The White Lotus star Michael Imperioli showed off his improv skills on Thursday night when climate activists crashed a performance of Broadway’s An Enemy of the People.
In the play — directed by Sam Gold and adapted by Amy Herzog from the original 1882 play by Henrik Ibsen — Imperioli’s Mayor Peter Stockmann tries to silence brother Dr. Thomas Stockmann (played by Succession star Jeremy Strong) when the latter discovers harmful bacteria in the town’s spas.
And when activists from the group Extinction Rebellion interrupted Thursday’s performance of the play at New York City’s Circle in the Square Theatre, both Imperioli stayed in character, attempting to stifle the protests.
🚨#BREAKING – Rebels disrupted #AnEnemyOfThePeople on #Broadway. #Climate activists aren’t the enemy; it’s fossil fuel criminals like Exxon & Chevron. If we don’t #EndFossilFuels now, there’ll be #NoTheatreOnADeadPlanet [THREAD] pic.twitter.com/9oFHSrzAMb
— Extinction Rebellion NYC 🌎 (@XR_NYC) March 15, 2024
Footage that Extinction Rebellion posted on X shows one activist, who identifies himself as a theater professional, shouting climate change warnings even as Imperioli and others push him toward the exit. “I am putting my career on the line because we are not doing anything about this crisis,” the man tells the audience on the way out. “The water is coming for us. Broadway will not survive on a dead planet. There is no Broadway on a dead planet.”
Extinction Rebellion also posted two more clips, showing two more activists addressing the audience. When one exclaimed that “governments have failed us,” an in-character Strong said that he was right, while an in-character Imperioli disagreed, according to Entertainment Weekly.
2/ In the play, Doctor Thomas Stockmann (#JeremyStrong) exposes the contamination of the town’s public bathwater, risking community health, and faces repercussions. Sadly, this mirrors reality #FreeTheDegasTwo pic.twitter.com/rEwnTcGikE
— Extinction Rebellion NYC (@XR_NYC) March 15, 2024
New York Police Department officers escorted the activists from the building, but the activists were not charged, Deadline reports.
In a statement cited by Variety, Extinction Rebellion said, “[Thursday’s] action highlights the failure of governments and corporations to treat climate and ecological breakdown as the crisis it is. The group emphasizes that the present socio-economic system can’t protect people from the environmental crises to come, because its very structure creates these crises and then ignores them.”
Imperioli later addressed the protest on Instagram, writing, “Tonight was wild… No hard feelings, Extinction Rebellion crew. Michael is on your side, but Mayor Stockmann is not. Much love.”
And in an interview with Rolling Stone on Friday, the Sopranos alum gave his side of the interaction. “When that started to go down, I started calling them liars because that would be my character’s stance on climate change because that’s his stance on the poison in the water — that [Strong’s character is] lying,” he said. “I said to the protestors, ‘This is all speculation,’ which is my line in the play. And then I realized they weren’t going anywhere. And so I said, ‘Well, I’m the mayor, and I’m the chief of police. It’s up to me to restore order,’ so I just follow that instinct. If I was playing another character, I would not have gone into the audience and laid hands on that person.”
Imperioli also said the incident was “thrilling,” adding, “Once the play resumed, everything was kind of heightened and really, really realistic. And I wound up making a lot of discoveries that I probably wouldn’t have made if that didn’t happen.”
