During a Broadway play in which he was performing, actor Michael Imperioli had a moment reminiscent of his days on “The Sopranos” when a radical climate activist disrupted his performance.
Best known for his role as Christopher Moltisanti in HBO masterpiece “The Sopranos,” Imperioli is currently starring in Henrik Ibsen's “Enemy of the People” for a 16-week run on Broadway.
In the middle of one of his monologues as Mayor Stockman, individuals associated with the far-left Extinction Rebellion decided to interrupt Imperioli.
As Entertainment Weekly reports:
In video footage from the event published online, at least three Extinction Rebellion activists can be seen being physically escorted out of the Circle in the Square Theater — including one by Imperioli himself — after they disrupted the play to protest the ongoing climate crisis, shouting, “There's no Broadway on a dead planet!”
“Michael is on your side, but Mayor Stockmann is not. Much love,” Imperioli posted on X following the incident.
Their protest echoes the premise of Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play. The revival, which stars Imperioli and Succession‘s Jeremy Strong, follows a doctor (Strong) who discovers that the town's drinking water is poisoning residents, only to be silenced by local officials, including his brother (Imperioli).
The protestors took a stand during a unique break in the play in which a bar is brought out on stage and theatergoers are offered the chance to have a drink as its characters mill about. Actors were called to leave the stage while the protestors were removed, but many remained in character throughout the disruption, with Strong and Imperioli reacting to Extinction Rebellion as if the interruption were part of the script.
In another clip from the performance, a protestor can be heard shouting that “governments have failed us,” prompting Strong to shout back, “He's right.”
Imperioli retorted: “He's not right!”
“Go back to drama school,” he advised, after security escorted the last protester out of the theater.
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