Former Public Theater AD Marya Sea Kaminski returns to direct Tony-nominated adaptation

By SHARON EBERSON

To “the father of realism,” truth, like beauty, is all about perspective. 

In Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, for example, the playwright states, “A party is like a sausage machine. It grinds up all sorts of heads together into the same baloney,” while for the sole of honor, he declares, “The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”

However, in the world of Ibsen, no apparently simple truth is ever so simple, as the title implies.

As Pittsburgh Public Theater prepares to present An Enemy of the People, first published in 1882, and revived for the 10th time on Broadway in 2024, the play’s themes remain top of mind. The meaning behind Ibsen’s words, however, has given rise to a different perspective for director Marya Sea Kaminski.

The drama is set in a town where economic security is dependent on attracting visitors for the healing powers of natural baths. When a doctor discovers life-threatening pollutants in the waters, despite the enormous cost of an immediate shutdown and cleanup, he assumes that the health of people will be the town leaders’ first priority.

His assumption is not as simple as it seems. 

MJ Sieber plays the crusading Dr. Thomas Stockmann, whose brother, Peter (Scott Giguere) is mayor and chairman of the town’s Baths Committee. Peter also has helped Thomas escape rural poverty, bringing the latter’s family back to their hometown for a comfortable job. 

Sieber called the part “an amazing opportunity,” that began with a text from Kaminski, asking him to audition.  Although the actor has spent much of his career in Seattle, where he previously worked with this director, his parents are Pittsburgh natives.

“Knowing this show, knowing Marya, and knowing the city, I was like, “OK, this is the audition [where] we’re canceling appointments and carving out some time for this.”

When Sieber arrived in Pittsburgh, he posted a photo, on social media, standing in front of the Duquesne Incline sign. He wrote, “I remember riding this as a little boy. Still afraid of heights.”

His character in An Enemy of the People is someone who has just come home after a family tragedy, which “kind of rejuvenates him mentally as well as physically, and just gives him a new lease on life.”

For Kaminski, An Enemy of the People marks her return to the Public, where she was artistic director for seven years, until last summer. 

Sieber. busy actress Zanny Laird and Kaminiski were deep into rehearsals of the Tony-nominated adaptation by Amy Herzog when they spoke about rediscovering the immediacy of a 145-year-old story.

“I mean, obviously everybody wants to do what’s right with the water,” Kaminski said. “But when you see how it breaks down in the interpersonal dynamics between the people in the town, the economic interests, the political interests … I do think it’s a show about a lot of things. It’s about how people turn on each other, but they don’t do it arbitrarily. So we’re exploring that.”

The clash of current attitudes about vaccines and other previously accepted medical advances would seem, at first glance, to be direct descendents of the play’s themes.

When Kaminski programmed the play for this season, “We had already lived through Dr. Fauci’s rise and fall, the current administration had been put in place, and they were already pulling back on all kinds of environmental protections, and I think we were all sort of seeing what was coming,” she said. “But it is funny about this show. … As I was digging into the history of it … it can offer a pretty balanced argument. And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to create a great argument in it.”

Kaminski has brought Active Analysis into the rehearsal room. led by Cotter Smith, the acting technique combines script analysis with physical action. 

The process has led to discoveries that include the relationship of brothers Thomas and Peter, putting in focus what Kaminski calls “tentacle-ing” to real-world events … where huge, massive decisions affecting millions of people come out of these personal vendettas.”

“When MJ and Scott get together, and they’re just moving around the space, they are playful, they are teasing each other, they’re fighting for status in such a familiar way that it’s not harsh, and so much of the play comes off as so harsh,” Kaminski explained. “So we’ve just been able to find those colors in the constant conflict between them … and, in many ways, we get to see that in the play, because the brothers have all this backstory and they cannot come together, the ripples of that are affecting an entire community.”

At first glance, it would seem that Dr. Stockmann’s unyielding stand, to rush to reveal the truth about the toxic baths, is the only righteous path, and that all who oppose him are villains. 

