“Enemy of the People”
Nov. 8-23
8 p.m., Lincoln Performance Hall
Tickets: $7-$9
The theatre department kicks off its 2002-2003 season with the production of Henrik Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People,” directed by Christine Menzines.
Jerry Turner, former artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, recreated this drama and brought it home to Oregon giving it a setting almost 40 years later and several miles from the original, a fictional Oregon coastal community in 1919.
As the director’s notes indicate: “The play scrutinized two primary issues. Firstly, the problem of environmental pollution caused by deliberately irresponsible human action and the concurrent ethical responsibility of seeking an effective solution. The second issue – more critical and pervasive, even in our modern experience, especially within the structures of institutional management – concerns the plight of moral and human considerations in the face of bureaucratic conservatism and economic self-interest – basically human morals or money.”
The reasons this production is worth seeing are many. First of all, the story is timely.
It takes place in the early 1920s in a small community on the northwest Oregon coast. Dr. Thomas Stockman, a public-minded doctor in a small town famous for its public baths, discovers the water supply for the baths is contaminated and has probably been the cause of illness among tourists, who are the town’s economic lifeblood.
In his effort to clean up the water supply, Stockman runs into political cowards, sold-out journalists, short-sighted armchair economists and a benighted citizenry. His own principled idealism exacerbates the conflict.
Another reason to check out this play is the main character, Dr. Stockman, played by Adam Seybold. He compels the audience to revel in his quandary. Melody Bridges portrays Mayor Petra Stockman, his sister, with whom conflict is more than a natural response to his proposed solution.
Captain Horster, played by Randy Reese, narrates the play.
Noteworthy performances can be expected by David Ames (Ralph Issacsen), Teresa Lawrence (Rachel Stockman), Billy Volpone (Seth Billings), Matt Higgins (Earl Washington) and C. Bradford Fairbanks (Martin Kidd, aka The Badger).
Will medical science or the manipulative political agendas prevail? That question and more will be answered during the production.