This Greenville Journal article by Paul Hyde was originally published on May 28th, 2025. Photo: Will Crooks
Henrik Ibsen’s classic drama “Enemy of the People” is about an inconvenient truth-teller.
A doctor discovers that a spa town’s water supply is poisoned. But the mayor and other leaders are more concerned about the town’s economy than its safety.
The doctor, Thomas Stockmann, quickly earns the town’s wrath for standing up for the truth. Choosing profit over principle, the town dubs Stockmann an enemy of the people.
The 1882 play explores the mob mentality and how narrow self-interest can undermine a community, said Matthew Earnest, who is directing “Enemy of the People” at Warehouse Theatre, May 30-June 15.
“Everyone in the play is feverishly pursuing their own agendas to the detriment of sense and morality,” Earnest said. “It ends up being a big quagmire of people throwing each other under the bus to get what they want.”
The town’s mayor, for instance, is motivated mainly by political self-preservation. The publisher of the local paper, meanwhile, “is all for freedom and democracy as long as his taxes don’t go up,” Earnest said.
Important conversations
Earnest, who also adapted the play from a variety of translations, has set the drama in contemporary times to emphasize its relevance.
The play asks probing questions about contemporary politics as a time when democracy seems under assault in some quarters by self-interested politicians and political groups, Earnest said.
“Enemy of the People” should inspire difficult but important conversations, he said.
Matt Reece, a veteran of the Warehouse stage, plays the role of Thomas Stockmann in this production.
Earnest has changed a few details of the “Enemy of the People.” For instance, the town’s mayor, normally played by a man, is played in this production by a woman, longtime Warehouse actor Anne Tromsness.
Earnest, a longtime stage director and head of the MFA directing program at the University of Southern Mississippi, is directing his seventh production at the Warehouse Theatre since 2003. His past productions at the Warehouse include Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” Ibsen’s “Doll House” and Chekhov’s “The Seagull.”
