The much-talked-about new revival of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People includes a key scene that takes place at a town hall meeting, in which a crusading doctor played by Jeremy Strong speaks to the community about an impending public health crisis. Warn society. Last weekend, during a press screening of the play, three protesters interrupted the play with passionate complaints about another impending catastrophe: the climate crisis causing global warming.
Activists, including 35-year-old theater actor Nate Smith, interrupted the show on three separate occasions, shouting “dead” before one of the stars, Michael Imperioli, (out of character) began forcing them to exit. They shouted phrases like “There's no theater on the planet.'' .
The protest, organized by the group Extinction Rebellion, revealed that the show's star-studded cast were unwittingly at the center of the chaos, and that their message resonated with environmental themes. As a result, it attracted a lot of media attention over the weekend. Ibsen's writings. It was no coincidence that many of the people in the preview screening were members of the press. Some of these critics accused the protesters of disrupting a work that was very much in line with their views.
But Smith was quick to clarify that the purpose of the disruption was not to protest the play itself, but simply to draw attention to the climate crisis.
“The reaction was like, 'Why don't you just do this to the people in charge?'” As we always do. all time.But how many of them have you heard about in the New York Times?'' Smith says variety. “The number of times I've participated in all sorts of things, from leafleting in parks to disrupting politicians' speeches, is the vast majority of times I've had no effect on the media cycle at all.”
In fact, Smith is a theater actor himself and empathizes with the experiences of the production's cast and crew. “It's very heartbreaking to know the personal experiences of the artists involved in this work and the impact it had on them. That's not what it's about at all.”
This protest was particularly effective because it was set in a scene where many of the actors were seated in the audience, so it was initially unclear whether the demonstration was scripted or not.
“That was very intentional,” Smith says. He “loves this play” and first read Arthur Miller's adaptation several years ago. “The script was pretty faithful to the other version, and we knew this version as well, so we scouted it and tried to dramatize what was originally said, partly to confuse people about what was going on.” I interwoven it with the lines inside.''
Smith added that when he first spoke to Strong, he referred to him by his character's name, Dr. Stockman, because he knew that Strong, a method actor, would stay in character during demonstrations. But Smith did not anticipate that the actors themselves would end up forcing protesters out of the theater. “But it gives them more power,” he says. “They were doing their job.”
As for the reaction to the demonstrations, Smith is well aware of and understands the criticism. But the backlash, he argues, is the problem.
“There is a clear difference between preferred movement and effective movement,” he says. “The reaction is, 'I don't like this, I'm sick to my stomach because I disapprove of what they're doing.' So since I don't like this, what good is what they're doing?” But that's the reaction all movements get for almost everything they do,” he said, referring to the first women's suffrage march on Washington and the first picketing at the White House. He listed a long list of successful historical movements, including demonstrations. “People didn't like it and thought they should go home and stay home.”
“And the same thing will happen if you try to have a conversation about climate change at the dinner table,” he continues. “People are silent, people are furious, people think you're holier-than-thou, people are really scared, and we can't talk about it very much. But the vast majority of people still don't have enough.” They are uninformed and very deliberately uninformed.”
All that matters to him is that people are talking about the climate. “That’s all I’m asking for,” he says. “There's more talk about climate.”