Through the intensity of Active Analysis, Sieber said, “By the time you start exchanging lines together and looking [other actors] in the eyes and seeing their souls, it has a different humanity and compassion. There’s a relationship that Thomas and his father-in-law [played by Martin Giles] have that, on the page I was like, ‘This is pretty antagonistic. They do not seem to like each other.’ ” 

After rehearsing with Giles, however, he realized, “There is love, and there is hate — there’s so much more than just one thing. … That’s been a real gift, to understand that there are more than two ways to read these lines. There are many, many ways.”

Kaminski said using the technique has helped her and the cast – which includesLaird, Garbie Dukes, Sam Lothard, Brett Mack and Evan Vines – explore how each character’s conscience leads them to the actions they take, or don’t take. 

“On the first day, we talked about, ‘Who is this play for?,’ and how communities fall apart, and how they get divided. I’m reading a great book right now by Beth Macy called ‘Paper Girl [A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America],’ about a small town in Ohio that has gotten radicalized over the last several decades towards QAnon and MAGA. And the thing that I’m most interested in right now, and we have this glorious cast working in a really interesting way, is, where are the points in the play where it’s not a foregone conclusion? Where are the points in the play where the violence and the absolute rupture of this community is preventable?” 

Laird plays the fiercely independent Petra, a schoolteacher and the doctor’s daughter, who is willing to risk everything to stand up for the truth.

“The thing is, I’m so loyal to him, and I believe in him so much, but I constantly am thinking of my younger brothers and how, realistically, we’re going to survive this,” Laird said of Petra. “So I try to constantly remind him of that, but I follow him through it, because I do believe in telling the truth. I also think I’m more aware of the cost, as it gets worse and worse and worse.”

The play includes many juicy roles, none so much as the principled Stockmann.

Chicago native Laird returned to Pittsburgh from New York nearly six years ago, having worked only with Pittsburgh CLO while attending Carnegie Mellon University. Since then, she has been onstage with Quantum Theatre, Pittsburgh Musical Theater, City Theatre …

“It’s funny because my biggest goal was, I really wanted to work with City and Public, and specifically, I wanted to work with Marya, just because I have heard for years about her,” Laird said. “I’ve seen shows that she’s directed, but I’ve heard from other actors that gush about her, and I’m just always looking to push myself and learn as much as I can. So I feel very grateful and very lucky this year that I have gotten to do things I’ve been really, really itching to do. I’m pinching myself constantly in this room.”

In the play, after the death of Petra’s mother, Thomas had been in a state of depression, but returning to his hometown “seems to kind of rejuvenate him, mentally as well as physically, and just give him a new lease on life,” Sieber noted.

When he discovers the danger that the baths represent, there’s a moment the Dr. Stockmann expects to be celebrated for revealing the truth. 

The truth, however, is never so simple. 

For instance, just because Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again,” that’s not true for everyone. 

Coming back to the Public, for Kaminski, “has been so amazing.”

“They’ve held a really beautiful space for me to work,” the former AD said. “I was nervous, that you can’t come home again, but it turns out you kind of can. It’s been so good to be with Shaunda [McDill] and Brian [Pope], and Maya [Holmes], our company manager, has just been going above and beyond. It’s funny to be in the building, because there is so much going on with conversations about the merger, and having spent many hard moments in that building with that staff and those artists. But it’s all so positive. Everybody’s doing an amazing job.”

TICKETS AND DETAILS

Pittsburgh Public Theater’s production of An Enemy of the People is at the O’Reilly Theater, Downtown, through February 22, 2026. Tickets: Visit https://www.ppt.org/production/100483/an-enemy-of-the-people or call 412-316-1600.

Categories: Arts and Ideas, Our Posts, Reviews

Tags: An Enemy of the People, Henrik Ibsen, Marya Sea Kaminski, MJ Sieber, O'Reilly Theater, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Zanny Laird