Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

The Broadway Couple That Couldn’t Resist Working Together

By on • ( Leave a comment )
Amy Herzog, a playwright, and Sam Gold, a theater director, are having a big spring on Broadway. Herzog is the playwright of Mary Jane, starring Rachel McAdams as a mother caring for a child with chronic illness. Together, they are adapting Enemy of the People, a Henrik Ibsen play, featuring Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli. They also happen to be married, and this marks the first time they’re working together. A little over a decade ago, they were at the forefront of new theater talent — Gold came up directing a lot of Annie Baker plays and meticulously spare Off Broadway productions; Herzog did a play with Strong pre-Succession and was nominated for a Pulitzer for 4000 Miles. Over the years, they’ve both adapted a lot of Ibsen, and they were drawn to the themes in Enemy of the People, a play they feel captures much of our current political discourse. Jackson McHenry spent time at home and at rehearsal with them as they puzzled their way through changes to Ibsen’s text, which they’re rooting in current debates within the left.  “There’s a darkness to the way the left and right are not matched up with ‘liberal’ and ‘illiberal,’” Gold says, “and that’s an energy I want our production to access.”

—Gazelle Emami, editorial director, New York   

Just a Couple of Ibsen Lovers Early in their relationship, Amy Herzog and Sam Gold decided not to work together. But neither could resist this play.

Photo: Pari Dukovic for New York Magazine
Read the full story
Enjoying One Great Story?
Subscribe now for unlimited access to everything New York.

More From Today
Trump has finally remade Republicans into Putin’s playthings, argues Jonathan Chait, and his admiration of Russia no longer renders him suspect within the party.
READ MORE »
On Vulture, Allison P. Davis examines how J.Lo returns to her rom-com roots in This Is Me … Now to tell an epic love story about reconnecting with Ben Affleck. Is she tired of repeating herself?
READ MORE »
“I had finally unlocked my sexuality, or begun to. I was thriving, and going back to him felt like a very backward move.” For the Cut’s “Both Sides of a Breakup” column, two exes explain why it ended. 
READ MORE »
Michael Cohen’s moment of truth has finally arrived, Elie Honig writes on Intelligencer. Donald Trump’s upcoming New York trial will hinge on the credibility of a complicated man.
READ MORE »
Jerry Saltz reviews the Met’s new show on the Harlem Renaissance, which challenges the notion that Black art has run on a different track from modernism and the avant-garde movements it birthed.
READ MORE »
Our greatest writers’ greatest hits, from the New York archives, and for subscribers only. Sign up here.
Get The Newsletter

Categories: Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

Leave a Reply