Theatre | The 10 Selected Productions
An Enemy of the People
By Henrik Ibsen
German translation by Angelika Gundlach
Theater Bonn
Premiere 16 September 2011
An Enemy of the People. Konstantin Lindhorst, Marleen Lohse, Jele Brückner, Nico Link, Falilou Seck © Thilo Beu
Falilou Seck in a glittering entertainer’s tailcoat has hardly had time to flick a couple of weary decencies into the audience before deciding he can’t be bothered. The dark-skinned actor with the afro locks borrows a couple of short verses from Heiner Müller’s ’Landscape with Argonauts’ which tip Ibsen into today. His ‘Enemy of the People’ has a migrant background, seems perfectly assimilated and nevertheless remains an unpredictable foreign body in this respectable little town.
Lukas Langhoff places short, sharp highlights. Stockmann’s hard work, receiving the town elders devotedly at home with red wine while his ambitious wife is snogging the mayor behind his back. he daughter Petra, delighted with her job as a teacher, whose pedagogic eroticism consists of an iron backbone and optimism that is frozen into her face. The gentlemen of the town, greasy ghosts of the 70s, hard line advocates of self-interest and administrators of a time that stands still. And between them Stockmann, who wishes to please everyone and is treated by all like a cheerful pet.
And yet this enemy of the people is no more respectable than the others. The respectable spa doctor luxuriates in embarrassing dreams of general recognition and glows with sweet modesty. This seeker for truth is also concerned with no-one but himself.
Directed by Lukas Langhoff
Stage design Regina Fraas
Costume design Ines Burisch
Lighting design Helmut Bolik
Dramaturgy Christopher Hanf
With:
Doctor Tomas Stockmann, balneologist Falilou Seck
Mrs. Stockmann, his wife Jele Brückner
Petra, her daughter, teacher Marleen Lohse
Peter Stockmann, the doctor’s brother, mayor Stefan Preiss
Hovstad, editor of the Volksbote Konstantin Lindhorst
Billing, employee of the Volksbote Nico Link
Book printer Aslaksen Simon Brusis
Morton Kiil, Mrs. Stockmann’s foster father Sascha Maurice Höchst
Agnetha and Björn, Stockmann’s children Luka Marie Schinkel, Joshua Knauber
An Enemy of the People. Falilou Seck
© Thilo Beu
An Enemy of the People. Konstantin Lindhorst, Marleen Lohse, Jele Brückner, Nico Link, Falilou Seck
© Thilo Beu
An Enemy of the People. Stefan Preiss, Falilou Seck, ensemble
© Thilo Beu
An Enemy of the People. Simon Brusis, Konstantin Lindhorst, Nico Link
© Thilo Beu
An Enemy of the People. Falilou Seck, Marleen Lohse
© Thilo Beu