The Invisible Stage Hand; or, Henrik Ibsen's Theatre of Capital

Abstract

“Theatre is not political action. Political action happens in the streets.” This is how the German director Thomas Ostermeier addressed the audience in a recent conversation with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts. All theatre can do is make us realize the “lies we tell ourselves.” Thomas Ostermeier made a name for himself staging the socially conscious dramas of Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill. After becoming the artistic director of Berlin's Schaubühne, Ostermeier turned to Henrik Ibsen because he thought that Ibsen's bourgeois world would appeal to the patrons of the Schaubühne: “Characters in Ibsen constantly worry about money.” Perhaps, this is also the reason behind Ostermeier's desire to bring his production of Ibsen'sAn Enemy of the People,adapted into English by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, to the patrons of Broadway in the fall of 2018. It's a Trojan Horse. Get the haves into the theatre and make them see their own complicity in perpetuating the injustices of capitalism. Ostermeier's version ofAn Enemy of the Peoplebreaks the fourth wall during the play's town hall meeting and invites the audience to share their thoughts about capitalism and democracy. Ultimately, this audience participation reveals the anxiety that theatre might simply be a distraction.