01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, September 15, 2004

BY CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer

PAWTUCKET -- Kirsten Springs is prosperous, refreshing, the kind of place that "brings us together," as the 1950s-style billboard on the stage of the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre proclaims.

But in the Gamm's terrific production of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, the mineral baths do nothing but drive the people apart. The town is in an uproar about claims of pollution in the water, and the man who just wanted to save the citizens from health risks becomes an outcast.

This production of the Ibsen classic, adapted in 1950 by Arthur Miller, is the Gamm's season-opener, and it is forcefully told with fine performances from Richard Donelly, as idealistic Dr. Stockmann, and Jim O'Brien as his hard-headed brother, the town's mayor.

In a smaller, but delectable, role, Gamm veteran Sam Babbitt is wonderful, adding laughs and quirkiness as a bumbling Aslaksen, the newspaper publisher who espouses moderation in all things. Tom Oakes plays a daft, tight-fisted Morten Kiil, Dr. Stockmann's father-in-law, drawn with just as much detail.

Under the sure hand of director Tony Estrella, this Enemy hits home, seeming as though it were torn from yesterday's headlines about the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.

Of course, Ibsen's drama does seem timeless. And with the tinkering done by Miller during the McCarthy era, the play is surprisingly relevant, especially during the with-us-or-against-us atmosphere of the town meeting, when actors mingle with audience members, turning the entire space into a meeting hall -- a nice touch.

Even though Estrella has said he's picked this play to make a political statement, he seems a lot more interested in making good theater than grandstanding. It's a tight, seamless production that he's come up with, where the two main characters -- the Stockmann brothers -- play off one another nicely.

It is nice to finally see Donelly in a role that allows him some depth and nuance. Last season he played a grim, stylized Julius Caesar at the Gamm, and before that he was the dim-witted brother of few words in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker -- both great roles but with limited emotional range.

Now he is a more complex character -- congenial host, loving father, but angry and unbending in his search for the truth. There is perhaps room for the good doctor to appear more maniacal, more obsessive. Afterall, Stockmann endangers his family, loses his job and ends up with his neighbors hurling rocks through his windows. But Donelly seems to remain surprisingly level-headed as his world falls apart around him.

He's a man of principle who sticks to his guns, and in the end seems the one sane, or at least honest, voice of the play.

O'Brien is just as convincing as the voice of practicality. Don't go talking about health problems at the baths, or you'll drive away tourists and hurt the economy. The prosperity of the town outweighs a few people getting sick -- that's his philosophy.

"The public doesn't need new ideas," he says. "They are better off with old ones."

Mayor Stockmann is also a persuasive figure, who manages to turn the town against his brother, even convince the local press to side with him, although at first the editors were prepared for an all-out assault against him. The press wanted nothing more than to print Dr. Stockmann's findings of pollution in the baths, until they realized fixing the mess was going to cost taxpayers a boodle. Who wants to come out for higher taxes?

Steve Kidd does a nice job as Hovstad, the flip-flopping editor, and Karen Carpenter is fine as the paper's eager reporter.

But it's Sam Babbit's kooky Aslaksen that stands out -- his timing, and the way he can say so much with a glance, or stammer.

When Donelly asks Babbitt to personally oversee the printing of Dr. Stockmann's story about poisoned water at the spa, so the weather report won't turn up in the middle of the copy, a poker-faced Babbitt says, "That won't happen -- this time."

Andy Lederman's arching set suggests the kind of aqueduct that might be associated with mineral baths. And the play has been moved from Ibsen's time -- the 1880s -- to just after World War II, with big-band music on the radio, and '40s costumes from Marilyn Salvatore. The update makes the play seem all the more relevant.

An Enemy of the People runs through Oct. 3 at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theater, at the Pawtucket Armory, 172 Exchange St. Tickets are $21 to $24. Call (401) 723-4266.