An Enemy of the People
Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 7:00 PM
8.04 – the play will be performed with English surtitles.
Ibsen wrote An Enemy of the People in 1882, but the soulless mechanisms the play reveals remain terrifyingly timely in AD 2015. The small spa town in the south of Norway is, in Klata's rendition, a place where very special principles reign. As Mayor Peter Stockmann says of the residents: “The people feel best with the good old ideas that they've known for ages.” Custom and reluctance toward change come hand-in-hand with a sense of danger that needs to be avoided. The studies of Doctor Tomas Stockmann, revealing the improper placement of a water pipe and the regular poisoning of bathing waters have revolutionary potential, yet they clash with the interests of the city authorities, and the impasse of the situation is aggravated by the fact that the spa doctor and the mayor are close relatives. How will the town's residents respond? And above all, what tips the scales here? “A powerful moment comes with the monologue of Dr. Stockmann (a brilliant Juliusz Chrząstowski), which imperceptibly shifts into a dialogue with the viewers about Krakow's smog, refugees, and the Polish brute. The line between stage and audience is destroyed when the latter confront difficult questions and need to find answers,” reports Łukasz Gazur in Dziennik Polski.
An Enemy of the People
H. Ibsen
Directed by Jan Klata
Choreography - Maćko Prusak
Text adaptation and dramaturgy - Michał Buszewicz
Music - Robert Piernikowski
Assistant set designers - Anna Durczok, Dominika Król
Stage manager / prompter / assistant director - Katarzyna Gaweł
Cast:
BILLING - Bogdan Brzyski
MAYOR PETER STOCKMANN - Radosław Krzyżowski
DOCTOR TOMAS STOCKMANN - Juliusz Chrząstowski
PRINTER ASLAKSEN - Zbigniew Kosowski
CAPTAIN HORSTER - ** Paweł Kruszelnicki / Bolesław Brzozowski
MORTEN KILL - Zbigniew Ruciński
MISS STOCKMANN - Małgorzata Zawadzka
PETRA - Monika Frajczyk
EDITOR HOVSTAD - Michał Majnicz
- Ania Komorek
- Maciek Trybus
** - dual role_en
Main Stage
Stary National Theatre
ul. Jagiellońska 1
Stary National Theatre is one of the oldest theatres in Poland. Its contemporary repertoire consists of both contemporary works and reinterpretations of classics.
The theatre, which found its home in a historical building on a corner of Szczepański Square, is one of Poland’s national stages, directly managed by the Minister of Culture. In the 19th century, its stage was graced by the theatre’s current patron, a consummate actress, Helena Modrzejewska, known to the English-speaking world as Modjeska. A great many eminent artists trod the legendary boards of the Stary after the war, notably Tadeusz Kantor, Jerzy Grotowski, Zygmunt Hübner, and Krystian Lupa. The stagings of Adam Mickiewicz’s The Forefathers’ Eve directed by Konrad Swinarski and of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed directed by Andrzej Wajda made history. The contemporary repertoire of the theatre consists both of current works and reinterpretations of classics.
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