Public Enemy NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (69)
See it if You want to see a thoughtful work that is as relevant today as when it was written. Brilliant 90 minute adaptation of Ibsen's long original.
Don't see it if You just like comedies and musicals and don't like serious plays that make you think.
See it if you like Ibsen, An Enemy of the People, political plays, thoughtful and timely material that feels very relevant.
Don't see it if You're in the mood for something light and fluffy, or a musical. This is a play with some humor, but it's mostly serious.
See it if you are a fan of Isben. It holds up today with the political turmoil. Very poignant and provocative. Great news the run has been extended.
Don't see it if stylized older plays are not your fare. Don't like when they modernize or update classics works.
See it if you love straight plays, enjoy relatively traditional updates of classic plays, love Ibsen, enjoy thought provoking plays.
Don't see it if you hate straight plays, classic plays, or Ibsen. Don't like modern dress productions of classics or color/gender blind casting. Read more
See it if you'd like a modern adaptation that condenses the action without sacrificing the spirit with a great performance from the lead actor.
Don't see it if you like your Ibsen traditional, are not a fan of speed plotting that combines actions in a whirlwind, don't like its modern resonances
See it if exceptional adaptation/writing! Completely accessible and relatable. Passionately though-provoking. Great actors.
Don't see it if intense, passionate discussion breaking the 4th wall make you uncomfortable. Also common place human moral frailty & greed.
See it if You enjoy a classic play that has been updated for our time.
Don't see it if You are an Ibsen purist and find tampering with his genius upsetting. Read more
See it if you are a political junkie & love seeing how some things never change. Parts of this new translation, set in modern times, were fascinatin
Don't see it if you want a well directed, coherent, believable production of this marvelous play. Read more
Critic Reviews (16)
"Harrower’s 90-minute cutbacks are not well done. The 2012 version, though longer, was much clearer and the speech in the Town Hall was riveting. Here it just seemed anti-climatic and almost tongue-in-cheek. Much of this might have to do with Cole’s portrayal or Hal Brooks' direction. Cole's characterization was much more about self than about the righteousness of it all."
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"An appreciative but occasionally uneven mounting...Harrower’s adaptation cuts away at the vintage verbiage of the original script, and Brooks’ well-paced staging has the show clocking in at about 90 minutes with no intermission. At the same time, though, this tighter writing seems to reveal somewhat uncomfortably the schematics of Ibsen’s plotting, and a mixed bag of performances among the 11-person cast sometimes lends the proceedings the flavor of old-fashioned melodrama."
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"More essential than ever...In the beginning, 'Public Enemy' seems to present itself as a clear-cut morality play...It gets interesting when it reveals its true colors as a play that does not directly deal in the dull, predictability of moral and political absolutes but instead in the contradictions inherent in any matters attached to human ego...The actors hit their stride and present the most interesting performances as their characters start to reveal their aims, interests, and initiatives."
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"That the play does not dissolve into simply a fable of generalities is a tribute to both Ibsen and Harrower...Potent questions are posed. Can one live a life without compromise? Do hypocrisy and deceit rule the world? These questions appear to be universal and ongoing...Under Hal Brooks’s attentive direction the actors perform well, with Nilaja Sun, John Keating, and Arielle Goldman being standouts."
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"David Harrower has revised Ibsen’s text and given us a short, punchy ninety-minute version, now in an engrossing production...Hal Brooks’ direction brings up the houselights and has Stockmann accuse the audience, turning the play into a faux political rally. It strikes me that Harrower has streamlined the play but not dramatized it...The interpretation careens from noble whistleblower to egotistical demagogue, leaving me wondering if there’s anybody worth rooting for."
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"An eloquent tale of justice and ambition…Director Hal Brooks has confirmed the company’s commitment to showcasing incisive, relevant classical theater with Harrower’s masterly take...There is an unending tension between the authority and the reformist in Brooks’s conception. Within this tension is a complexity difficult to explore on stage: the variable nature of truth…A precise, magnetic production of Ibsen’s timely play."
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"The center of the play remains as strong and elementally compelling as ever. This Stockmann, though, played by Jimonn Cole, strikes an outraged tone quite soon, truncating the scope of psychological development possible. A kind of unfortunate emotional monotony sets in...For those who don’t know 'An Enemy of the People,' 'Public Enemy' is well worth seeing, even while Harrower’s modernization prunes from the original some tension and finesse."
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"There is a pulsing heart at the center of Hal Brooks' production of 'Public Enemy' in the role of Dr. Theo Stockman as embodied by the wonderful Jimonn Cole in a performance that is impassioned, thoughtful, raw, appropriately livid and ultimately very compelling in an otherwise straightforward and occasional murky production...The production captures the essence of an Ibsen play, the rage, the conscious, the soul of theatre telling us we must listen."
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