Early in their relationship, Amy Herzog and Sam Gold decided not to work together.
But neither could resist this play.
An Enemy of the Peopleis in previews February 27.Mary Janeis in previews April 2.
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Theres something funny about seeing you so professional.
Herzog counters, Sam does this man-of-the-people thing where he curses a lot.
She playfully adopts a slouch.
Hes like, Were going to get ourfuckinghot chocolate and somefuckingNorwegian tobacco.
Doesnt that tickle you?
says Gold of his rough-and-tumble rehearsal self.
Yeah, Herzog says.
That does tickle me.
Hes in jeans and a sweatshirt with blocky glasses and a shock of hair pushed back over his head.
Their apartment, a classic eight they moved into in 2019, has a warm, inviting quality.
Together, the two are staring down a very busy spring.
Weve been working together this whole time, as Herzog puts it, only now theyre sharing formal credit.
I guess we would be the Herzogs, Herzog says.
My mom will take offense to that, Gold says, But yes.
Early on in Herzog and Golds relationship, they decided to keep their work separate.
I didnt want to ruin one of Amys plays, says Gold.
Herzog, in turn, hasnt yet written any characters in her plays directly inspired by him.
Theres not a lot of dramatic grist here.
So they followed parallel career paths, sometimes with a Venn diagram of performers in common.
In college, Herzog acted inRichard IIwith Strong, who later starred in her playThe Great God Panin 2013.
I certainly feel and felt then that they were made for each other, Strong told me.
Theyre two of the most courageous and mature people I know, and theyve always been that way.
Both Gold and Herzog share a fascination with Ibsen, for instance.
He texted Strong, who he thought would be a perfect fit for Stockmann.
Jeremy was immediately like, Lets do it, Gold says.
And then it wouldve been weird if I didnt ask Amy to write it.
Lets be honest, Gold said as he gathered the ensemble.
In their adaptation, Gold and Herzog have given themselves permission to push against Ibsens text.
Its an approach typical of Golds recent work.
It also comes out of Herzogs first investigations into the text.
Gold and Herzog are also tilting the play around current debates within the left.
Herzogs version of the poodle speech will be different.
Theyre interested, too, in how much trust we can have in our own judgment.
Thats very haunting to me.
When we speak, Herzog and Gold are pretty sure their version wont end that way.
The computer came out, and we were rewriting by the time we had eaten, Gold says.
Medical crises, as Herzog wrote inThe New York Times Magazinein 2020, defined her childhood.
How much of this are you comfortable talking about?
It might be really difficult, she says.
Their own interactions with that community have deeply affected Herzog and Gold.
I can say broadly that being parents has changed us immensely, Herzog says.
Being caregivers has become primary in our identity.
You put a pot of soup there and my actors start to connect to each other, he says.
InMacbeth,we made sure that soup tasted really delicious.
So everybody wanted to sit and have soup at the end of the show with each other.
Did you ever bring up the idea of honey cakes?
Do you just want to throw a honey cake at somebody?
Well get you a honey cake.
A bunch of them.
Its not just medicine.
Stockmann isnt aware of the people who enable his entire life.
What a great clue he gave us, Herzog says, about whats wrong with this man.
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