An Enemy of the People Podcast with Owen Teale, Harry Myers, Laura Carmichael, James Parkes, Sarah Whitehouse, Christopher Dane, Edward Harrison, David Forest cover art

An Enemy of the People

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An Enemy of the People

By: Henrik Ibsen
Narrated by: Owen Teale, Harry Myers, Laura Carmichael, James Parkes, Sarah Whitehouse, Christopher Dane, Edward Harrison, David Forest
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About this listen

A true classic and a play for our modern times in equal measure. A perhaps unintentional parody on 'fake news', the hysteria of the masses and publicly shaming individuals to the point of breakdown, this story follows one man's struggle to do the right thing and speak the truth in the face of extreme social intolerance. Sometimes farcical, sometimes terrifying, An Enemy of the People is a parable for crazy times and a cautionary tale for those who dare to challenge the establishment.

Full cast: Owen Teale, Sarah Whitehouse, Christopher Dane, James Parkes, Edward Harrison, David Forest, Ben Whitehead, Harry Myers, Neil Frost, Paul Anthony, Liis Mikk, Josephine Arden.

©2016 Audible, Ltd. (P)2016 Audible, Ltd.
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This story is still a tale for our times; very thought provoking and inspiring. The struggle for what's right will always go on.

Still a tale for the times

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i tried this selection primarlity to get “An Enemy of the People”, but “Hedda Gabler” and “A Doll’s House” were a pleasant bonus. Ibsen is a master playwright who shines a light into the darkest and brightest of the human vulnerabilities.

A Great Grouping of Ibsen

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Enemy of the People is a deviating examination of the tension between public good and private interests. Like all the other plays in the serious, is superbly dramatized. A joy to listen to. On the surface the drama presents a simple tale of right and wrong - An Enemy of the People concerns the actions of Doctor Thomas Stockmann, a medical officer charged with inspecting the public baths on which the prosperity of his native town depends. He finds the water to be contaminated. When he refuses to be silenced by an alliance of owners, jointed by the press and townspeople who come to realize doing the right thing is too hard. The Dr is declared an enemy of the people, yet he swears fight for the truth - which becomes more of his principle than the bath’s themselves. Yes, the play feels like an allegory written about climate change or tobacco - denial of the facts and the immediacy of self interest

But this is Ibsen - and right and wrong are never simple. Speckmen is righteous but feeds off of people seeing him as more upright than others. He pushes away anyone who tries to the see nuance, including his wife who understands Specimen will no longer be able to provide. In An Enemy of the People, speaking the language of comic exaggeration through the mouth of his spokesman, the idealist Doctor Thomas Stockmann, Ibsen puts into very literal terms the theme of the play: It is true that ideas grow stale and platitudinous, but one may go one step further and say flatly that truths die. According to Stockmann, there are no absolute principles of either wisdom or morality. In this Ibsen is referring indirectly to the reception of his previous plays. For example, the commandment "honor thy father and thy mother" referred to in Ghosts is not simply either true or false. It may have been a truth once and a falsehood today.

The Dr’s ant-democratic screed about the majority never being right and inferior to the educated few is a good example - while the majority is not always right they are not a mob either. And they don’t come off that way in the play. And the Dr can sound a lot of liberals who know better. The press is more interesting formenting decent and then just selling papers than the baths themselves. The townspeople want to the right thing, but can’t lose their livelihood. Thus, as will most Ibsen pays, the situation is complex. One can see the truth overwhelmed by self interest, cowered by power. or that differing self interest create their own truths And that everyone’s decisions are a mix of motives that are hard to judge.


Yet, Ibsen addresses in an engaging manner a number of challenges that remain highly relevant today, such as environmental issues (versus economic interests), professional responsibilities (of experts in policy debates) and, last but not least, the moral dilemmas and tensions involved in whistle blowing and the common good.

Devastating and relevant

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