The Sweeter Theater Company in New York commissioned me to write a play -- a modern, "green" version of Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People. Little did I know that the topic I picked for contemporization -- hydraulic fracturing or "fracking", a controversial way of drilling for natural gas -- would explode in headlines across the country from Pennsylvania to Wyoming. The debate is especially fervent in upstate New York, which provides drinking water for millions.
I think it's pretty clear that Ibsen didn't intend for Enemy of the People to be an environmental debate. He was out on a rampage against the tyranny of the majority. When Arthur Miller adapted the play during the McCarthy Era he was interested in this aspect, but this didn't ring true to me in current culture. Of course, modern corporations and governments silence the truth, but that's been done in movies like Erin Brokovich or The Insider. And frankly, in this information age, it seems the public is overly aware of what is happening across the country, and there has been a slow chorus of "hell no!" rising in the air.
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