for Stockmann, the more interesting his grandiosity becomes, even taking on shades of the fascistic yearnings he sees in others. Is Stockmann a truth teller rare and brave, a mental patient or a menace? Or is there, simply, no difference? Does one have to be insane to challenge the majority interest? Nunn vigorously asks these questions and answers them with a harrowing affirmative.

Working with his “Les Miserables” set designer John Napier, Nunn once again uses a hulking brown set that turns on the stage while the townspeople swirl around it. The crowd here, though, is not made up of young men rallying to a noble cause, but an unthinking mass that, eventually, ignites into a violent mob. In his circular staging, Nunn conveys both the interconnectedness of a community and also the stagnant logic they live by, the claustrophobic agreements they make to keep the peace.

The cast of 40-plus is splendid. During heated town meetings, they form a mob that extends into the audience, heckling from various spots in the auditorium. Charlotte Cornwell manages to give solidity to Katrine Stockmann, Tomas’ wife, even though the play requires her to change her position too often.

The excellent Stephen Moore plays Peter Stockmann, who is not only mayor, chief of police, chairman of the board of the spa, but also Tomas Stockmann’s brother. His apple-cheeked, gray-haired demeanor and wire-rimmed glasses give him the look of a kindly grandfather, which he uses brilliantly to hide his ruthlessness. His creeping fascism is indeed harrowing, as is the cowardice and greed of Paul Higgins’ Hovstad, a corrupt journalist with large, acquisitive eyes whose populist rantings mask a scheming dictator. Ralph Nossek is also very impressive as Stockmann’s father-in-law, a man whose mysterious motivations give a final lift to the three-hour-plus drama.

“An Enemy of the People” has interesting links to several other recent high-profile British productions. Like the Nora played by Janet McTeer in Anthony Page’s staging of “A Doll’s House” two years ago, McKellen’s Stockmann shows all the signs of a manic depressive.

Further, like Stephen Daldry’s “An Inspector Calls” and Sean Mathias’ “Indiscretions” (both of which were Royal National Theatre productions), “An Enemy of the People” ends on a jarring, apocalyptic note, with a dramatic set transformation and the feeling of a world crumbling beneath our feet, with fear and chaos ahead. Call it fin de siecle neurosis or showmanship, but Nunn has given us a new window into Ibsen and shown us that the moral morass of the last century belongs now entirely to us.

* “An Enemy of the People,” Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Also, this Sunday through Aug. 16: Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Aug. 20-Sept. 3: Thursdays, 2 p.m. Ends Sept. 6. $15-$52.50. (213) 628-2772. Running time: 3 hours, 10 minutes.

Charlotte Cornwell: Katrine Stockmann

Ben Porter: Billing

Stephen Moore: Peter Stockmann

Paul Higgins: Hovstad

Ian McKellen: Dr. Tomas Stockmann

Alisdair Simpson: Captain Horster

Isabel Pollen: Petra Stockmann

Michael Welch: Morten Stockmann

Andrew Burt: Ejif Stockmann

Ralph Nossek: Morten Kiil

Pip Donaghy: Aslaksen

Sally-Ann Burnett: Randine

Alan White: Pastor Grimstad

Seymour Matthews: Pettersen

Chris Gillespie: Evensen

Patrick Romer: Osvald

Naomi Capron: Mrs. Busk

Guy Manning: Stabell

With: Glynn Sweet, Michael Mawby, Robert Aldous, Ray Liewellyn, Michael Haughey, Murray McArthur, Jim Creighton, Mark Bennington, Alan Bergreen, James Caffery, Faith Christopher, Anje Cornell, Barry Cutler, Stephen Fanning, Cliff Karp, Justin Kloeckner, Lance LaShelle, Louis Lotorto, Kenneth Martines, Michael Matthys, Matt K. Miller, Thor Nielsen, Jamieson K. Price, Gary Lee Reed, Harvey Shain.

The Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre present a Royal National Theatre production. By Henrik Ibsen. New version by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Trevor Nunn. Sets John Napier. Costumes John Bright. Lights David Hersey and Luc Batory. Music Steven Edis. Original sound Paul Groothuis. Music director Andrew Callard. Company stage manager Lesley Walmsley.