Kudos to Matt Smith: it’s bold of him to choose this unstarry, uneven production of Ibsen’s social critique for his latest return to the stage. The story of a doctor destroyed for revealing a public health crisis in the spa waters on which his town depends, it juxtaposes understated naturalism with coarse political sloganeering and audience participation. The casually charismatic Smith and a fine supporting cast can’t stop it falling apart in the second half.
The production marks the West End debut of Thomas Ostermeier from Berlin’s Schaubühne – a version of the show was seen at the Barbican in 2014 – and reminds us that Euro-guru directors aren’t always masters of subtlety.
It’s partly the play, once an obscure part of Ibsen’s canon and now overburdened with relevance. A tale of polluted water, corrupt politicians and fake news can’t help but feel thuddingly on the nose in contemporary Britain (and probably in America, where Succession’s Jeremy Strong leads another production of the same play from next month).
When journalist friends and officials refuse to back him, Smith’s Dr Stockman rages against the liberal consensus that supports the capitalist system. In the second-act public meeting, Ostermeier invites the audience – some of whom may be planted mouthpieces – to rage against unfairness. It descends into unfocused ranting.
Still, the evening starts off well, with the play smoothly updated by Florian Borchmeyer. Stockman is a feckless young father whose teacher wife Katharina (Jessica Brown Findlay) picks up the domestic slack. The pair are in a half-decent covers band with would-be radical journalists Hovstad (Shubham Saraf) and Billing (impressive newcomer Zachary Hart). David Bowie’s Changes becomes an unsubtle musical motif, sometimes drowning out onstage arguments.
Scene changes are scrawled in chalk on Jan Pappelbaum’s blackboard set, which is then whitewashed (geddit?) at the end of act one. The acting is at first a study in low-key realism, apparently including Smith’s stumbling entrances and his unzipped flies.
I believed utterly in these characters, right down to the hum of sexual tension between Katharina and Hovstad. As Stockman’s elder brother Peter, the town mayor (surely the model for the equivalent figure in Jaws), the great Paul Hilton is a study in sour disapproval and sibling resentment.
Then things get progressively more ham-fisted. References to “rising house prices [and] falling unemployment” give way to sneers about “wokey-cokey” liberals. Peter boasts that his administration has updated the Post Office’s software and restored “the old Coliseum” (just as musicians at the neighbouring London venue were made redundant).
Katharina’s father (Nigel Lindsay), whose factory is the source of the pollution, has an Alsatian to emphasise his menace. The journey of Hovstad, Billing and publisher Aslaksen (Priyanga Burford) from supporting Stockman to pelting him with paint bombs feels abrupt and unearned.
Those who’ve come just to see the former Doctor Who won’t be disappointed, though. Smith’s performance is a nuanced, complex portrayal of a flawed man, and the ensemble around him is equally good. But Ostermeier’s increasingly dominant editorialising slowly flattens all subtlety from the production, only partly redeeming it with a final image of sharp moral ambiguity.
