{"id":3953,"date":"2019-02-17T12:34:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T17:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3953"},"modified":"2019-02-17T19:25:48","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T00:25:48","slug":"enemy-of-the-people-shines-in-shepherdstown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3953","title":{"rendered":"An Enemy of the People Shines in Shepherdstown"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Bernard Shaw once said that the plays of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen are more important to us than the plays of Shakespeare.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe gives us not only ourselves, but ourselves in our own situation,\u201d Shaw said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Black Box Arts Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia last night presented Ibsen\u2019s 1882 play An<\/em>\u00a0Enemy of the People<\/em> before a crowd of activists organizing to stop the Danish multinational company Rockwool from locating a insulation factory in Jefferson County. <\/span><\/p>\n

It was a marriage made in \u2013 West Virginia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last night, An<\/em>\u00a0Enemy of the People<\/em> gave us ourselves in our own situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve assembled a very strong and dynamic cast for this show,\u201d said director Laura Richards Bakin. \u201cThe subject matter is very topical, particularly for our area. I think our audiences will find themselves being swept up in the drama.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As they were last night. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not black and white with Ibsen.<\/span>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not black and white with West Virginia.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s pretty dark with both of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

The play is set in a small Norwegian spa town where people come from all over to play and heal in the local waters. (Town of Bath — go see this play.<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

One problem — the baths are being polluted by a local tannery.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have your crusading Dr. Thomas Stockmann, played by Charles Boyce, hyper righteously pushing to inform the people that the baths they are bathing in are not healing, but instead causing illness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Stockmann\u2019s a hot head, maybe rightfully so — on the side and truth and justice. <\/span><\/p>\n

His brother, Peter Stockmann (played by Nelson Smith) is the mayor of the town. He\u2019s the \u201cmoderate\u201d brother. And he tries to calm his brother down and point out that if the information is made public, the baths will have to be closed down for at least two years and it will cost maybe 200,000 krone to fix. Result — town is dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the doctor, \u00a0it\u2019s a choice — dead town versus dead people.<\/span><\/p>\n

And you have your small town newspaper — The\u00a0People\u2019s Messenger<\/em> \u2013 which presents liberal democratic views right up until push comes to shove. (In a discussion with the cast after last night\u2019s play, one audience member said that Shepherdstown\u2019s local paper, The Spirit of Jefferson<\/em>, reminded her of Ibsen\u2019s People\u2019s Messenger<\/em> \u2013 at first leaning toward the citizens trying to protect the county, but quickly turning toward defending Rockwool.)<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s well worth the 35 mile drive from Berkeley Springs to Shepherdstown. Three more showings \u2013 Friday February 22 at 8 pm, Saturday February 23 at 8 pm, and Sunday February 24 at 2:30 pm.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Bernard Shaw once said that the plays of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen are more important to us than the plays of Shakespeare. \u201cHe gives us not only ourselves, but ourselves in our own situation,\u201d Shaw said. Black Box Arts … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3953"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3959,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3953\/revisions\/3959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}