Performance Makes `Enemy' Worth Seeing

``An Enemy of the People,'' ``American Playhouse'' production, 10 a.m. Sunday, KCTS-TV.

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When you consider that most of Arthur Miller's plays are critical of our culture and beliefs, it's not surprising he was drawn to Henrik Ibsen's ``An Enemy of the People.''

Miller, author of ``All My Sons,'' ``Death of a Salesman'' and ``The Crucible,'' shares with Ibsen a sense of outrage at the way supposedly intelligent people ignore the truth and settle for comfortable lies.

In the 1950s, Miller adapted ``An Enmy of the People'' into English and he did further updating, including setting it in Maine instead of Norway, for PBS' ``American Playhouse'' production that KCTS-TV airs at 10 a.m. Sunday.

And if Miller had updated Ibsen's play any more, it might easily have been mistaken for one by Miller, although Miller tends to make his relationships more complex than Ibsen did in ``An Enemy of the People.''

As adapted by Miller, the total focus of the play is on Dr. Stockman, the local doctor in a small town in Maine in 1893. Having established a kind of health resort using the local waters, the town is on the brink of what it hopes will be great financial success. Stockman, however, has been perturbed by reports that some people have become sicker after ``taking the waters'' and a report from a nearby university's research department shows the water is polluted from a

nearby tannery.

Stockman is convinced everyone will be pleased he has found the source of the problem and that all it needs is community effort to clean up the problem. We, of course, know better - and, one by one, all the local citizens who began by praising Stockman now turn on him because his findings will cause them financial loss.

None is more critical of Stockman's actions than his own brother, who just happens to be the mayor of the town. Stockman also soon finds out the local newspaper editor is more interested in using Stockman's report to bring down the local administration than in purifying the water supply.

As the play progresses, Stockman increasingly finds himself standing alone, with just his family and a taciturn sea captain to support him. Instead of getting public praise, which Stockman said he was loathe to accept, he finds himself being taunted and asked to leave town.

While it's not difficult to believe what happens in ``An Enemy of the People,'' as a play it often seems overly simplistic - it seems to exist solely to show how quickly individuals dump their principles in favor of their pocketbooks. Since that is hardly a startling conclusion, one wishes the characters were a bit richer and more fully developed.

Still, as an historical event, ``An Enemy of the People'' is worth watching and it offers several good performances, under the direction of Jack O'Brien, the artistic director of San Diego's Old Globe Theater.

O'Brien tends to let the play get a bit hyper, perhaps on the grounds that it's a period piece and this will breathe life into it, but in the opening scenes there's so much flurry and fluster that the play seems about to fly apart.

The heart of the play comes from the performances by Julian Glover, as Dr. Stockman, and George Grizzard, as his brother, the mayor. Glover's characterization grows on one, although he tends to play the doctor with a bit too much naivete. The best performance comes from Grizzard, who makes the opportunistic mayor a totally believable villain. Despite the fact that nearly every one of the mayor's speeches is utterly transparent, Grizzard convinces you he really believes what he's saying. It's a masterful performance.

Bryon Jennings is fine as Hovstad, the newspaper editor, and Richard Easton is equally good as Anderson, the nervous ``little businessman'' who believes in moderation. Valerie Mahaffey portrays the doctor's loyal wife with Nina Siemaszko cast as their feisty daughter.